Bonsignore Trying to Rebound
Justin Bonsignore returns to Seekonk (MA) Speedway as the defending winner Saturday night.
Before last year’s Seekonk 150, he had run well but never captured a victory. He had 8 starts since 2014 with 4 top fives and 5 top 10s before his dominant 2018 run. He recorded 3 podium finishes in 2014, driving for NEAR Hall of Famer Art Barry on the Valenti Modified Racing Series.
Bonsignore won the pole for last year’s race, leading 100/150 laps. That improved his average finish to the best of active drivers, 3.0 in 3 NWMT starts.
NEAR Hall of Famer and 2-time track champion George Summers drove the Barry No. 21 at the end of his lengthy career. The Upton, MA driver passed away in January.
“I became good friends with George,” Bonsignore said. “It’s still really sad that we lost him. I became friends with George when I was driving for Art Barry and the 21 guys, and anytime he was at the track, he made it a point to come find me and we would talk for 10 minutes. And that was just really cool and really humbling for somebody like George and his wife to come up and want to talk to me and just shoot the breeze and talk about what they’ve been up to whether he’s playing golf or just anything or how my racing was going.
“It was pretty cool to finally get a win at Seekonk. Been close there in the MRS series a bunch of times that year and we were fast in that one Tri-Track race I ran, and then we’ve been really good in the tour races every year, just not perfect. And last year we were damn near perfect.”
Bonsignore had to contend with several former Seekonk winners including multi-time Tri-Track Open Modified Series champion Matt Hirschman and Valenti Modified Racing Series champion Anthony Nocella.
A good starting position can be important on the smaller tracks on the circuit. In the 9 series races held at Seekonk, the winner has not started worse than 6th.
“Obviously, Wall last week was quite the opposite. We spun out lead and both Doug (Coby) and myself kind of looked like we never drove race cars before and got caught up in some crashes. But typically, on a normal bullring being up front is pretty important. You can still win. I think Chase (Dowling) had a shot to win last year and he started like 15th at Seekonk. I’ve gotten wrecked and come back through at Riverhead, in a short amount of time never to maybe win but when you can start up front on the pole and control the restarts and control the pace of the race. It’s really, really beneficial. Now, obviously no pit stops, so you need to manage your tires and save everything to the best of your ability. And it definitely is a lot easier to handle that process from the lead, or at least the top two or three. It can be done but definitely makes your night a lot easier if you can do it from the pole.”
Seekonk, Thompson, and Riverhead were part of 3 wins in 4 races last season with a second at Langley. Twice last season he won 3 of consecutive 4 races with a worst finish of second.
“Wall Stadium was just a disaster on all fronts. But again, I put us in a bad spot by getting us spun out. It just boils down to last year, we had the racing luck going our way with restarts. if we needed to be in a certain lane, we got it. If we needed a caution at a certain time we got it. If we didn’t need a caution, it didn’t come. Pit crew would bail us out on days we needed a good pit stop. So been a slow start. But still early and the cars are undoubtedly faster this year. The cars are driving better. Ryan’s doing an amazing job, the team is doing an amazing job, everybody’s still really focused, and everything’s going really well, we just, we just have to get the luck turned around a little bit. And it just, it’s a tough part of this deal. you really can’t complain about things after the way last year when it’s hard to complain that you didn’t get a call go your way, whether it’s with NASCAR or you didn’t get in the right line on a restart or just anything. it is what it is. And we’re going to two really good tracks or the next three are probably our best three tracks on the series Seekonk, Thompson, and Riverhead. we’ll get this summer stretch started. And hopefully, we can have a good run this weekend and defend our win if possible and if not just have a really good solid day.
Next Wednesday is the Thompson 125 at Thompson (CT) Speedway Motorsports Park. Bonsignore is looking to extend his record to 6 consecutive wins. Bonsignore has a 10.3 average finish and top 10s in 9 of his last 11 starts. He is focused on putting himself back into contention. Another solid effort could do that.
“I don’t really put too much thought or emphasis into it at this point. I have thought about it and I think when I’m done racing one day, it’ll be something cool to talk about and remember and look back on. But obviously, the goal right now is to get ourselves some points here and get back in this deal. We’re not where we want to be right now going back to Thompson. It’s going to be the same way as when we went into the Icebreaker. We needed to have a good run and we’re really fast there, and Doug (Coby) was a little bit better, but we had some good fortune go our way.”
“It’s become obviously my best track, I feel more comfortable there than I do at Riverhead just because we go there and more times each year. I can unload off the truck and in the first lap or two of practice, I know what we got for the day and I know exactly how to break the corner down to every inch of the race track of what I need. I know what I need during the race to move around and find grip, and I just become really confident there. And confidence is a huge deal in the sport.
“But we got five in a row there. Obviously, I want to win six, I want to win 7. I want to win 8. I want to one day be the all-time leader in wins there. But we know at some point, it’s you’re not going to win 15. We might not win six in a row. It’s just you can’t. It’s not that easy to go back and just keep having these wins come. We got to be prepared for when the streak will end. And then, know that the next time we go back, we need to be able to try and start a new streak.
“It’s going to be tough to keep winning these races. The competition just gets tougher and tougher every race but we’ve been finding different ways to win at Thompson. We haven’t always had the dominant car. But we’ve had really, really good cars and the pit crew either saves the day, or we’ve had good racing luck go our way.”
Bonsignore said the team has continued to work on getting faster and changing the setups.
“I think our speed has increased since we won there. I think we’ve definitely hit on some more things. The last couple races haven’t had any results really to show for it but excited to go back to Thompson. I think we’ll get better as the year goes on. Hopefully, we can gain on Doug (Coby). I think he leapfrogged us in the speed department, maybe by a half a tenth. If we can gain a little bit back on them and be a little bit better this time around, I think we can control the pace. And hopefully, we can have the type of cars we had at the Icebreaker because our cars were really good compared to the rest of the field. But I know everybody else is going to be working just as hard. And, we gotta just keep working hard too to stay up in front of everybody or the best we can.”
“It’s definitely important to just keep digging and trying new things and not resting on your laurels because you are gonna fall behind. And that’s happened in the past other teams, and we’ve been pretty adamant about maintaining the attitude that you got to keep working hard, and you can’t just go back with the same setup every time and, and think it’s going to work. We know at some point, maybe if something we’re going to try, it might not be the greatest and we might struggle a little bit. But we were at the same time working hard to keep these setups to evolve more and get better. it’s important to keep doing that. Otherwise, you’re just going to get left in the dust and we don’t want to be left behind. We want to stay at the top and keep winning races if we can.”
Martinsville Speedway will return to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule for the first time since 2010. The .526-mile oval has held 35 races since 1985. Prior to that, it held annual Modified races for many years as part of the Cardinal and Dogwood 500 weekends. The Friday night 200-lap race will be more night racing as the series previously ran several times under temporary lighting.
“I’m really excited to go back there. I think just everything about it, and a lot of what they said in that press release was very accurate. I think the timing is great. I think being there with the cup cars, and just the cup cars only give us a bigger stage, than we usually race on it at those type of events, at Loudon or whatever, when we’re the third or fourth series there. I think it’s it’ll open eyes to new fans. You’ll get the cup guys that’ll want to watch and maybe one or two. I know Ryan’s (Preece) gonna race. Maybe somebody else will want to race one of those guys and put more eyes on our series, whether it’s fans, teams. Anything that could possibly help these younger drivers catch the eye of a team owner or something like that to keep moving their careers forward. I think it’s going to be a really good event. I think the lights are going to add a nice element to it.”
Bonsignore’s only experience at Martinsville came in the 200-lap race held on June 6, 2010.
“It was 95 degrees out and nobody wants to sit in the grandstands when it’s that hot. I think the night race, will bring in more fans. It’s on a different night than Bowman Gray. There’s just so many things to it that are better, were really thought out well. And I think NASCAR, and the track, and Clay there did a really great job of putting that whole deal together. And obviously, it remains to be seen how well it’ll work. But with a year to promote it, I think they’re going to do a really good job. And it would be nice for that to be turned to be an annual event.
“It’s kind of tough going down south so many times in the beginning of the year. But at the same time, it’s great for our series to get to new racetracks and we’ve had good crowds at Myrtle, South Boston, and I think this is going to be really good. Hopefully, I’ve seen that national series have a lot of changes, it sounds like coming on their end, but it sounds like this could be an annual deal for our series. And as long as the fans support it, and the race teams support it, it could be a really good, really good thing moving forward. And hopefully for the rest of my career, we are racing every year and hopefully one time, we can have a shot at a clock and that would be nice, something nice to have. I’ve seen Art Barry’s clock from Brett Bodine at Art’s house and something that I would love to have here at my house.”
Bonsignore started 16th and finished 2nd at Martinsville that day. The runner-up finish in his 6th start was his best finish until he won at Riverhead in 2011.
“I remember getting on track early in practice and being mesmerized by it. And obviously I was a rookie, so things seemed bigger and cooler and everything. Obviously, it’ll probably be a little more relaxed this time when we go back. It’ll be still the aura of walking into the track of with such great history, but, 10-11 years into it now you feel a little more relaxed and not such a fangirl of things when you walk into the place.
“I really enjoyed racing there. The track had a lot of grip. That race was an absolute wreck fest. … I think there was like 18 cautions. We were a rookie team and had a bad pit stop and I dragged the jack down pit road, got us a lap down. There was so many wrecks, we got the lucky dog back on the lead lap. And I actually watched some replays of it yesterday, when they made the announcement and just had some good restarts every restart, we were on the bottom for like the last five and just kept picking them off. And we were third on a green-white-checkered and my spotter at the time was really adamant about not roughing up (Mike) Stefanik who was second and being respectful. And if I had known it was the last shot at a grandfather clock for 10 years, I might have made it a little more aggressive moves. But still finished second. That was my best finish on the tour that up until that time and was really proud of that. It was cool to have everything that came along with that.
“I’m really excited to go back. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun and anytime we’re on a big stage like that, I think it’s great. If you look at the series now has, we have the musket race, we’re going back to Martinsville. There’s some big crown jewel events we’re going to have on this series again, and it’s something to be proud of, and something that makes you excited to race to race for when you have these big events on our schedule, and they’re trophies that you want to win 20 years from now you have these trophies, so want to try and win as many of them as possible. we’ve been fortunate enough to win it loud and Bristol so if we could get Martinsville that would be an amazing accomplishment.”
Since that rookie season the white and blue No. 51 developed into a title contender with 4 top five points finishes in the last 5 years. 21 wins have come since 2011, including 4 years with multiple wins, and wins in 8 of the last 9 seasons. Last year’s peak of 8 wins saw an amazing 3.4 average finish.
“We’ve come a long way in 10 years and had a lot of ups and downs a lot of blown motors and past cars and just lost opportunities on wins and been through a bunch of different chassis and crew chiefs. We’ve landed with Ryan (Stone, crew chief) now and just couldn’t be happier with where we’re at as a team. Our team works together amazingly, from top to bottom. Everyone on the crew is friends with each other. It’s like having another family with the group chat we have each day and just truly enjoy going to the racetrack and being with them.”
The frustrating race at Wall (NJ) Stadium illustrated how the team can still have fun despite the situation. Bonsignore said whether it’s a bad pit call or he wrecked the car, the focus is the next race instead of blaming someone. Bonsignore said that keeps the team focused and motivated.
“It’s like another family with these guys, and love them to death, and hopefully, we can continue racing together for many more years to come. But we’re definitely having fun in the process, and hopefully, we can just keep winning races together and have fun.”
Bonsignore has driven for Ken Massa Motorsports since 2010, all but 2 of his 142 starts. Despite some lean years, Bonsignore is thankful for Ken and Janine Massa’s support. Phoenix Communications has been with the team since 2016. The Shrewsbury, MA company stayed despite a “tough” 2017 season and received a championship in 2018.
“I think we owe a lot to them (Phoenix). We might not be here if it wasn’t for them and really thankful for their company and all their employees and everybody that comes out and supports us especially up at Thompson.”
A new sponsor joined the team this season, ClearCom IT Solutions of Sturbridge, MA. Bonsignore met President Rob Cleary at Stafford. The team uses LFR Chassis and Robert Yates Racing Engines. The product sponsors are also an important part of the equation.
“Hopefully we can get the summer off to a good start and get put things pointed in back in the right direction and make a run at it and try and try and defend what we won last year.”
The iRacing video game updated this week with a new NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and SK cars. Bonsignore has had an account for over 10 years and occasionally used it to stay sharp on off weeks.
The company scanned Bonsignore’s LFR car in March. Bonsignore worked with Kevin Iannarelli, a local racer and Associate Producer at iRacing. Iannarelli received Bonsignore’s feedback on tweaks, like how the car looks from the cockpit and how the car drives.
“To have them scan our car was a pretty cool honor. … It’s been a pretty cool process and hopefully, they can put together some cool things for the iRacing community with that now that it’s up to date and looks good.”
By: Nicholas Teto, Yankeeracer.com
Photo by Michael Rothwell