Whelen Modified Tour Points Leader Doug Coby Looks to Get Back on Track in CARQUEST Fall Final at Stafford
Stafford Springs, CT — When the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour comes to Stafford Motor Speedway next weekend for the 40th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final, Doug Coby will be looking to put his recent string of bad luck behind him. After he finished 8th in the season opening race, Coby ran off a string of seven consecutive top-3 finishes, including wins in all three Stafford races thusfar. But after finishes of 17th, 13th, and 22nd in the last three races, Coby has seen his points lead shrink from 54 points down to 9 points.
“I think winning the first three doesn’t make us the favorite to win the fourth,” said Coby. “I feel confident we have a car that will contend for the win, but whether we do win or not will come down to the factors that go into racing. We’ve had a little streak of bad luck, we’ve had 3 races in a row out of the top-10, but only one of those was a bad race. The Thompson race we missed the setup, but at Bristol we were running in the top-5 with 20 to go and got wrecked and at Riverhead we were up to second battling for the lead 60 laps into the race and we lost the motor. What are you going to do, that’s just one of those deals. If the bad luck continues, the championship will be right out the window, but we’re hoping to have a solid run at Stafford. If we had got the finishes we deserved at Bristol and Riverhead, I think we would still have had a 50-something point lead, but I’d still rather be 9 points up than 9 down.”
While the recent down turn in luck might be tempting for Coby and the #52 Furnace and Duct team to change things up, Coby says it will be business as usual and he is confident in his team’s ability to make changes on his car if the car is not where he wants it to be with the setup.
“It’s going to be business as usual for us,” said Coby. “I don’t think we were planning on using the motor we blew up at Riverhead in the last three races, so we still have the motor we planned on running. Obviously my guys are going to quadruple check things on the car, and make sure it’s how they want it to be. The last couple races, we’ve had to make some serious changes to help the car qualify decent and then we keep making changes for the race that are working out in our favor. Like at Riverhead, I wasn’t thrilled with the car in practice and John McKenna made some changes for the feature and the car was awesome. I’m really confident in my team’s ability to take a bad car and make it good. But you never know what you’re going to have when you show up. We showed up at Thompson with what we thought was a race winning setup. We were fastest in practice, we qualified third, just shy of the pole, and then we went out for the race and we were terrible. So that puts a little doubt in your mind, but we’re going to come to Stafford with the same general setup that we’ve won the three races with. We’re going to bring the car that we won the Sizzler with, it’s a good car and we’re hoping it’s going to be good for the Fall Final. I’ve seen too many times where people change what they do and it ruins what they accomplished all year long because they tried to do something different.”
Although Coby says he and his team will be preparing the same for the final races just as they have all season long, he knows that he has to be aggressive on the track and get every position he can.
“The way it looks, it’s going to come down to three teams and drivers that will have a chance to win the championship,” said Coby. “You really can’t give up any spots to anybody and you’re going to have to get every spot you can because it’s going to come down to literally a couple spots on the track as to who wins the championship. It’s such a competitive series, if you look at the top-7 in the standings, I think we all have the same number of top-10 finishes. The only reason why we’re still leading is we have a couple more wins than everyone else. It’s just a couple of spots here and there that gets you those extra points, and leading laps is important for bonus points.”
Tickets for the September 29th & Sept. 30th 40th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend are priced at $38.50 for adult general admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages 6-14, and children ages 5 and under are admitted free of charge when accompanied by an adult. Reserved seating will be priced at $42.00 for all ages. All CARQUEST Fall Final tickets are good for admission on both Saturday and Sunday. All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission Tax and Stafford Motor Speedway offers free parking with overnight parking available.
For more information on the 40th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend, or to order tickets, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR