Focused: Matt Hirschman Goes To Thompson Icebreaker Concentrating On Whelen Mod Tour 

Icebreaker weekend 2026 at Thompson Speedway kicks off Saturday with the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series running its season opening Propane Plus Heating & Cooling 75. 

It’s fair to say that Matt Hirschman has established himself as the face of the series since its inception in 2014. 

Hirschman is the division’s all-time winningest driver by a landslide, has recorded victories with the series in every year of its existence and is a 9-time series champion. 

But – probably to the surprise of many local Modified fans – when the Propane Plus Heating & Oil 75 hits the track Saturday, Hirschman won’t be in the field. 

Hirschman goes to Icebreaker weekend at Thompson Speedway with a sharpened focus on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Icebreaker 150 on Sunday April 12. Hirschman sits 10th in the Whelen Modified Tour standings after two of 16 events, still looking for his first top-10 of the season. 

“I will admit, after two [Whelen Modified Tour race this season], I’m not pleased with where we’re at,” Hirschman told RaceDayCT. “But … it’s not been disastrous. It’s just … it’s not where I’d like to be right now.” 

Like he did last year, Hirschman is running full-time once again this year on the Whelen Modified Tour. But what’s different than last year is the full-time effort is taking place with one team. 

Last year Hirschman ran a split operation on the Whelen Modified Tour, running a portion of the schedule for the South Carolina based Pee Dee Motorsports team owned by Roy Hall and the rest of the events for the Long Island based Elite Racing organization. 

After the 2025 season Elite Racing owner Alan Derling decided he wanted his team to run full-time, forcing Hirschman to make a decision in December on whether to run full-time for Pee Dee Motorsports or full-time for Elite Racing. Hirschman decided to run for Pee Dee Motorsports, a team he has worked with for a decade.

“I guess it kind of, it was a good problem to have,” Hirschman said. “But basically I had two teams that I was driving for … and they were both both willing and able to run the full schedule on their own and I had to make a decision. You know, I had to honor my commitment with Pee Dee because it’s ten years running for me with them. We’re on good terms with Elite, but they they wanted to run the full schedule themselves and that’s what they’re doing.”

Elite Racing is competing full-time on the Whelen Modified Tour this season with driver Mike Christopher Jr. 

After a 12th place finish in the Whelen Modified Tour season opener on Feb. 7 at New Smyrna Speedway and another 12th place in the second event of the year at Martinsville Speedway on March 28, Hirschman said the Pee Dee Motorsports operation needs to focus its Icebreaker efforts on rallying in the Whelen Modified Tour standings. 

“It’s a little bit more on our plate this year at Pee Dee and the starting of the season here’s been a little more … a little bit more work and a little bit more difficult than I anticipated because of the the change to American Racer [tires],” Hirschman said. 

It was announced last December that American Racer tires would replace Hoosier as the exclusive tire manufacturer for the Whelen Modified Tour in 2026. That change has meant a lot of tried and true setup notes built up over two decades have become unusable for many longtime crews. 

“At least so far for me, my opinion is it isn’t just like a plug-and-play where you can swap from Hoosier to American Racer and and not change a whole lot because we’re definitely making changes here to try and adapt to this tire,” Hirschman said.

“Our highest priority, our main focus right now is trying to get this figured out for the [Whelen Modified Tour racers] and adapt to this American Racer tire. … We’re not just coming home from Martinsville and doing maintenance on the car and turning it around for Thompson. We’re taking some swings at this and I hope that our performance improves.” 

Over the last two decades Hirschman has cemented his legacy as one of the best Modified drivers of his era, and arguably of all-time. But missing from his resume is a Whelen Modified Tour championship. He had a third place finish in the standings in 2007 and a second place in 2008. Last year, in his first full-time effort with the series since 2011, he finished fourth in the standings. 

Hirschman, who has 10 career Whelen Modified Tour victories, said he went quite a few years not concerned about getting a Whelen Modified Tour title on his resume. 

“Really it wasn’t something that I was really interested in or bothered by when I went away from running the [Whelen Modified Tour] because of the amount of success I was having and really enjoying what I was doing,” Hirschman said. “But I will say that I think a lot of things have changed for the better on Whelen Tour. I think it’s been heading in a positive direction here in recent years and after doing the full season last year, which was really the first one for me since 2011, at the end of the year I looked at it as I was glad that we did it and I think I think we should run it back and do it again. But also at that time I was planning to run it back the way we had it set up last year, but then that all changed in December.” 

Hirschman emphasized that his early season focus on the Whelen Modified Tour this year is not the true indicator of all he will do this season. Hirschman has 24 career Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series victories. Second on the division’s all-time win list is Ron Silk with seven wins. Hirschman said he expects to run select Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series events this season. 

“The way the schedule is laid out there’s some of their races that are not at a good spot on the racing calendar and also on the family calendar,” Hirschman said. “We had a couple things that conflict with some of the races, so we’ll just pick and choose which ones we’re going to go to.

“… I know how this season has started, it hasn’t looked like what it looked like for me for a lot of years in the past, but as the season progresses we plan to still do a variety of races with different series’ with the support of Bar Harbor Bank and Trust. We’ve still got a busy schedule planned.”