Dual Threat: Bonsignore Takes on NASCAR WMT & VMRS Competition
High Expectations for Icebreaker Winner
Change is good for Justin Bonsignore of Holtsville, NY, who began the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season in victory lane. The Icebreaker was his second victory at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park for Ken Massa’s M3 Technology team. Bonsignore led three times for 14 laps, including the final eight circuits. He bested Coors Light Pole Award winner Woody Pitkat and former champion Doug Coby for the victory. Long Islanders Timmy Solomito and Eric Goodale rounded out the top five.
“That was wild,” Bonsignore said. “I hope everybody enjoyed it. If they didn’t enjoy that I don’t know what they’re going to post on Facebook but great car. Oh my God. I was hoping I wasn’t going to be the guy to mess it up the last 25 laps. I knew I had a little bit better car.”
“He’s (Pitkat) going to win his fair share of them,” Bonsignore said. “Hopefully we go back and forth this year … He had a great car. I knew he was going to be the guy we had to beat. They tested here last week. Everybody said they were real quick. They showed it all weekend that they were real quick. They were a tick off on their pit stop and we were just a tick better and that’s all it took. The competition is so close you guys can see it. Just drove my butt off and was able to get it done.”
Bonsignore said a stagger adjustment was the change his car needed on a pit stop.
“We missed it on the first set a little bit,” Bonsignore said. “We’re still learning. First race with the crew chief. Kenny Barry’s overseeing some of the things with us from SPAFCO. I probably could say I told you so to those guys. I wanted to make one adjustment before the race and they talked me out of it but I guess I can say that now. If we didn’t win it would have been a different story. … Before the pit stop I just minded my own. I knew my car wasn’t as good as theirs so just kind of took my time and it all worked out in the end.”
“I got under him a few times,” Bonsignore said of his battle with Pitkat. “You got to use a little bit of the bar at Thompson. Everybody expects it. Everybody knows it. You try to do it as clean as possible and not run the guy to the fence. I’ve been on the opposite of that a few times late in the races here and it ain’t fun so you don’t want to ruin another guy’s day. And God forbid he gets in line right behind you and comes back and does it on the next start. It’s a lot of give and take but aggressively at the same time.”
Bonsignore made the winning pass off turn two with nine laps left to extend his winning streak to four consecutive seasons.
“My mind was going a million miles an hour,” Bonsignore said. “… I knew it was going to be aggressive. I tried it a little bit earlier and Woody (Pitkat) drove in to Stafford it looked like on the first corner and I was like oh boy so just regrouped did what I needed and just tried to get a good run. I guess it was off of two is when I made my move. Just tried to get a good run so I wasn’t bottled up right behind his bumper, pulled out last minute and put the bottom shot on him. But he was still able to hold it for another half a lap or a lap until we were able to finally clear him. And then (I) was just hoping I would clear him by enough so he wouldn’t get back to my bumper and late in the race put that move on you but we were able to drive away a little bit towards the end.”
Wholesale changes to the team have improved performance. Bonsignore believed the team’s biggest problem was the engine program. The team will have use a Robert Yates spec engine this season.
“It was pretty bad,” Bonsignore said. “It really hurt us to get any consistency going and stay up there in the points. You start having bad run after bad run it kind of takes the team morale down.” … I guarantee you come Icebreaker everyone is going to see that that issue has been fixed and we’re going to be a strong team this year as well.”
“It’s been one driver one team for awhile so things weren’t going the way I would like to see,” Bonsignore said. “So we made some adjustments within our team: SPAFCOs (chassis), Robert Yates (engines), new crew chief and it’s right out of the box pretty good. Hopefully we can continue this. Been on a little bit of a hot streak since New Smyrna. Hopefully we can just ride this for awhile.”
Bonsignore ran solidly in the top five until engine gremlins struck with 22 laps remaining at Daytona. Bonsignore continued his Florida trip at New Smyrna Speedway’s World Series of Speedway Racing. Bonsignore had two wins, including the Richie Evans Memorial 100, and three top fives in three starts.
“(It) means the world to me and my entire team, winning a race dedicated to the greatest driver ever to strap into a Modified is a huge honor, and an amazing feeling. And to do it by starting nearly last, made it that much better, because that’s probably how Richie would of done it. (I) wish I was around to watch him race, heard so many stories and would of loved to be able to seen him race.
“It was huge for us, not really a lot for so called momentum, but a huge morale boost for the entire team, and got everyone even more amped up.”
Bonsignore opened last season with four consecutive top 10 finishes. The next two races at Riverhead and New Hampshire were the nadir of his season, with finishes of 24th and 32nd.
“We were really happy with the way things got going and then we got caught up in a wreck at Riverhead and that one show it’s amazing it kind of hit us in the points pretty hard,” Bonsignore said. “Then we followed it up with a pretty dismal New Hampshire and that was really our Achilles heel, I guess you could say, for the whole season. Both New Hampshire shows really took us out of any good points finish.”
“We’re a really strong team; we’re just slightly inconsistent at times,” Bonsignore said. “Not stuff that is any of our doing, some stuff is out of our control, but every day we just work harder and harder to fix any issue or prepare (to) become a better team. … We’re still a fairly young team but we’re getting to the point where we need to contend on a more consistent basis, that is. We’re definitely a contending team most of the weeks we just need to be a contending team every week.”
“Ken Massa and M3, they’re the type of people that don’t spare an expense,” Bonsignore said. “They want to win races. We do what we have to do to get ourselves in position to be there. Sometimes we don’t get the luck. … Sometimes we make our own bad luck with things either of my doing or a call in the pits, engine failure. It’s just racing situations. Sometimes things don’t go our way. But as we come across things that may hurt our team we prepare next time so that will never happen again but you’re always coming up with different scenarios.”
Bonsignore analyzed the competition during the preseason. “You look at the top 10 and you just got to think anyone of them if they start rambling off wins could do it,” Bonsignore said. “You got (Ryan) Preece is going to be tough. Doug’s (Coby) going to a new ride. He’s going to be extremely tough. (Ron Silk) is always right there. The four (car) they’re always up there. If I just looked at the list of points right now, you could probable ramble the whole top 10 maybe top 15. There’s not a huge car count anymore but there is still a ton of competitive race cars every week that can win on any given week. I’d like to throw myself in there. I’ve got to be confident enough to think that our team is good enough to do that. And I think if everything goes our way that we could be on top.”
Bonsignore entered the season optimistic for a few wins and the hope of a strong season. “We’ve been close at nearly every race track,” Bonsignore said. By running additional races on the Valenti Modified Racing Series, Bonsignore hopes that it will help him progress at more tracks.”I’m at the point where it needs to be,” Bonsignore said. “We really need to start showing how strong of a team we are. We are a really good team I feel we just need to put the package together.”
Bonsignore will also drive a limited schedule at Riverhead Raceway.
“I love going to Riverhead,” Bonsignore said. “It’s stressful at times – racing there it’s a tight little quarter mile. It’s tough. You get frustrated some nights but when they open up the pit area for the fans and everything to come in at the end of the night, and you see all the fans that come in and they’re always wishing that you could come back and run more and stuff like that. It’s cool to see and it’s cool to hear.”
The goal with entering Riverhead events it to help with the setup for the tricky 1/4 mile oval, home to two NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events. “Honestly (Ryan) Preece has got the place figured out the past couple of years,” Bonsignore said. “We had it really good a few years ago. I mean we’re right there. We finished second I think two of the last three races in the tour. We’re close but I would like to race there as much as possible just to keep working on our setup and get it a little bit back to where we were a few years ago. We can always improve, I feel so it comes back to the seat time. You’re never going to lose out by being in the seat more so as many times as I can race I will race this year as long as the teams are able to have the funding for it.”
Bonsignore will make his debut this weekend for legendary car owner Art Barry at Waterford Speedbowl. Bonsignore will be competing full time on the the Valenti Modified Racing Series in the #21 SPAFCO car. The team won the championship in 2012 with Jon McKennedy.
“It’s something I’ve been looking to do for the last few years,” Bonsignore said. “… I need seat time. I’m really looking forward to racing a lot of the same tracks that the (Whelen Modified) Tour goes to with the MRS series. … I think it’ll benefit me and the entire tour team by getting seat time with the MRS car. It’s going to be fun, doing a lot of traveling.”
Bonsignore’s opportunity to drive for the NEAR Hall of Famer goes back to Bill Michael. Michael is Bonsignore’s Car Chief on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour who worked previously for SPAFCO. He helped introduce Bonsignore to the Barrys. Bonsignore was going to drive for Barry last year due to a rainout that McKennedy could not attend.
“My relationship with the Barry family has picked up over the last year and a half to two years,” Bonsignore said. “We do a lot of business back and forth. I became pretty good friends with Kenny (Barry) and then got to know Art a little bit as well. I got to meet him at a few of the races … and we just kept in contact and we spoke over the early part of the winter and one thing led to another.”
