LOUDON – It looked as though Mother Nature was not going to cooperate with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Mohegan Sun 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday.

With 66 laps complete, the caution flag flew for rain on the track. Three laps later, the race was red-flagged when the precipitation got worse. It was just a small cell of precipitation that didn’t last long, but it became a race against daylight, as NHMS does not have lights.

Officials were determined to finish arguably the most anticipated race of the weekend, and they did their best to prepare the track to go back to racing. The red flag lasted about an hour before cars were refired and sent back onto the track. 

After a slow pit stop relegated him to seventh, Justin Bonsignore would not be denied. The Holtsville, N.Y., driver swapped the lead with Doug Coby over the final five laps, taking the point for the final time with one lap to go with a nice pass in turn 3. The three-time Tour champion hung on to win by just 0.045 of a second. Ron Silk finished third.

“I’m glad we got back going for all the fans who stuck it out during the rain delay,” Bonsignore said. 

When racing resumed, the field came in for pit stops. Bonsignore, who had led the most laps to that point, had a bad stop for tires and lost the lead to Coby. Joined by Silk, the trio of former Tour champions battled for the top spot over the last 10 laps.

“I was just patient there,” Bonsignore said. “I knew all week what kind of move I wanted to make coming out of 2. I thought I only had to protect Doug but then I looked to my left and Ron threw himself a nice block. Just crazy, the fact that we were able to drag race back to the line and beat Doug like that was awesome.”

Bonsignore, who started on the pole for the third consecutive time at Loudon, scored his second win of the season and 37th of his career. The early portion of the race was a battle between the three former Tour champions. The trio swapped the lead 10 times over the first portion of the race, with them running nose-to-tail for several laps. But by the time the rain came, Bonsignore had built a lead of nearly one second. 

“We were hoping for it to just be rained out, we had such a big lead,” Bonsignore said. “Pitting, we were real conservative and lined up way deeper than I would have liked.” 

Austin Beers and Patrick Emerling rounded out the top five.

Jason Remillard is a copy editor and page designer for Newspapers of New England. He can be reached at jremillard@recorder.com and followed on Twitter @racinwithjason.

 

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