Three and a half months ago all looked encouraging on the Whelen Modified Tour for Jake Johnson and his Boehler Racing Enterprises team.
On May 4 at Monadnock Speedway Johnson scored victory in the Granite State Derby at Monadnock Speedway to secure his first Whelen Modified Tour win.
It also marked the first series victory for Boehler Racing Enterprises and their iconic Ole Blue No. 3 ride since April 2017.
Now, six races since that win, Johnson is stepping away from the iconic ride.
Boehler Racing Enterprises owner Mike Boehler confirmed to RaceDayCT Sunday that Johnson and the team have parted ways.
Johnson, of Rehoboth, Mass., had a hard wreck in the turn one wall in the last Whelen Modified Tour event on Aug. 14 at Thompson. There was a possibility Johnson would have to sit out at least the next series event – Saturday at Oswego (N.Y.) Speedway – due to lingering effects from the wreck. Boehler said Johnson and his family decided to step away altogether from the ride.
“After the Thompson wreck, Jake is going to concentrate on school and other life responsibilities,” Boehler said. “So he’s not going to be returning to the car this year or over into next year. I think it’s just something they decided was best to do at this point.”
Johnson was not available for comment on Sunday afternoon.
Johnson sits fifth in the Whelen Modified Tour point standings, 64 points behind leader Justin Bonsignore. In additon to the victory at Monadnock this year, Johnson had three top-five’s and eight top-10’s over the first 10 events of the season.
The 21-year old Johnson has made 29 starts on the Whelen Modified Tour with Boehler Racing Enterprises dating back to 2022. Johnson drove part-time for the Boehler Racing Enterprises team on the Whelen Modified Tour the last two seasons before taking over their ride full-time for the 2024 season. He made six series starts in 2022 and ran 13 of 18 events in 2023. Johnson also has three victories driving for his family owned team on the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series, including a win on July 27 at White Mountain Motorsports Park.
Boehler said he expects his team to run the final six events of the Whelen Modified Tour season. The Boehler Racing Enterprises team sits fifth in the series owner standings.
“We’re just presently looking at a couple different options to continue on the rest of the season,” Boehler said. “Hopefully we’ll have something figured out in the next couple days. We’ll make something work for Oswego. Our goal would be to finish out the season with somebody and continue running good and stay up front. That’s our goal. We’ll definitely be at Oswego.”
I think this goes a little deeper than the statement released by Boehler.
What happened at Thompson looked like a retaliatory strike that missed and resulted in a junked race car. If I was the owner I would not have been happy about the way things transpired.
I feel bad that the kid got hurt but unfortunately he probably was his own worse enemy on this one.
IMHO
Earl,
You couldn’t be further off base on this comment. The Johnson family made the decision to walk away for their own reasons. You’re trying to take an opinion you have about an indcident that took place and build that opinion into something it has absolutley nothing to do with. Sorry, just have to call you out on this because I really don’t like you using this forum to try to put out some conspiracy-like imaginary intent by anyone involved.
First off he was never the Jet !!!! Jamie the Jet is the only one that should have that nickname so sad couldn’t come up there own and sure nice family but we can all guess why this happened truth will come out ! Wish him good Health but way more to it …. He is ok not champ material and odd stepping away till next year ? Well the 3 will move on and have a better driver for sure ! Santos probably at Oswego ? Maybe Coby after ? Sure more details will come out ! And Shawn hate to tell you you’re not always right either …..
Shawn you don’t publish sometimes because you think you’re right , not always ! Love the site but let people speak there mines your far from and expert …. You can have a voice others can’t ? Hilarious
Made two post and not published? Why
Still waiting on my posts which Shawn seems to not want to publish ! His way I guess
You only publish what you want ….. people rip you , you hate but you can dish it Shawn … whatever
Maybe your busy and I am wrong but of text me anytime love a good discussion lol
Its most likely so jake can goto college and so he can recover to 100 percent and get his mental aspect on things regrouped because hitting at a ton at tracks like thompson or say louden will take a big toll on your racing and your life. Look at what it did to Ron Yuhas Jr.
Posts ? Or call me not fair we can’t have a voice it you can Shawn
Mod Man,
First off, I’m extremely lenient about what I approve to be published on this page. And quite frankly, I could get rid of the comments tomorrow altogether and it would make my life a lot easier. I offer people a forum to have dialogue about short track racing, at no cost to you, and I can almost guarantee you do nothing to support what I do in any way. You have left 148 comments here over the last eight years under various names (mostly Al Hoekstra, Mod Man). That’s a lot of comments for someone who claims I’m mass censoring comments.
