Doug Coby Searching for Additional Performance Leading into Coors Light SK Modified® 80
Stafford Springs, CT — Prior to the 2013 SK Modified® season at Stafford Motor Speedway, defending Whelen Modified Tour champion Doug Coby reunited with Glenn Johnson and the #15 Morrison and Johnson team, which Coby last drove for in 2009. Coby won 2 races driving for Johnson in 2008 and 2009 and he has come close to winning several times this year with a second and two third place finishes thus far. Coby says he and his crew are still searching for a car setup that will put them at the head of the field and into CARQUEST Victory Lane this season.
“We’re fairly fast each week, but we’re still lacking something not only to compete with Ryan [Preece} but also to make ourselves happy at the end of the night,” said Coby. “We’re still trying stuff and we make a little progress and then we take a couple steps back after that. We’re finishing races, which is good, and we’re just as competitive as everyone else is except for Ryan, but we want to find a little more of an edge and we’re working on that.”
As Coby and the #15 team prepare for the extra distance 40th Annual Coors Light SK Modified® 80 Xtra Mart Xtra D on July 19th, he and the #15 team are enduring some new team blues, but he is confident they will find the extra speed they need to be contenders for race victories.
“It’s been a long time for Glenn [Johnson] to get back to the track and it’s a basically new team because we’ve combined a lot guys from Lou Mattesen’s team and Zach Sylvester’s old team,” said Coby. “We’ve only been at this for 7 or 8 races now so we’re putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to run fast because we think we have a package that could be in the top-3 every week. I think we’re right there on the doorstep to doing that, but we have to learn the car a bit more and learn what it needs on a hot summer night. We’ve been throwing stuff at it and hopefully this Friday will help us out to get the car ready for the 80-lapper next week.”
With the race being twice as long as a normal SK Modified® feature, Coby doesn’t feel like any one SK team will have an advantage over the longer distance. But in his team’s search for speed, the 80-lap race could be just what they need to solve the speed puzzle.
“Half of the SK field has either Whelen Modified Tour or Modified Racing Series experience and the rest of the guys have been at this game for a long time, so they’re not going to get freaked out by a couple of extra laps,” said Coby. “Really there isn’t an advantage for anyone. I’d like to think that our car has gotten better at the end of the 40-lap races and if that trend can continue and we get a solid 30 or 40 lap run, our car can shine in the 80-lapper.”
With the level of competition at an all-time high in the SK Modified® division this season, Coby has turned to an unlikely ally in the search for the magic car setup combination.
“I think it was the second or third week of the season we had the dominant car that night, but since then we’ve been about a second to seventh place car each week,” said Coby. “We saw that one week already the car was pretty dominant and fast wherever we wanted the car to go, so it’s capable of doing it. It’s just a matter of finding out what the car wants for the track now in mid-July versus what it wanted in early May. It’s tough! The track changes a lot and you kind of get stuck in your ways. I think we all have different ways of approaching the game of setting the car up and sometimes you just need one small idea from outside of your clique to make things stick with you and go in the right direction. We’re all so secret about our setups and you don’t want to bring too many people in to see what you’re doing if you should happen to find that rocket setup. I’ve been talking with Keith Rocco because we’ve kind of both not been to thrilled with our cars, so we’ve opened up a little about what we’re trying so we don’t both try the same things. We don’t run the same setups, but it’s interesting to hear what his frustrations have been along with what mine have been.”
The 40th Annual Coors Light SK Modified® 80 Xtra Mart Xtra D event is scheduled for July 19th. Tickets are priced at $20.00 for adult general admission, $5.00 for children ages 6-14 general admission, and Free for Children ages 5 & under. Reserved seating is available for $23.00 for all ages. All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission Tax. As always, Stafford Motor Speedway offers free parking with overnight parking available.
For more information, 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