Nu-Way Auto Parts 150 Shines Light On NASCAR Modified Tour “Participation Purse” Philosophy

(The article below is a RaceDayCT column – The views expressed in this column are solely the opinion of the writer)

Saturday the NASCAR Modified Tour heads to Lancaster Motorplex for the seventh of 16 events for the series in 2025. 

Saturday’s race winner at Lancaster will walk away with a winner’s check of $12,442. Second place will get $4,466. 

And then you get to third place, where the numbers start to get interesting. Third place pays $3,350. 

So the difference between finishing second and third is $1,116. And the difference between finishing third and finishing last (24th place)? It’s a $350 difference. 

Last place pays $3,000. The difference between finishing in 10th place and finishing in last place is a whopping $110. 

Essentially, the purse no longer represents a genuine factor to incentivize the competition on the track beyond the top three positions. It’s a “Participation Purse.” 

It’s like NASCAR is saying: Just show up to our event, make the field – everybody does – and basically we’ll pay you pretty much the same as anyone who doesn’t finish on the podium. You don’t have to be one of the those teams that spends 70 hours in the shop getting ready for the event because we’ll pay you pretty much the same as most of the guys just for rolling through the pit gate. 

Let’s just break this whole thing down using the season opening event for the NASCAR Modified Tour at New Smyrna Speedway on Feb. 8. 

Did you know, Justin Bonsignore’s purse winnings for finishing third in the NASCAR Modified Tour season opening event at New Smyrna Speedway was $4,641. 

In 2024 Doug Coby’s purse winnings for finishing third in the NASCAR Modified Tour season opening event at New Smyrna Speedway was $5,900. 

Well wait you ask, how can that be? We’ve all heard since last October about the significant increase to purses on the NASCAR Modified Tour for 2025. 

And yes, there is a significant purse increases for 2025, on paper. But, things can get a little interesting when you start to dig a few layers. 

Before the start of the 2025 NASCAR Modified Tour season we had a well known team owner reach out to us and ask if we knew that as part of the purse increases in 2025 on the Modified Tour, the bulk of the top performing teams would actually take a pay cut at each event. 

Wait, how could that be?

And so we dug a little bit. And what we found was interesting and speaks to a sort of smoke and mirrors shell game being played when the significant increase in race purses is talked about on the Modified Tour. 

The purse for the Modified Tour season opener at New Smyrna Speedway was $116,000, which represented about a $10,000 increase from the the 2024 purse at the same event. 

And like we said before, when comparing Justin Bonsignore’s payout for third place in 2025 at New Smyrna, he took a big cut from what Doug Coby got paid for the same finish in 2024. Coby made $1,259 more for finishing third in the event in 2024. But, how can that be, the purse is $10,000 more from last year? 

And that’s where you start to see the funhouse mirror change the perspective. The series averaged an all-time series low 24 cars per event in 2024. Through six events this year the series is currently on pace to have an even lower number for 2025. And if the finishing positions that almost never get paid represent the biggest purse payout increases, is there really a significant increase, especially if none of that “increase” is being seen by the teams that loyally show up to every event?  

The top seven finishers in the New Smyrna event this year all got paid less than the top-7 finishers in 2024. First place paid $425 less this year. Second place paid $812 less. Third place, like we mentioned, was $1,259 less. Fourth place, $1,120 less. Fifth place, $909 less. Sixth place, $347 less. Seventh place, $136 less. 

So the teams that have been the most loyal and the most successful are the ones that took a pay cut while NASCAR management patted themselves on the back about the significant purses increases for 2025. 

At New Smyrna, positions 8 through 32 all saw increases in the position payout from 2024. Some saw limited increase, like 8th place paid $76 more than last year. Other had noticeable increases, like 16th place paid $919 more than last year. 

But here’s where we started to smell a little smoke that was being reflected off the mirrors. Of the $10,000 increase in the New Smyrna purse from 2024 to 2025, $4,850 of the total increase was paid for positions 25-32. Positions 25-30 each saw an increase of $500 from 2024. Position 31 saw an increase of $850 and position No. 32 an increase of $1,000. 

That position No. 32 increase of $1,000 represented the highest increase for any position in the field from 2024 to 2025. Incidentally, the series paid out a position No. 32 a total of one time over 16 events in 2024. 

So just about 50 percent of the increase in purse for the New Smyrna event from 2024 to 2025 was listed for the final eight spots in the field. 

And frankly, it just doesn’t feel right when the race purse doesn’t represent some type of competitive feel. You should get paid a lot more to finish sixth than finishing 20th. The purse should represent a monetary incentive to finish better. At Lancaster Saturday 15th place pays exactly the same as 24th place. 

In youth sports today all the talk is always about participation trophies. Go to a hockey tournament and finish eighth out of nine teams, well you get a trophy because we don’t want you to feel sad. Just ignore that whole part about a trophy representing something you compete for to win. 

In 2025 the purse structure of the NASCAR Modified Tour has turned into what could be termed a “Participation Purse”. After the first two or three positions, everybody is essentially rewarded the same. 

NASCAR has backloaded the bulk of the “purse increases” to occupy the positions that, on average, most often don’t get paid out. Instead of the division’s most loyal and successful teams seeing the fruits of the increase, those teams actually take a pay cut at most events this year compared to last year, and most of the positions that were set to see increases in pay won’t get paid out because nobody will occupy those spot on the grid at most events.

You have to give NASCAR credit, it’s a fascinatingly well played shell game. They’re not lying about significant purse increases, those purse increases are right there on paper. But the fact is for many events, no teams will actually collect on many of the positions that are representative of the “significant increases”.