At 5:44 pm you left your first comment. At 5:49, FIVE MINUTES later you left your second comment, complaining about your first comment not getting published yet. At 5:54 pm, 10 minutes after your first comment, you left your second comment complaining about your comments not getting published. At 6:03 pm, 18 minutes after you left your first comment, you left your third comment complaining about the first comment not getting published yet. At 6:52 pm you left another comment complaining about your comments not getting published. At 6:55 pm you left your sixth comment in just over an hour. And at 8:01 pm you left your seventh comment in just about two hours.
I don’t know what I ever did to you, but you should seriously seek help for anger management.
I operate this website. I also have a life that I live beyond operating this website. Today, on a Sunday afternoon, I took time away from a family engagement to make phone calls so I could report what is a pretty big breaking news story concerning a team on the Whelen Modified Tour. After publishing that story I went back to continue to spend time with family at a family engagement. And this is what I returned to. Some unhinged lunatic stacking up angry comments.
I tell people all the time, I love covering short track racing, but when I do decide to stop doing this it’s going to be because of people being morons on social media and anonymous angry people leaving comments on here and acting like I owe them some part of me.
My life doesn’t revolve around you having the privilege to leave comments here and you certainly have no right come here and demand I do anything for you. Please don’t come back to this site. If you hate it so much, just don’t come here, I’ll be fine without you.
Don’t even try to respond to this because you will never have another comment published here again.
any thoughts on who drives the 3? It was great seeing Ole Blue in victory lane earlier this year. Best Wishes to Boehler and Jake Johnson going forward. Assuming Jake is healthy, are they planning on running any of the Tri track races in his family car. Next race is in 3 weeks at Star. I think he already missed a show, so he is probably out of the points and not much incentive to race.
I live in the south so I hardly get to see any NE mod racing. Your site and sites like it (and Flo) are my main ways of keeping up. Please ignore the idiots and know there are lots of fans that appreciate what you do.
Tyler Chapman from Ellington CT in the car.
Mr. Courchesne
In support, it is not your responsibility to have explain your yourself in regards to your personal time… This forum is well maintained and the regular readers are aware of the superior effort…
Csg… If I had the opportunity to hire a driver for the 3, I would strongly consider mc jr. My observations are that he avoids incidents, runs hard and clean, and understands the importance of taking care of equipment coming from a family organization… He may need a bit more development, but the young driver is smart and has a wealth of knowledge in his corner. He also is not committed to any other teams that may interfere with generating momentum.
But Shawn, you can’t have a life, you need to be checking this site every 10 seconds 24-7 to post some idiot’s comment… REALLY?!?!? I send comments in from time to time; sometimes they are posted almost right away and sometimes it might take a day or so. I know they will get posted eventually and I’m perfectly ok with that. The only comments I’ve made that have not been posted are the ones I did not enter correctly! 🙂 I’m sure Shawn has more than a full plate of responsibilities in his life along with being nice enough to let us make comments to the website he works hard to keep going. We all need to respect Shawns obligations in life along with his talents he uses to keep this site running!
Maybe just time to step away from racing. Family runs a successful business.
As far a Tri Track goes, if you look you will see they are selling off some of their racing stuff.
Seekonk Fan,
The only thing I’ve seen for sale from them is the motor they were providing for use for the Whelen Modified Tour car he was driving.
Amazing what uniformed people will say.
This website is my go to racing website other than jayski. This is how I put together a list of local modified races for each of the open series. Your efforts are beyond appreciated and without this site- we would be lost about New England racing news/events. Ignore the haters!
My preference is Facebook. I do my homework, usually provide some links or data for the reader to ponder. Ask questions of the particular group it will appear in or offer an opinion.
People like mostly to react. When it gets personal, vulgar or overly confrontational they get blocked. It’s works. People that are a pain in the ass in one comment tend to be that way every entry they make. Block people and over time the total conversation gets more civil and interesting in the group.
Maybe there’s some reason you can’t do that if you’re a publisher there’s some duty to keep the audience as broad as possible. I don’t have the low opinion of Facebook many do thinking if you manage it correctly the ingenuous, well meaning people with a shared interest shine through more clearly the more you weed out the trouble makers the are just a distraction.
I thought this article was reporting at it’s best. A subjective account of the split with information provided from those directly involved to the extent they would answer the phone. Maybe it is a good idea when the article is pure reporting on sensitive matters to not have commentary. Folks want to do that go to RaceDayCt on Facebook. Or filter the comments to only allow those that have specific facts that add to the content in the article.
There is precedent in this forum. I thought banning politically related comments entirely would not work and what we’ve seen is it’s kind of worked like a charm. Why not expand the ban in a more surgical manner for commentary that involves conspiracies or clear misinformation that can only elicit more confrontation and misinformation to no point.
Tell me I’m wrong on this.
In the current era with drivers and their families teaming up with car owners the relationships are complicated. We get the overview, the details involving money, parts contributions, driver team interaction protocols that are really the most important factors we don’t get because they are private. As we’ve seen teams do split up, again we get the basics but it usually involves things like personalities, money or unmet expectations we are not privy to.
