Bonsignore Poised For NASCAR Whelen Mod Tour Title Run

Story By: MATTHEW WIERNASZ / RPW – HOLTSVILLE, NY – Justin Bonsignore will be looking at a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship run this weekend for the Performance Plus Motor Oil 150 presented by Safety Kleen at Myrtle Beach Speedway.

For a while some thought there was a lot of uncertainly of where some of the Tour races will be held. Bonsignore figured the first race of the year would be down south but didn’t expect Myrtle Beach Speedway.

Bonsignore feels the 2017 schedule is good for the Northern teams but feels bad for the Southern teams and believes it will be tough. NASCAR announced last October that the Whelen Modified Tour and Whelen Southern Modified Tour that it would merge into one tour for this upcoming season.

” I feel for my cousin and those guys. Its unfortunate. It should really be a good deal for the northern teams and I am pretty excited.I think its going to take year or two maybe get this deal rolling with the merged tour. I think if people just sit back and give it a little time. It will develop into something pretty good like it was back years ago.” Bonsignore Said

Bonsignore dominated the second half of the 2016 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season. Bonsignore won two races at Thompson including the season finale, the second event at Riverhead Raceway last August as well as New Hampshire Motor Speedway last September. Bonsignore finished no worse than fourth besides having a DNF at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Bonsignore’s crew chief Bill Michael stepped down as crew chief and Danny Laferriere stepped in as crew chief. They went down and ran speedweeks at New Smyrna Speedway to get to know each other and to build chemistry with the team. For the first half of the 2017 season, Bonsignore feels he does not need to improve anywhere as the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will go to some of the same tracks throughout the 2017 season. He feels his weakest link is the New London-Waterford Speedbowl but now with the shop 10 minutes away from the Speedbowl. He will be testing there as much as he can.

Bonsignore feels heading into this weekends race at Myrtle Beach that it will be all about saving tires in the 150 lap race. One of the other big hurdles that will come will be the chemistry between him and new crew chief Danny Laferriere with him understanding in what Bonsignore wants in a race car. They already got the process started at the Turkey Derby at Wall Stadium last November.

” We learned from our mistakes which is actually a good thing. Its weird to say that but we struggled on our pit calls. I think we both learned a lot on each other.” Bonsignore Said

The shop moved to Connecticut midway through the season last year. Laferriere was hands on a lot more and the results improved. Bonsignore feels its a big lost with former crew chief Bill Michael but Bonsignore feels Laferriere will step in and make this team his and Bonsignore is excited to see what this bring to the team.

Bonsignore is also planning on running the Northeast Race Cars & Parts Tri-Track Open Modified Series. He is also planning to run the NEMA race in June at Riverhead Raceway.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will kickoff their 2017 season this Saturday at Myrtle Beach Speedway.