(The article below is a RaceDayCT column – The views expressed in this column are solely the opinion of the writer)
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Mohegan Sun 100 on July 15 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway ended in thrilling fashion, with three former series champions battling for the win on the final lap.
When the checkered flag flew it was Justin Bonsignore edging Doug Coby for the victory, with Ron Silk finishing third.
It was a huge victory for Bonsignore on numerous levels. Bonsignore dominated the event, leading 67 of the 100 laps. He had opened a 1.3 second lead over the field when rain forced a delay after 67 laps. It was his second trip to victory lane in 25 series starts at NHMS. It also allowed him to cut Silk’s lead at the top of the standings from 14 points to eight points with 10 events remaining this season.
But the question many around the series were asking in the week that followed was if Bonsignore and his team got away with what would should have been a significant pit road penalty that likely would have changed the outcome of the race drastically.
It was a matter the shined a light for many even more on inconsistency in series officiating during the running of the last two Whelen Modified Tour events, at NHMS and at Wall Stadium in Wall, N.J. on July 8.
With 42 laps remaining in the Jersey Shore 150 at Wall Stadium Coby got under Silk in a battle for the lead. Off of turn two Coby got ahead of Silk for the lead with the car of Anthony Nocella at the back of the field in front of the battle for the lead. When Coby tried to get under Nocella in turn three, Nocella seemingly turned down, making contact with Coby and sending Coby spinning out of the race lead.
With the race under caution Coby got moving after the spin and then went around the track and found Nocella, drove to the outside of Nocella and then seemingly intentionally drove into the right front tire of Nocella. No penalty was called for intentionally hitting another competitor while under caution. And oddly, Coby was allowed to restart the event after the spin in seventh place despite the fact that there were at least 11 cars on the lead lap at the time of the incident. Coby ended up finishing sixth.
Also at the Jersey Shore 150, with the race under caution on lap 140 Max Zachem intentionally drove into and spun the car of JB Fortin. Zachem went to the pits after the incident and then was allowed by NASCAR officials to return to action with no penalty while the event was taking place.
Four days after the event Zachem was penalized for intentionally hitting Fortin and fined $1,000 and was dropped from a 17th place finish to a 20th place finish. Zachem’s laps completed in the official race report was also revised from 146 laps completed to 139, essentially putting him where he would have finished had he been parked for the intentional contact under caution during the event.
At New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 15, the race was stopped for about an hour for rain and track drying. Before the race went back to green following the rain, teams hit pit road. NASCAR mandates that teams cannot change tires and fuel cars on the same stop. Bonsignore’s team decided to take fuel on their first run down pit road and change four tires on their second stop.
During the second stop the right rear tire was left on the ground to the right of the car as crew members went to change the left side tires. When the left side tires were being changed the left rear tire rolled out of Bonsignore’s pit box and into the pit box of Nocella directly behind him as Nocella was pitting. A crew member for Bonsignore’s team went into the Nocella pit box to retrieve the loose tire while Nocella’s team was still pitting. Bonsignore pulled out of his pit box with the right side tire still on the ground at the far edge of the pit box near the pit road traveling lane.
Seemingly, Bonsignore should have been assessed penalties for the left rear tire rolling out of the team’s pit box, for his crew member entering the Nocella pit box and interfering with that team’s pit stop and for the right rear tire not being retrieved before Bonsignore left his pit box.
Despite the fact that Bonsignore was dominating the event and leading most of the race up to the rain delay, apparently no NASCAR officials were watching his pit stop. Bonsignore restarted the event in 10th. Had he been penalized he likely would have restarted around 20th at the back of the lead lap cars, or possibly had a stiffer penalty assessed.
During the same round of pit stops there was another clear violation. Video on the Anthony Sesely Racing Facebook page show’s Sesely’s car clearly outside of his pit box during his pit stop. Sesely was not penalized for the apparent infraction and went on to finish sixth in the event. Sesely restarted the event after the pit stop in fourth place. Had he been penalized for the pit box violation he would have restarted at minimum around 20th place.
Multiple attempts since Wednesday to reach NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour series director Jimmy Wilson to inquire about certain officiating questions were unsuccessful.
