Thursday the Whelen Modified Tour faithful ventured to Thompson International Speedway. It has always seemed odd to me racing on Thursday nights but Thompson and Thunder Road have done it for years. Thompson gets a pretty good crowd for their Thursday night shows.

At a normal Thursday show at Thompson, observers will notice half empty grand stands. Promoters will notice twice the attendance compared to many of the short tracks running a Friday or Saturday show. I see a show that is run quickly to get the spectators home before the evening news is on.

Thompson also secured the sponsorship of our event from Charter Communications. Charter provides cable television, internet and phone services. Thank you to Charter for supporting Modified racing.

One thing that I figured would be on everyone’s lips at Thompson was the tweaking of the flash race format. NASCAR announced that there would be time trials prior to the Twin State show in Clermont, NH next month. The top twenty percent of the field in time would qualify without running a heat race. Modifications were made to counting caution laps as well. For a topic that had been such a lightning rod, I don’t remember a sole person talking about it.

Trivia! In my last article I asked a couple of trivia questions. No one got the answer but Kevin Reardon got closest to the pin. Steve Aspinwall serves as a tire specialist for the #22 Caterpillar team. Tracey Christiansen and Jason Kivette have also served in the same capacity for this team. Although there may be many things that differentiate these individuals, the answer I was looking for is that Tracey has a Daytona 500 ring for being a part of the 2002 team.

Those listening to the tower during the Charter Communications 150 heard what might have been an unfamiliar voice. I was told that the race was called by Whelen Southern Modified Tour Director, Mark Suddreth. If in fact that was Mark Suddreth, he did a fine job in his debut calling a WMT event.

All night, the Thompson Speedway officials were pushing the show along to get it in before a weather event that was imminent. One could feel a drop here or there before we got to the halfway point. Shortly after the caution flew on lap eighty-one, the precipitation began to pickup. All of the king’s horses and all the king’s men were not going to get this race started again.

The Mods paraded for nearly twenty laps until officials stopped counting the laps at one hundred. Finally the cars were brought to pit road where they were parked for several minutes until the track would be invariably lost to the weather. Mad dashes for car covers and tarps were punctuated by officials keeping crews away from the cars. Then it was over.

Like ESPN’s Stuart Scott might say Donny Lia and the Mystic Missile team are like butta, ‘cause they’re on a roll. Lia assumes the point lead after his third win in the first five races. There are few in our community who wouldn’t want to see Bob Garbarino get a chance to win a Whelen Modified Tour title. This just might be his year.

Donny pulled me aside as I walked out to the Villa Del Toro. He told me, “I’ve been thinking about the “Old Man” all day. We lost him on a Thursday night, just like this. And it’s raining.” He shook his head and smiled. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one thinking about that.

This week is a short one. We will all be together again for the New Hampshire 100 at NHIS in Loudon. Practice and qualifying will be on Thursday. We have the day off on Friday and race on Saturday. Our thanks go out to the staff at Thompson for doing everything possible to help us get our show in. We look forward towards a great weekend at the Bahre’s home on NH 106.