Bonsignore said that he and Barry are excited about the new combination. Bonsignore points to the benefits of gaining seat time with a SPAFCO car.
“It’s pretty awesome and it’s pretty humbling to be chosen to drive a car like that,” Bonsignore said.
Bonsignore will also be driving a car that one his favorite drivers had success with. Mike Ewanitsko drove for Barry from 1994 to 1995 and again from 1998 to 2000. He collected 13 victories and two runner-up points finishes.
“It’s going to be really cool to drive for the same team that Michael did. I grew up watching Michael as a kid running at Riverhead and stuff like that. And then he’s actually good friends and neighbors with my owner Ken Massa from the M3 team so we see him at parties over the summer and stuff and always hanging out. Mike talks highly of me and it’s just weird to me for somebody like that to talk like that. He’s just a really good time, a lot fun to hang out with.”
Bonsignore is the fourth Long Islander to win the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season opener: 1986-Rougemont, Charlie Jarzombek; 1989-Martinsville, Mike Ewanitsko; 1996-Thompson, Steve Park; 1999-Thompson, Mike Ewanitsko.
Bonsignore is confident about joining the #21 SPAFCO team. “They’re still a championship caliber team,” Bonsignore said. “They have great equipment. All the resources you could think of, being the SPAFCO house car. I feel that the team is definitely a championship winning team or I wouldn’t have chosen to go there.”
“Their notebook is older than I am,” Bonsignore said. “These guys have been racing a long, long time and they know what to do to make their cars fast. … I’m fairly confident that we’re going to be a strong team. I got to go into it thinking that we can contend. I’m really excited to get it going.”
Bonsignore will have to adapt to the Valenti Modified Racing Series this season. The VMRS uses heat races to set the field compared to time trials for the Whelen Modified Tour. The series also does not allow new tires during their events. All cars will be using a harder tire compound this season. Bonsignore also has three new tracks on the schedule: Airborne, Lee USA and Seekonk.
“I just hope that I can adapt to this style of racing and get up to speed,” Bonsignore said. “… As long as I can adapt to running with the tire and keeping the tire on the car. … With the tire combination change, the compound change, everybody is kind of back to square one. I really won’t be at too much of a disadvantage.”
“It’s a tough series,” Bonsignore said. “There’s a lot of competition. A lot of the Whelen guys run the same races, and on top of that just the guys that run that series on a weekly basis – the Pasteryaks, … they’re tough to beat. The Masses, Tommy Barrrett, you can go on and on with the guys that are fast over there every week. So it’s going to be tough but like I said, everything there with that team has championship written all over it.”
Bonsignore is eager to return to Monadnock Speedway, where he won last year’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event. (Monadnock) “is a real good one for us,” Bonsignore said. “We’ve run excellent every time we go there.”
Bonsignore is hopeful that he could enter World Series weekend at Thompson with a chance to win two championships. “I think that would be really awesome,” Bonsignore said. “Hopefully we can contend for a lot of wins as well. … “That’s the ultimate goal but racing like many sports there’s a lot of variables so you never know where you’re going to be at come October.”
“You got to look at them as two totally different things,” Bonsignore said. “… You never know one series you could go out and win eight races the other series you could go out and have eight DNFs. We just hope that both series go really great, minimize all our bad finishes as much as possible.”
“I’m really excited to be able to have two great rides with two top teams in two top series,” Bonsignore said. “It’s awesome to have people think that highly of you to keep you in their race car. … It’s a humbling feeling. I don’t really feel as myself as somebody that should be guaranteed a seat. … I’m not the person to just assume it’s going to happen.”
Bonsignore is also interested in racing an SK Modified at Stafford. “Honestly, I would love to get a ride to do something up at Stafford with the SK division,” Bonsignore said. “With my normal nine to five job, it might be tough to do that much racing but then again you’re up in that area a lot of weekends already. … If a team approached me about doing some racing at Stafford, I wouldn’t be against it.”
Stafford Motor Speedway reached out to Bonsignore earlier this week on Twitter following his Thompson win.
“Congrats to @JBonsignore on his win at Thompson, can we find him an SK ride for the @NAPAKnowHow SK 5K? #stackedfield #prettymuchatourrace #sk.” Bonsignore responded “@StaffordSpeedwy @NAPAKnowHow now that sounds like a(n) idea, my phone is always on! #letsmakeadeal”
Although he does not know what car he is driving, Bonsignore is “99 percent sure” he will enter the Tri Track Series races at Lee USA, Star and Seekonk.
Sources: Nicholas Teto/YankeeRacer.com