NOTEBOOK: Santos Comes Full Circle
Returns To Weekly Roots To Claim Whelen Modified Tour Crown
Thompson, CT — The career of Bobby Santos came full circle Sunday at Thompson International Speedway.
Seven years ago, a teenaged Santos was a rookie in the weekly NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Modified ranks at the track — clawing for a shot at simply cracking the podium every week against guys like Ted Christopher. With a sixth-place finish Sunday at Thompson in the finale of his first full season on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Santos locked up the 2010 championship.
As he stood next to the crystal-topped title trophy in Thompson’s Victory Lane, he was a long way from his nearby Franklin, Mass., home and the start of his career in a pit area just a hundred yards away.
“It’s pretty neat. I love Thompson, and I love the Modifieds here,” said Santos, who posted four wins and 11 Top-10s in 14 starts this season in the No. 4 ‘Mystic Missile’ Dodge. “It just means a lot to race on this Tour.
[Thompson World Series Sat. Photo Gallery] by Nicholas Teto
[Thompson World Series Sun. Photo Gallery] by Nicholas Teto
“Honestly, I never thought I’d be a champion on this Tour. My career the last handful of years went in a different direction with different open-wheel cars. But it’s pretty neat that I come back to my roots and get my first championship. That means a lot.”
The fact that Santos beat out the series all-time winningest driver in Mike Stefanik — a nine-time NACAR touring champion — wasn’t lost on him. He held off Stefanik by a final margin of 27 points for the championship.
Still, testament to the competitive nature of the soft-spoken Santos, he was frustrated to find himself both points-racing and running outside the top five for most of Sunday’s World Series of Speedway Racing finale.
“It was horrible. I hated every bit of it,” Santos said. “But everyone was getting excited and I started seeing how happy my team was (at the end). I think that’s when it started to soak in a little bit. We accomplished a year-long goal.
“The ‘go-out-and-win-the-race’ in me kind of came out a little bit there when I was a little unhappy, but then thinking about it and a couple of words of encouragement from some people (in Victory Lane) kind of pumped me up a little bit. This is going to soak in and be pretty good.”
Santos started from the pole, but never led a lap. Even after a pit stop just shy of the halfway mark, his car never made the march to the front on fresh tires the same way others — like Stefanik and Ron Silk — had been able to do.
Instead, Santos found himself in the unfamiliar position of having to settle for taking what he could get over trying to press his car closer to the front.
“I guess it wasn’t meant to be easy. I think it would have been easy if I had a good car and we went out and won the thing and run up front with a good car all day,” he said. “I guess it was just testing my will today to see if I could do it with a car that wasn’t perfect.”
In that sense, the season’s swansong was much like Santos’ still fledgling career on the Tour — he may not have been the fastest to complete a circuit on Sunday, but he still made it to his ultimate goal.
EMPTY-HANDED: Doug Coby summed it up beautifully after his bid to win Sunday disappeared with just over three laps remaining.
“I’m happy to have the ride,” Coby said of the No. 52 Chevrolet. “I hate to say I’m disappointed with third, but it was the worst third-place finish I’ve ever had in my life. It’s just terrible.”
That’s because Coby, who led 25 laps in the final third of the event, was holding off Ted Christopher when his engine inexplicably stopped performing on Lap 147. Christopher passed Coby off of Turn 4 and never looked back — and Coby’s shot at a second career tour win vanished.
“It definitely was a mechanical problem,” said Coby, surmising either an ignition problem or lost valve was his undoing. “(Christopher) didn’t pass me because I screwed up or I got loose or anything — he passed me because my car broke. I think he knows that. I gave him a gift today.
“The guy’s won so many races, he don’t need any gifts.”
A win would have been the happy-ever-after in a storybook season for Coby. The Milford, Conn., driver has made just eight tour starts this season — with an amazing five different teams. Even with that, he’s managed two Top-5s and four Top-10s in his efforts.
“It’s not tough at all, because they all have good cars and they’re all good guys,” Coby said of car-hopping. “They’re all fun to be around. They’ve had plenty of good runs in that 52 car. It’s not like it’s a bad car. Matt (Hirschman) almost won the championship (in 2008) driving that thing, and Chris (Pasteryak) certainly proved himself in his first couple of full years on the Tour driving it, and, of course, Dale (Quarterley) won in it (this season at Lime Rock Park).
“So I had big shoes to fill.”
NOTES: Though Stefanik has seven Whelen Modified Tour championships, this is only the second time he’s finished as the runner-up. The only other time he finished second in the final standings was to Jamie Tomaino in 1990… Ryan Preece’s runner-up finish was his first top-five since finishing second at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway in July… Santos and Christopher tied for the tour lead with four wins apiece this season. The only other driver with multiple NWMT wins this season was Sprint Cup driver Ryan Newman (three) … Christopher — the champion in the track’s NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Sunoco Modified division with 10 wins this season — now has three straight World Series victories and 11 wins overall in tour competition at the track… Ron Silk led a race-high 45 laps and finished fifth.
Sources: Travis Barrett, Special To NASCARHomeTracks.com