The missed calls had real-time implications for drivers who could have likely finished one or two spots better at NHMS, or won the race. And the missed calls on Bonsignore could ultimately have championship implications. Bonsignore is eight points behind Silk in the series standings with 10 events remaining. Silk and Bonsignore have checked out from the field at the top of the standings, with Coby 38 points off the lead in third. Should Bonsignore edge Silk by say two or six or even 10 points for the championship, the missed calls at NHMS could be seen as a massive difference maker.
Certainly, no matter the sanctioning body, series or track, there are always going to be calls missed in motorsports. But missing blatantly obvious calls, like driving into another competitor under caution or having a laundry list of penalties during one pit stop by the race leader just screams that there are officiating enforcement issues that need to be addressed immediately. Though, refusal to even address questions concerning those issues doesn’t send all that optimistic of a message that it’s a matter of concern.
It’s often touted by NASCAR officials that one of the biggest differences between competing with a NASCAR sanctioned series instead of another series is that NASCAR offers a superior level of inspection and event officiating in comparison to other similar divisions. But, if you’re going to talk the talk you need to walk the walk.
Care to site which rule, from the NWMT rule book, the Bonsignore team broke, Shawn?
only half relevant section that I can find is section 9-15.4 Crew Members.
Section A-G: not relevant.
H. Crew members must remove tire(s)/wheel(s) from the outside half of the pit box or pit service area in a manner acceptable to NASCAR Officials before the vehicle exits its assigned pit box or pit service area.
I. Must not allow a tire(s)/wheel(s) to cross the center of pit road at any time.
J. Any crew member interfering with another crew’s pit stop, causing the other team to incur a penalty or not, may incur a penalty.
I don’t see how any of these apply, there is no rule about a tire rolling into a neighboring pit box. there is no rule forbidding that at *any* level of nascar.
Ah, now I see the mention of the right side wheel. I had misread that part.
either way, you are really reaching here.
Zig13,
You cited two of the penalties in your comment (H and J) and the third rule, tire leaving the pit box is equipment leaving the box.
Zig13,
So what’s reaching? Should the officials just ignore the rules? Because if expecting the rules to be enfoced is “reaching”, what do you expect?
H. is fair for the tire left alone on the right side as the car, as i corrected myself.
Though you could argue, they consider the entire pit road the “pit service area”
Nothing in the rule book says a tire rolling into the neighboring box is a penalty. No crew member interfered with the 46 stop. A tire/wheel is not pit servicing equipment. Equipment leaving the box is fuel cans, air guns, tools etc. not wheels.
I found at least 3 examples of cars pitting outside their box during the sizzler in like 5 mins of skimming the replay. I found at least one example of someone entering pit road without a helmet. I found countless people not having “full cover shirts”
Stafford rules say “no burnouts”. Someone does a burnout on the mini mile on their way to victory lane every other week.
Stafford rules say “suits must be zipped up during interviews” i see people every week unzipped cooling off after a race.
Stafford rules say fuel must be in a DOT approved container. Those 5 gallon plastic jugs almost everyone uses sure arent DOT.
There’s a no donuts rule, did ryan newman get a fine this week? (slight sarcasm here”
heck the NWMT, and thus the SK/SKL rule book states chassis must be painted in a light/bright color. That one would get 3/4 of the field.
and man, looking at the RF’s of sk’s from some of Stafford social media posts, it sure doesn’t look like they all have that 2nd tether that recently became required.
Ask any competitors out there, these aren’t the type of rules people. they want competition/performance rules kept even.
Shawn , you are correct on Nascar doing questionable calls , No funny thing, but this sorta stuff goes all the way back to Richie Evans days…. Be careful with Nascar they will stone wall you and the next event you attend you will find that you no longer have ” Press Credentials ” available to you …. Richie was trying to make changes and got banned from Nascar for a year or so . He attended one race and had to PIT outside of the PIT area and drove back and forth from the parking lot to the Track cuz they wouldn’t allow His Hauler to enter the PITS… LOL … THE IRON FIST mentality still exists down in Daytona so get your suit of Armour ready for the backlash that will be coming your way… Not Kidding >>> If you try to question any call that was made or not made they stone wall you, nothing to see here …CRICKETS…. Good Luck Shawn… be ready for the backlash…
This dude changing subjects, talking about Stafford lmaoo. Stafford is not a nascar sanctioned track. Get out of here with your b.s you a true Karen in every form of the word
Well, i guess somebody has to call nascar on this stuff, i think you’re doing the right thing, Shawn. They have been making calls like this as long as i’ve been watching Modifieds (since 1967), just stick to your guns.
