THOMPSON – There’s no denying the bigger than life prowess names like Mike Stefanik, Reggie Ruggiero and Ted Christopher have when it comes to Modified racing.
Over the last decade Justin Bonsignore has quietly clawed his way into the stratosphere of Modified greatness.
Sunday at Thompson Speedway the three-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion continued with the milestones that are putting him on stage with the legends.
Bonsignore, of Holtsville, N,Y., led 121 laps on the way to a dominating victory in the Whelen Modified Tour Sunoco World Series 150 at Thompson Speedway.
It was Bonsignore’s 43rd career Whelen Modified Tour victory, giving him sole possession of third place on the division’s all-time win list. Bonsignore had been tied with the late Christopher for third place. Ruggiero is second on the division’s win list with 44 victories. The late Stefanik is the division’s all-time winningest driver with 74 victories.
It was Bonsignore’s 14th career Whelen Modified Tour victory at Thompson over 46 career starts at the track. Stefanik is the division’s winningest driver at Thompson with 15 victories over 109 starts.
“The numbers, they’re cool,” Bonsignore said. “I try not to put too much thought into it now because I’m still racing. But, it’s hard to not see, Reggie [Ruggiero], just untied Teddy [Christopher]. Close to Mike [Stefanik for total Whelen Modified Tour wins at Thompson]. Those are badasses that my name doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near them, but we’re fortunate enough because we’ve got a really good race team and a good pit crew that we can be. Yeah, they’re cool to be around. I hope to do this for at least another 14 or 15 years. I want to go until I’m 50 like those guys did, if I’m competitive. It’s cool to be around them and it’s humbling. It kind of gets lost sometimes. You don’t realize what you’re accomplishing because you’re in the middle of it. It’s really cool. It’s just humbling.”
Anthony Nocella of Woburn, Mass. was second and Ron Silk of Norwalk third.
Silk, the reigning series champion, came into the event holding an 11-point lead over second place Bonsignore in the standings. Bonsignore cut that lead to five points with two events remaining on the schedule. The series visits North Wilkesboro Speedway on Oct. 20 before closing the season on Oct. 26 at Martinsville Speedway.
Sunday’s event saw Bonsignore and Silk battling at the front for much of the event, but with a far less heated tone than had been seen between the two in recent series events.
From lap 106 to lap 120 Bonsignore stalked all over Silk’s bumper in a battle for the lead. Bonsignore got by Silk for the lead on lap 121 and checked out quickly.
“It’s finally nice to see us that we can race each other clean and hard,” Bonsignore said. “That’s Thompson. You’re so even and it’s so hard to pass that when you get a run you kind of just have to force them into lifting early and trying to do the cross over. We were way better, I just couldn’t set him up cleanly. … I wanted to do it cleanly. I know we’ve had our problems, but ultimately we do have a lot of respect for him and [his crew chief Phil Moran] and there’s no reason that we need to be tearing up race cars. Phil and [my crew chief Ryan Stone] don’t need to be working all these hours in the shop because we’re driving like idiots out there. I hope we can reset a precent today that we can race hard. We don’t need to talk to each other, we don’t need to be best friends, this is a rivalry, but, I would love to do it where we can just race hard and everybody get out and shake each other’s hands even if we lost.”
Said Silk: “Today was a good race. He was better than we were. I tried my best to hold him off. We were just really loose the first run and really tight the second run. We kind of missed both directions. But all in all a good day. There’s nothing to complain about it.”
Patrick Emerling came into the event 16 points off the lead in the Whelen Modified Tour standings. He finished seventh and fell to 21 points behind Silk.
Nocella celebrated a weekend of passing so many cars in Modified action at Thompson. Nocella started 33rd in the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series Constantine Paving & Sealing 75 on Saturday at Thompson and finished third. He started 19th in the Whelen Modified Tour event Sunday.
“It was tough with the 20 minutes of practice there,” Nocella said. “Not a lot of time. We only went out once. Ran a few laps and I was comfortable with it. We weren’t fastest car in practice, but I was very comfortable. … We were gaining on [Bonsignore] pretty quick. I think a couple more laps it would have been pretty interesting between us and [Bonsignore]. We let him get out just a little too far. … Two runs from the back, just the way it worked out. I think we passed the most cars I would say this weekend. That’s a good thing. And two solid good cars to bring home.”
The 22-car starting was the smallest starting field ever for a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at Thompson Speedway. It was the 155th series event at Thompson since 1985.
With qualifying canceled due to weather concerns, the field started by point standings with Silk on the pole, Bonsignore starting second and Patrick Emerling third.
Silk got the jump on Bonsignore at the start. Behind them Austin Beers quickly moved past Emerling for third. Buy lap four Emerling had fallen back to seventh.
Bonsignore went by Silk for the lead on lap five. By lap 15 Bonsignore and Silk had checked out by about 10 car lengths from third place Beers, By lap 31 Bonsignore and Silk had opened up about a two-second advantage over third place Beers.
On lap 35 Bonsignore and Silk encountered the car of Tim Connolly at the tail end of the lead lap. Connolly raced both Bonsignore and Silk for about three laps, allowing Bonsignore to eventually open up about a six car length lead over Silk.
On lap 66 Craig Lutz went by Silk for second place. By lap 76 Bonsignore held a little more than a one second lead over Lutz. With Bonsignore leading, Lutz in second, Hirschman in third and Silk in fourth, the first caution of the event flew on lap 93 for the spinning car of Joey Cipriano off of turn four. When the caution flew 12 cars remained on the lead lap.
Under caution the leaders all headed to pit road. Lutz won the race off of pit road, followed by Hirschman, Beers and Silk. Bonsignore came off pit road sixth.
On the lap 100 restart it was the outside lane getting the work done. Lutz held the top spot with Silk going from fourth to second and Bonsignore from sixth to third.
On lap 102 Silk got under Lutz for the lead with Bonsignore following to second.
On lap 106 Bonsignore gave Silk a couple taps as they got through turn four. On lap 109 Bonsignore took a peek low on Silk through turn four but backed out.
On lap 115 Bonsignore found a lane under Silk through turns one and two, but Silk fought back on the outside into turn three. Bonsignore kept up the attack through turns three and four, but couldn’t get by Silk.
On lap 121 Bonsignore once again found the lane under Silk into turn one. Silk went up the track in turn two and Bonsignore came off of turn two with the lead.
By lap 130 Bonsignore had opened up about a three-quarters of a second lead over Silk with Beers and Anthony Nocella behind the leaders fighting for third. After getting by Beers for third, Nocella was up to Silk’s bumber by lap 139.
On lap 144 Nocella got under Silk into turn three to take over second. At that point Bonsignore was out front by 1.6 seconds over second place. Nocella cut the lead to .355 seconds at the finish.
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Great decision moving the schedule around and the tour up. Making sure the fans see what they came to see. That’s one track in CT that does it right. Turns out it is possible to move things up without the world ending.
Race itself was pretty mid. But was pretty good when you know the 51/16 history and all the point implications.
Anthony Nocella gets very little recognition for his talents as a driver. Midgets, Supers, Modifieds , he has been successful in all three over his career but gets no ink. This has to change!
Steve Jesus,
He’s gotten plenty of mentions recently on this site. Was mentioned and quoted in a story and was part of a podcast short here after the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series event at Star Speedway last month. Was mentioned and quoted in a story here after the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series event at Stafford last month. Was mentioned and quoted in a story yesterday and part of a podcast short after the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series event at Thompson yesterday. Was mentioned and quoted in today’s story following the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at Thompson. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree coming here and complaining that Nocella doesn’t get any media attention.