RGeeProductions
06-16-2016, 07:29 AM
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour returned to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on June 15th for the Thompson 125, the second race of four for the series at the venue in 2016. Points leader Doug Coby was looking for his eighth win out of the last nine races at the Big T. He started on the pole alongside Timmy Solomito who sought to repeat at the speedway after claiming his first series win during the Icebreaker in April.
Coby and Solomito would exchange the lead with series veteran Ryan Preece also in the mix for much of the race’s first half. However, pit strategy and a little bit of luck would prove to make the difference in the race as Coby, Solomito, Preece and others found themselves on the outside looking in while another familiar face, Bobby Santos, rediscovered victory lane after a 25-race drought.
Santos came back from a lap down after being penalized for pitting too soon early in the race and was there at the end to battle with two of the series’ brightest young stars, Max Zachem and rookie Matt Swanson, who took advantage of pit strategy to run up front for much of the second half of the event.
The trio survived a slew of cautions and restarts as well as a red flag with Zachem pulling off great restarts until he was faced with the most important one of the night with three laps to go. Despite his best efforts Zachem was unable to hold off a hard charging Santos who took the lead on the final lap before yet another caution ended the race.
Santos was ecstatic in victory lane noting that it has been over a year since he had celebrated a win in the series and credited his team with fighting through some bad luck and some tough situations to outrace and outwit the competition.
“This is huge. It’s not only the frustrations of this year, it’s the frustrations of last year too. It’s been a long year and a half to finally get back here, but nobody gave up and we continued to work hard as a team. It feels really good to finally win a race,” Santo said. “(On the last restart) I was excited that I was in fourth. I was glad that Max decided to take the outside – I knew we had a good shot at this thing, we just needed a good restart to get behind him, get up in second and have a good run at it. It wasn’t one of my prettier races, but I wanted to win really bad and we knew what it took to win.”
After the race, runner-up Max Zachem took the loss in stride and saw the opportunity to be out front, lead some laps and contend for the win as a step in the right direction for his team as they continue to fight for their first victory.
“I knew (Santos) was going to be the threat. He was the one I was worried about. We had a great car and I can’t thank my crew enough,” Zachem said. “We came in on that first caution and tried adjusting to make it a little bit better and it paid off in the end. We short pitted and knew we had to come up with a strategy because those guys are just so good. You have to figure out how to play your cards right and we did. We led some laps and we’re here to play.”
At sixteen years old young rookie Matt Swanson held on to finish an impressive third and said he was excited just to be able to even compete with bigger teams and more experienced drivers at the front of the pack.
“The first time I came over the radio with my dad and I was in third I said ‘wow this is really what it’s like to be on the front row’. I just had to get my restarts down. Me and Max had a really good battle and he just had a little bit of a stronger car and Bobby came on strong at the end,” Swanson said.
Patrick Emerling and Jeff Goodale rounded out the top five while points leader Doug Coby would recover from a restart violation penalty late in the race to finish tenth.
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Coby and Solomito would exchange the lead with series veteran Ryan Preece also in the mix for much of the race’s first half. However, pit strategy and a little bit of luck would prove to make the difference in the race as Coby, Solomito, Preece and others found themselves on the outside looking in while another familiar face, Bobby Santos, rediscovered victory lane after a 25-race drought.
Santos came back from a lap down after being penalized for pitting too soon early in the race and was there at the end to battle with two of the series’ brightest young stars, Max Zachem and rookie Matt Swanson, who took advantage of pit strategy to run up front for much of the second half of the event.
The trio survived a slew of cautions and restarts as well as a red flag with Zachem pulling off great restarts until he was faced with the most important one of the night with three laps to go. Despite his best efforts Zachem was unable to hold off a hard charging Santos who took the lead on the final lap before yet another caution ended the race.
Santos was ecstatic in victory lane noting that it has been over a year since he had celebrated a win in the series and credited his team with fighting through some bad luck and some tough situations to outrace and outwit the competition.
“This is huge. It’s not only the frustrations of this year, it’s the frustrations of last year too. It’s been a long year and a half to finally get back here, but nobody gave up and we continued to work hard as a team. It feels really good to finally win a race,” Santo said. “(On the last restart) I was excited that I was in fourth. I was glad that Max decided to take the outside – I knew we had a good shot at this thing, we just needed a good restart to get behind him, get up in second and have a good run at it. It wasn’t one of my prettier races, but I wanted to win really bad and we knew what it took to win.”
After the race, runner-up Max Zachem took the loss in stride and saw the opportunity to be out front, lead some laps and contend for the win as a step in the right direction for his team as they continue to fight for their first victory.
“I knew (Santos) was going to be the threat. He was the one I was worried about. We had a great car and I can’t thank my crew enough,” Zachem said. “We came in on that first caution and tried adjusting to make it a little bit better and it paid off in the end. We short pitted and knew we had to come up with a strategy because those guys are just so good. You have to figure out how to play your cards right and we did. We led some laps and we’re here to play.”
At sixteen years old young rookie Matt Swanson held on to finish an impressive third and said he was excited just to be able to even compete with bigger teams and more experienced drivers at the front of the pack.
“The first time I came over the radio with my dad and I was in third I said ‘wow this is really what it’s like to be on the front row’. I just had to get my restarts down. Me and Max had a really good battle and he just had a little bit of a stronger car and Bobby came on strong at the end,” Swanson said.
Patrick Emerling and Jeff Goodale rounded out the top five while points leader Doug Coby would recover from a restart violation penalty late in the race to finish tenth.
continued