Probably skimping on costs and cutting back on officials being at track if I had to guess.
It’s the old two wrongs make a right logic. Stafford does this, that and the other thing wrong with regard to rule enforcement therefore making it acceptable for the NWMT to be lackadaisical with rule enforcement. Is there really any comparison between a single local track and a national organization known for structure and discipline? I don’t see it but if there is both being fast and loose with their rules doesn’t make equal sloppiness an acceptable excuse.
I think I get the theme of this opinion piece. It’s not necessarily to nit pick over any one of the non-calls but rather the sum of all the non-calls, the cars that were involved and the story it may tell. You might add the death sentence inflicted on JB Fortin’s team that in contrast to the non calls seemed heavy handed at best and more evidence of a double standard at worst.
The MMTTS series having it’s own controversy on Saturday as well. Only this time the reigning star gets the hammer dropped on him for what many say was hard racing and not rough riding. The second year in a row Hirschman got knocked out of contention in a race for the ever observant MMTTS officials.
Can’t believe Im reading someone saying nascar shouldn’t be expected to enforce the rules. Shows how far the whelen modified tour bootlickers will go to defend that series and nascar. zig must be related to the official who was watching justin at louden.
All I no is nobody says anything bad about Nascar it’s going to fun to see what happens.
Someone’s reaching here, and it’s not Shawn…
What if that tire was hit and bounced on to pit road or out on the track? Is that the point where it needs to go for NASCAR to finally call something?
IMHO, the Doug Coby move under caution was the most egregious missed call of them all. He advertised what he was going to do and then he did it while everyone in the house and those watching on Flo saw it. If someone ‘accidentally’ runs Doug into the fence in one of the remaining races, I won’t shed a tear 😢 for him.
The 51 pit stop with no penalty call, either nascar had no officials watching or they saw it all and didn’t call any penalty. Either choice looks really bad on nascar. How bout this, the 16 and 51 are really the only 2 teams left in the championship fight. One of those teams went to stafford for the spring sizzler, the other didn’t support the event at stafford. Who do you think nascar wants to win their championship?
what does stafford have to do with this zig?
It’s obvious zig13 is a tour official, which makes the whole thing look worse that a tour official is saying its alright if tour officials don’t call penalties on certain drivers.
Ok my take is this, Yes Rules are Rules but this is a series that in 19 races has ACTUAL pit Boxes in what 5 of the races? NH, RICH, MART, N Willkes, Maybe Langley, cant say Thompson while yes a pit road not exactly plenty of space there and so you have Most races with no Pitting or pitting in the Paddock area, you can say the 51 had infractions because the TV camera was on their stop, maybe 5 or 6 other teams had infractions with no TV camera on them, Yes there are officials who in most races are assigned multuiple teams to watch, These are Not Cup paid crews traveling to 37 races a year and things will happen with part time or even Full time WMT crews, shall we decide a title not racing but because a tire was touching another pit box in one of the 5 races with a pit box?
From Ed Cox to Chad very Little to Jimmy Wilson calls are few and far between, some may not like but would you rather have the Stafford way where ANY Contact seems to send a driver to the rear. Or the TRI Track call on MH which of course Denny Hamlin style he denies any contact, these are Short tracks and contact happens. Fans complain about lengthy Yellows now, shall we go over every contact to decide a penalty? Or Send any Driver who makes contact to the back?
The Coby/Wall contact with the 46 was interesting no call, Emotions run high during races cant say Coby was gifted as he was penalized 2 laps earlier at Riverhead for the wrong gear, I dont think if he was sent to the back it would be a bad call, some people look for any little thing to penalize guys they dont like.
The Zachem/Fortin deal is strange if the 26 did on purpose wreck the 34 which we did not see on camera just the aftermath, is the 34 disliked that much that a no call for that happens? Even more scary was the scene in the pits after with many people going at or into the 26, like at Stafford last year with the Kopcik Tackle, the crews and Families need to stay away from other cars and drivers, if the 2 drivers involved want to Discuss the issue, so be it but dozens of people rushing a car should be a stiff penalty for those people involved.
wmass01013,
So let me break this down piece by piece.