In this case the driver who has clearly had success this year is walking away for reasons he and his family can only know. Good reasons since it’s walking away from a pretty good season in the making but we can never know what they actually are. It’s always that way we get the generic, race fan explanation because that’s the only thing we have a right to. When we fill in our own blanks and they get to bordering on conspiracy maybe we don’t deserve to have them published.
Shawn, keep up the good work!!! You’ve been doing a great job adulting this site up. Keep going.
Great call with Earl, conspiracy crap has no place here.
So what driver, that is consistent with the legacy and reputation of the Len Boehler ‘Ole Blue, to finish the season?
How many of us miss Lenny, Bugsy and Freddy and their race fans who enjoyed short track racing, didn’t have as many issues nor felt they had to argue about them on the internet.
I feel for the 3 owner here. The guy is likely trying to make anything work and any driver associated with the car work. Nothing is sticking. Call Doug Coby and see if he wants a full time ride or someone hungry on the SK weekly scene.
As a non subscriber to facebook, x, twitter, and all that other stuff, I love the way this works just fine. I think Shawn is unbiased, great talent for shaping a story. Hell of a moderator, and puts up with what I consider sometimes, comments that just go too far. (Imo) And he knows the only one thing I’d like to see change, but that’s not his doing.
I fully support this site and you Shawn. I just feel bad when some people don’t get the big picture, as to what you provide for free. I’ve always believed people have to be civil. Seems there is less and less of that these days, everywhere you go. Being civil seems to have been lost, when people no longer had to be face to face, and could hide behind electronics. Ah the old days for sure…..
Keep up the great work Shawn. I really enjoy and have learned so much from this site! The commentators here that follow the procedure, glean facts that I would have otherwise may never have known, I am grateful for as well. I’m not an insider, and only get to go to a half dozen or so races a year, so a lot of missing pieces get filled in here for me.
A heartfelt “thank you” Shawn (and to the forum that is civil, plays by the rules, and share some great insight as well)
Lord knows Shawn, you don’t have to do it, but I know I’m not alone here when I say that there is probably a boatload of supporters here, that are grateful like me, that you do.
Good lord people, what don’t you understand? The ONLY way to get a seat in the 3 car is to pay to drive it. Mike Boehler runs the race team as a business (as is obv his right to do so) and it costs money to race that car, period. Either the Johnson family has decided that what they’re paying for isn’t worth it or that they could run their own team on the tour for the same cost with better results if tour racing is something they want to pursue. Doug Coby works for a living, he doesn’t race for a living. He will not be paying anyone a wooden nickel to drive their race car, you can take that to the bank. The world is full of guys who family’s have paid for a ride and an awful lot of them have driven the 3 car in the past few years.
Uneducated ones too.
It will probly be an r.o.c. driver like hossfeild, emerling, or mcglaughlin, or lia for oswego as my guesses.
I dropped out of facebook a couple of election cycles ago. Twitter is now x and I haven’t logged on since the change. I go to about 1 race a month, usually at Stafford or Seekonk. Between flo. and Youtube you can get highlights of all the local tracks but Thompson. Last week, I spent 30 minutes on the NASCAR website trying to find the Whelen points. I kept saying it should not be this difficult. I come on this site several times a week and I know what’s going on through the stories and comments. Honestly, this site is where I get most of my local racing news. Pretty easy and convenient. And for that I thank RaceDayCT.
So what driver is available, and has an engine to bring, to run in the 3?
It would be a shame if the 3 didn’t finish the season.
Dug Colby is not an option.
It’s all about the money … ! Who ever can bring the money to the 3 car will be in the seat. Driving ability is not even looked at or consider anymore . Once again all … about the money. 100 % fact . It’s shame but that’s what Racing has come to . The average tire bill around 3 thousand dollars a race and all BS to run the mod tour is absolutely ridiculous as well as the purse. The is not even close . Purse is pretty much what it was 20 years ago and cost of racing has tripled. Whole thing is turn off . Fact
I think if Santos is available for the rest of the year you do that. Professional well respected talented and fast in whatever he sits in. I believe his priority is silver crown cars though. So just for fun with me knowing nothing let’s put in Dowling for Thompson, Solomito for Riverhead and Preece for Wilksboro and and Martinsville. Santos at Oswego. Thanks Shawn for all you do!
Thank you Shawn for the ability to comment & communicate with other RDCT followers… I have even made some new Friends because of the comments section & Pick’em pools & football Pick’ems … Just ban the clowns who cross the line, we we will continue on … If your reading this consider supporting Shawn with becoming a Patron … Support with you wallets to keep this Excellent Racing Page alive & well for years to come ..
Get well Jake and study hard , there is much more to Life than Racing !!!