There’s not a lot of check marks left to fill on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour when it comes to the career achievements for Justin Bonsignore.
But Saturday night the four-time series champion took the opportunity to fill in an empty box on his resume.
Bonsignore held off the charges of Tyler Rypkema over multiple late restarts to win the New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau 200 at New Smyrna Speedway.
It was Bonsignore’s first series victory at the historic New Smyrna Speedway in five tries.
The Whelen Modified Tour has opened the season annually at New Smyrna since 2022. Bonsignore finished second in the event in 2023 and 2024 and was third in last year’s race at the track.
“Just amazing,” Bonsignore said. “First one on the [Whelen Modified Tour] at New Smyrna. I’ve been close a handful of times. This place has kind of whooped my butt. It’s nice to get one tonight.”
It was the 48th career Whelen Modified Tour victory for Bonsignore, who sits second on the division’s all-time win list.
“Just a total team effort,” Bonsignore said. “It’s been a tough winter for us. This just feels good to come out and do what we did today. We had a great car. Obviously we got the opportunity to do the tire test here [in December] and we learned a lot. … We worked really hard on some new stuff that we’ve been hesitant to try while we were in points battles. It was really good. And just some lines we learned at the test was good.”
Rypkema was second. He hung tight on Bonsignore’s following an overtime green-white-checkered restart but he lost his chance at a last lap pass when caution flew just after the white flag was shown for a Luke Baldwin spin.
“Those last three restarts, firing off on the outside, it’s so tough late in a run like this to get some good drive off the top and hang with him,” Rypkema said. “We were just good at the end there and tried to hang him with him. Got a good restart that last one there, but it’s tough. To finish second though, that’s a great way to start the season out points-wise.”
Said Bonsignore: “Tyler kept us honest on the last bunch of [restarts].”
Austin Beers began defense of his 2025 series championship with a third place finish.
“This one race I’m happy with a third,” Beers said. “We were struggling there. I was just a little too tight. We took [rear tires twice] so we didn’t have a right front there at the end and I think it hurt us.”
Patrick Emerling was fourth and Craig Lutz fifth.
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