Coby Takes Coors Light Pole Award at Seekonk

Three-time and defending NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Doug Coby of Milford, CT captured his eighth pole of the season in qualifying for tonight’s AnytimeRealty.com 150 at Seekonk (MA) Speedway. Coby’s most recent visit here saw him sweep the Tri-Track Open Modified Series NEMA Midgets in June. Coby set fast time of 12.179 seconds around the .333-mile oval for an average speed of 97.545 MPH.

https://youtu.be/7mz4vDn3Avc

“We’re obviously really happy to start up front. We were a little uncertain what we had , weren’t really happy with the mock time trial run at all and these tour tires are a lot harder than the open show tires. So it’s kind of throwing everybody for a curveball, I think. We just keep adjusting on the car and even made more adjustments for time trials just to throw something at it so we’re obviously really happy that winning the pole aside the car handled really well in the two laps which it didn’t on the mock run so were really ecstatic for that and think that now with our regular feature adjustments well have a good car for 150 laps.

“We just keep adjusting on the car and even made more adjustments for time trials just to throw something at it. So we’re obviously really happy that winning the pole, aside the car handled really well in the two laps, which it didn’t on the mock run. So we’re really ecstatic for that and think that now with our regular feature adjustments well have a good car for 150 laps.”

The team persevered through practice to get Coby another pole. Coby was tenth in the final practice where teams ran mock qualifying runs.

“We just always talk and always change and always tinker and tweak. And I think people think we just show up and we’re a rocket and were a tenth faster than everybody. But the reality is today we struggled in both practices just like we did at the open show. We weren’t happy all day at the open show and then for the heat race they made some significant changes. So we’re really good at communicating and I try to tell them what’s a winning car and what’s not and up until now I don’t think we had a winning car and then obviously you go out and win a pole like that ‘Okay now we’re on the right track.’ I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it’s really a lot of on the fly stuff with us.”

Rob Summers will start on the outside pole over Justin Bonsignore, Donny Lia, and Eric Goodale. Timmy Solomito, Bobby Santos III, Matt Hirschman, Max Zachem, and Ron Silk rounded out the top 10.

Coby is concerned about the harder tire the series uses than the Valenti Modified Racing Series or open competition events.

“I think the cars are lacking side bite ad if it could be a good show. I think it will be a slow pace and it still will be a good show for the fans or its gonna be a lot of cautions ’cause I think a lot of guys are gonna have free racecars and you’re gonna see a lot of single car spins of somebody tapping somebody and them getting way out of shape and then spinning out. So I hope that that doesn’t happen, but if it does happen I think it’s just a byproduct of just way too hard of a tire for a track that is really hard to get going here. We don’t use all of our cars here. We don’t use all the horsepower. It’s not a typical Modified track and the open show and the MRS (Modified Racing Series) just have a lot softer right side tires and left side tires too. So it’s just a different handling characteristic. I think we all should be able to control it, but I know there’s a lot of guys that can’t be too happy with how their cars are handling.”

It is the series first visit since 2005.

While Coby finished fifth in the 2005 race, most of the top 10 have experience at Seekonk. Summers has competed in Modifieds and Supermodifieds. Bonsignore has run well in the Valenti Modified Racing Series. Donny Lia has a pair of top tens in his prior NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races here including a sixth place average finish.  Santos and Hirschman have won here before. Zachem and Silk have competed in Modified races here. Eric Goodale and Timmy Solomito have never competed here.

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