(The article below is a RaceDayCT column – The views expressed in this column are solely the opinion of the writer)
When it was announced last fall that the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour would return to being part of the Icebreaker card at Thompson Speedway, it was circled by many as one of the major improvements to the series schedule.
Optimism for what returning to the Icebreaker could mean for the the series overall was flying high. It was one of those kinds of announcements that many around the community of Modified racing saw as something that could be a turning point away from recent negative trending for the series.
What ended up being the reality of Sunday’s Whelen Modified Tour Icebreaker 150 was a slap in the face wakeup call that finding the traction needed to lift the series back to glory in Southern New England isn’t as easy as just throwing it on the schedule for a historic event.
The Whelen Modified Tour brought a 24-car field for the Icebreaker 150 Sunday at Thompson. To say that number was a disappointment is an understatement.
When it comes to Connecticut short track racing history, Thompson Speedway and the Whelen Modified Tour go hand-in-hand. Thompson Speedway has hosted the Whelen Modified Tour more times than any other track since the division’s inception in 1985.
The 2021 season marked the first year since the inception of the Whelen Modified Tour in 1985 that the series did not visit the iconic .625-mile Thompson Speedway oval.
The series returned to the schedule at Thompson in 2022, but the types of car counts for the series that Thompson Speedway fans had become used to did not return.
After a season away from the track the series returned to Thompson on Aug. 17, 2022 with a 24-car field. It marked only the second time in 149 series events at Thompson that a Whelen Modified Tour event took place at the track with less than 25 cars. And then there were only 24 cars for the Sunoco World Series 150 at Thompson in 2022. The story got worse in 2023 with only 23 cars in the field when the series returned for its Aug. 16 event. The August event in 2023 set a record for the smallest starting field for a Whelen Modified Tour event at Thompson in series history. Improvement was slight for the series for the Sunoco World Series 150 on Oct. 8, 2023 with 25 cars in the field.
It didn’t seem to make a lot of sense why the series could somehow get 35 teams for an event in New Smyrna, Florida in 2023, or 30 teams to a race at Monadnock Speedway in Winchester, N.H. in May 2023, but one of the division’s most storied and iconic venues struggled to attract interest from competitors.
When it came to dissecting the numbers for the series in 2022 and 2023, defenders of the Whelen Modified Tour regularly offered up what could be termed as understandable reasoning. They’d say the August event was a mid-week show and mid-week shows are just harder for many teams to get to. When it came to the scant numbers at the World Series they would say it was the time of year when some teams had run out of money or just given up on chasing points.
From 1985 to 2020 the Whelen Modified Tour was part of the Icebreaker schedule at Thompson (the 2020 event was cancelled due to COVID restrictions). So when it was announced last fall that the Whelen Modified Tour would return to the Icebreaker card in 2024, it was expected by many to be the event where the field would see increase from the lower than expected numbers from 2022 and 2023 at Thompson. This was supposed to be the event that sparked life back into the longtime relationship between Thompson and the Whelen Modified Tour. The built-in excuses were gone. It wasn’t a mid-week show. It wasn’t an end of the season October event.
And there it was on Sunday, 24 cars. Two months prior, on Feb. 10, the series attracted 35 teams to New Smyrna Speedway.
What made that 24 number on Sunday at Thompson look uglier was the lack of depth in the small field. Any objective viewer of the series could see that of the 24 cars at Thompson Sunday, at least 25 percent of the teams hit the track on Sunday knowing they had no realistic chance at winning the event or likely even competing for a top-five finish.
Be sure of this, Thompson Speedway promoters Cris Michaud and Tom Mayberry are most definitely looking for NASCAR to show up at the track producing a bigger field than 24 cars. The Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series, which saw its event scheduled for Saturday at Thompson rained out, showed up at the track with 33 cars. The Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series may not have got to run their feature Saturday, but they won the weekend when it came to the head-to-head battle against the Whelen Modified Tour by showing up with a much larger field which also offered up a far deeper talent pool.
Simply put, when a race promoter books a touring division for an event at the track they’re expecting big numbers and a deep field.
The question is, if the numbers just remain stagnant or drop further, when do the Thompson promoters give up on the Whelen Modified Tour? Why pay the high-end expenses that come with hosting a NASCAR sanctioned event if the return on the investment isn’t there and interest from competitors is spotty at best?
When people talk about bringing the Whelen Modified Tour back to its glory, most often recited as one of the keys to doing that is to get Stafford Speedway back on the schedule.
After hosting the Whelen Modified Tour for multiple events annually for more three and half decades, Stafford Speedway dropped the series from its schedule following the 2021 season. This much is certain, if Stafford Speedway management is looking 50 miles down the road to what’s happening with the series at Thompson Speedway, you have to imagine they’d be hardly motivated to pick up the phone to begin any sort of negotiations with NASCAR concerning bringing the Whelen Modified Tour back to their track.
For three decades the Whelen Modified Tour anchored the Spring Sizzler and Fall Final weekend racing cards at Stafford. But why would Stafford want the Whelen Modified Tour in April when their own Open style Spring Sizzler attracts double the cars the Modified Tour would would likely bring there? Why would they want the Whelen Modified Tour at the Fall Final when the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series has averaged just over 42 cars at the Fall Final the last two years? Why would they want to host a Friday night Whelen Modified Tour event at their track when the series can only attract 24 cars to a historic racing weekend like the Icebreaker?
For the majority of the series’ history since 1985 Connecticut short tracks have essentially been the center point of Whelen Modified Tour competition. Thompson has hosted more series events than any other track. Stafford is second on that list, having hosted the series 135 times since 1985. Sunday’s Icebreaker at Thompson Speedway begs some real questions. Has the success of the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series made the Whelen Modified Tour a non-player in Connecticut? Has the Whelen Modified Tour run its course at Connecticut venues? Does the Whelen Modified Tour need Connecticut venues on its schedule to survive?
The Whelen Modified Tour Icebreaker 150 on Sunday at Thompson certainly didn’t do much at all in steering any attention away from some of the negative trends that have plagued the Whelen Modified Tour in recent years.The Icebreaker was supposed to produce some hope of better days to come for the series. The only thing that happened Sunday was hope melting away even further.