1. Series that only has pit boxes at certain events. So your logic is because there aren’t pit boxes at one event, they should just not recognize those pit boxes exist at the events where there are pit boxes? That’s pretty asinine.
2. So maybe 5 or 6 other teams that weren’t on the broadcast had infractions, so let’s just ignore any infractions by the team that had a camera watching them? I’ll refer back to the last one and just say that’s even more asinine.
3. Whether the officials are full-time employees or part-time employees should have absolutely positively nothing to do with their ability to enforce the rules of the series. They are in fact watching the pit stops to enforce the rules of the series. They’re being paid to do a job. Just because they don’t work for the Cup Series shouldn’t mean they should get a pass on being able to do that job up to par.
4. You say: “Shall we decide a title not racing but because a tire was touching another pit box in one of the 5 races with a pit box?” So you’re saying let’s not let a rules infraction decide the championship right? So next week, if the 51 or 16 team get caught with something illegal, NASCAR should just look away right? Because we wouldn’t want the championship decided by a rules infraction right? Or how about this, last race of the year, 51 and 16 are tied in the standings. Round of pit stops takes place 16 comes in with the lead. 51 leaves his pit box and goes 20 mph over the pit road speed limit and passes the 16 on pit road. NASCAR should just look past that right, because you wouldn’t want a rules infraction deciding the championship right? That’s your logic right?
5. Your rant about Ed Cox, Stafford and Tri-Track and contact in short track racing has zero to do with anything involved in this column.
Just LIKE YOU, these are My Opinions!!! There was NOOO Rant, Funny how you love to twist others words around to fit your thoughts, You cant post all the negative NASCAR stories u want, it is great for your draw of Haters. what if? what if? I like to see good Modified racing and i think the Finsih at Loudon was fantastic racing, but you want to focus on a tire in a still pic on a pit stop, just like somebody on Facebook that wanted the 51 penalized because he had a rag hanging on the nerfbar when the race went back to yellow after the rain, you can maybe call a dozen penalties a race if you want to be that picky in a regional touring series, i prefer to see good racing.
wmass01013,
What I keep hearing you say is that you would rather see the rules selectively enforced. If you truly believe that then why even have rules at that point. If you think the rules should only be enforced sometimes and for certain people, then why not just throw the whole rulebook away? It would make a lot more sense to have no rules than to enforce the rules sometimes for certain people, which is what you’re saying should be done.
In my day I showed up with solid motor mounts at Stafford which were clearly illegal in the Street Stocks. Tech inspector who was Pete Gerard at the time spotted them right away. By the rules I should have been disqualified for the night. He said I could race but to not show up with them next week or I’d be DQ’d. No doubt giving me the pass for the night knowing full well I was no threat to be anywhere near the podium as well as knowing the competitive advantage for solids was negligible at best.
My view is Mr. Courchesne is a pretty strict rules guy. If it’s in print it should be enforced. Do that all season, all the time it’s viewed as a consistently tough but fair policy with very few opportunities to claim favoritism. Nothing wrong with that many feel the same way. Wmass is a NWMT guy congenially biased toward the series but reflects my shades of gray view of rules enforcement. Every decision in context.
Good discussion. Tough topic to argue each side can make strong arguments. Advantage still to rules enforcement however when the sum of the non calls starts telling a story greater the the sum of it’s chapters.
“whelen modified tour bootlickers”, yeh you nailed it, Buzzed. I find zig13 ‘s constant closed-minded reverence for NASCAR to be so mindless that it completely colors anything that he has to say. And then, of course we just wait for the other NASCAR employee, or bootlicker, as it may be, to join in with his usual blind eye; Ol wmass. Hey Shawn, would you at least let us know if zig and wmass are the same guy using two different handles? That would be pretty low, but not unheard of.
Getserious,
I really don’t think they are the same person.
By far No Zig 13 and myself are Not the same, not a Bootlicker by any means, i find fault with NASCAR choices from Cup on down, but the constant bashing of everything NASCAR does by Most because they are the BIG GIANT $$ Corp in Daytona is BS to me, everything NASCAR does is either greedy, bad for Modifieds, or some othe Fault OF THEIRS, would i like to hear Jimmy Wilson’s comments on some of the calls? Yes sure with out doubt, THE schedule is to long, the cost is too high, the calls are unfair, Jimmy Wilson play favorites, Only 3 tracks want them, they are driving teams away, McKennedy 79 team leaving was their fault, why do we never talk about the great race NHMS WAS?????? or WALL, or other great racing they bring, Nope they are BAD Bad bad!!!!!!!!
wmass01013,
There was a story on this site on July 15 recounting what a great race the series had at NHMS. And on July 8 there was a story illustrating quite well the drama and excitement of the race at Wall. Don’t act like the only coverage of the Whelen Modified Tour on this website for the last five months was this column about mistakes made by officials.
Painting with a broad brush almost always results in a sloppy job.
References to “bootlickers” serves no purpose. Saying the coverage is always negative for the NWMT equally inaccurate but more importantly unfair.
I love the Zig and can always count on him to mention the MMTTS car count when it’s trending down. He’s usually right as are many of his other specific references. Wmass is no bootlicker either and can summarize more data points faster and more accurately then most. The interpretation of what they mean debatable but solid starting points.
It’s well established that on social media and here the bias will trend toward the MMTTS. They’re local, closer to the grass roots, everyone loves a David taking on a Goliath.
I’ll never grasp the hyper favoritism of one series over the other. I know the MMTTS has more competition across the field of cars. NWMT more races, the competition of the top three contenders this year riveting and they give is all access to every race.
I always try to use the smallest brush that will do the job efficiently and the neatest. Not always but when I go to the big brush it gets sloppy real quick and the results pretty poor.
im an official LMAO. thats a new one. good to see stafford read my comment on fining newman
To catch up. Does anyone have any idea how much it takes to police things like pit road fairly and evenly? It takes cup a trailer full of officials, 40 something cameras and millions spend on developing software. No series in the world has that kinda of resources outside of cup. gone are the days of having an official in every stall
As a fan base and competitors, most of the time we say we want consistency over everything. And the tour usually does that by calling only the most egregious things.
Is it fair to Justin that his stop was the only one shown? Should we really determine penalties based on whoever the camera operator decided to show that particular time? A camera that NASCAR doesn’t even really control. Seems like certain teams would be held to way different standards if that was the case.
God forbid someone’s buddy is a camera operator one night and points the camera at someone’s rival hoping to catch them doing something and help their friend.
All that would do is make NASCAR force Flo’s hand and take more control, force them not show anything. And the fans would lose out.
Where does it stop? Can I post my own videos and expect them to retroactively penalize a team? Or run up to an official and show them?
I bring up Stafford, because most people say it’s the gold standard of short track racing. And even they have problems enforcing every little thing. The same people bashing the tour are probably Turing a blind eye to those issues.
That’s not a shot at Stafford. It’s unrealistic for them to do much better. but they are pretty lax on pit road stuff themselves.
Funny how much of an echo chamber this place can be when it comes to anti tour stuff. That taking the defending side makes you a boot licker. there are certain things the tour is doing that i dont like, but i do understand why they do them.
Zig13,
I see what you’re saying and fully understand it, but ultimately what I read from you is: “We can’t enforce the rules we have so it just has to be accepted that a lot of rules are just going to have to be broken.”
You’ll just never get me to the point where I think just retreating as a series and defining yourself as a group that can’t enforce the rules should be an accepted place to be.
If you’re saying there’s not enough officials to police every pit box, then you’re essentially admitting the competition is not a level playing field. If you’re saying you know going into the event that you can only have eyes on say 12 of 25 cars pitting at once, then you’re basically saying 12 guys are going to be policed different than the other 13 others. There should never be a day when that’s just accepted as being fair.
To me if you can’t enforce the rules because you don’t have the staff or technology to do it then you have two choices. You either remove those particular rules from the rulebook or you modify your race procedures to eliminate the need for those particular rules. So for instance with this particular Bonsignore pit stop that got the attention, you either just don’t have any pit box rules. Anything goes. Leave the tires anywhere, let them roll into other pit boxes, let air hoses be run over. Because if you can’t police all the cars in the race then the only way to make it fair is to police none of them. Or the other option is to change race procedure and have cold pit stops. Only pitting under a pre-determined competition caution and no position changes take place during the pit stops.
You have to make every effort to have a level playing field. Nothing you said offers a level playing field as an option.
And as far as your rant about who the camera focused on. The camera focused on Justin because he was the leader of the race and had dominated the event up to that point. The reason the camera was focused on him is the same reason why the eyes of at least one NASCAR official should have been focused on him.
As I said before, I believe there should be a level playing field for all. But if you can’t have a set of eyes on every car pitting, then the officials you do have should be focused on the top competitors in that event and the championship contenders. That’s just simple logic.
And the fact that you keep returning to comparison to Stafford is just weird. One has nothing to do with the other. One is a NASCAR sanctioned touring division and the other is a weekly running short track. And remember, if you ask NASCAR management why a driver should choose to run a NASCAR sanctioned division opposed to another series or a short track, they will tell you that NASCAR will give you the most fair playing field in racing. It’s been a mantra for years. If you race with NASCAR you get the best tech inspection and the best race officiating. What you basically continually keep saying here is that it should now just be accepted that the Modified Tour can’t live up to what NASCAR says it is.
And lastly, this is not an echo chamber for negativity for the Tour. Seriously, the argument gets old and stale that this site is somehow the exclusive home for negativity regarding the Whelen Modified. There’s far more positive or neutral coverage of the Whelen Modified Tour on this site than negative. People like you just ignore all the other stories though and then get ultra hyper focused once there’s a negative opinion. And if you’re referring the balance between positive and negative in the comments section, then go take a look at Facebook. I’d say the ratio for positive vs. negative comments and commentary regarding the Whelen Modified Tour on Facebook is pretty much exactly the same as it is in the comments section on this site. And remember, this is the ONLY media outlet covering the Whelen Modified Tour where fans can use the platform to engage in dialogue about the series. There’s no option for leaving comments on FloRacing editorial stories or Racing America editorial stories and there’s certainly no option for engagement or dialogue with the print trade paper that arrives in mailboxes 6-7 days after events take place.
If you essentially never make a pit road call, it seems pretty level and fair to me. It wouldn’t be if one driver was getting calls and another was being cut breaks. Pretty much everyone knows where they stand.
IMO, focusing your officiating bandwidth on the front end of the field is inherently un level. Especially where the “line” from front end to back end is.
The tour usually lines up pit boxes by practice speed. More often than not, the cars competing with one another, especially for the win, are going to be monitored by the same official, who should judge each stop evenly. Pointing a camera at first puts that driver at an unfair disadvantage compared to the guys he is likely racing just a stall or two further back.
Do we even know if anyone in the tower was actively watching the Flo broadcast during the pit stops? Outside the cup tracks, I wonder how many towers even have that ability. if they werent set up for that, it kinda has the same weight of fan video that gets posted on facebook after the race.
The rules are there for when something egregious happens. Not when someone is 6 inches outside the box, or they leave a tire in the box. It’s for when someone is at a 90-degree angle across pit road and traffic cant get by.
Sports in general have rules as they are written and rules as they are actually enforced. I think every NHL fan would agree that regular season hockey and playoff hockey is officiated completely different, even though it’s the same rule book.
MLB has the technology to have 100% perfect and consistent strike zone calls, with no difference from ump to ump. And choose not to use it.
Every sport has the ability to grind the game to a halt and review every single potential infraction, but choose not too. they’ll have a coaching challenge or two at best
I think almost every sport “cracks down” on some infraction type every now and then, but the actual rule never changes. maybe we will have a pit road crack down at Thompson for the tour.
At the end of the day, racing fans in general have these big disagreements on rules once or twice a month at worse. Other sportsball fans have arguments on calls several times a game. We don’t have it that bad as racing fans, because series for the most part take a pretty hands-off approach.
And I can’t say I agree with you those coverage comments. yes, this is far and away the best site for the goings-on of mod racing. yes you break a ton of news with a pretty darn good hit rate. I can’t say Tri-track, MRS, Thompson or Stafford not getting the “how many full time team” polls or “so and so competitor not going to X race”. Not in a few years atleast. you tweeted about the car count issues at seekonk and Claremont. And thats fair, its simply numbers. Cant say I’ve seen any about any other entities numbers recently, though. When was Stafford’s last tour type race (before last month) of any kind with <20 cars?