The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour heads to the northeast corner of Connecticut for the first of two trips to the big 5/8-mile oval of Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park this season on Wednesday night. NASCAR officials recently released the entry list for Wednesday’s Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com.

Wednesday’s race will be the 151st visit to Thompson for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, the most of any track since the series inaugural season in 1985. The very first race for the modern version of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour took place at Thompson as well, with “the King of the Modifieds” Richie Evans taking the win on March 31, 1985.

This week’s 150-lap showdown under the lights will be the first of two visits to Thompson. The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will return to Thompson on Sunday, October 8 for the penultimate race of the season.

Co-headlining the entry list for this week’s race is the two most recent winners at Thompson with the Tour. Those drivers, of course, are Eric Goodale and Craig Lutz.

Goodale scored the win in the fall race at Thompson last year, which was his first ever win at Thompson.

“I’ve been racing here since I’ve been 20 years old and have never won here. This one is for my dad. He has wanted this race track more than anything. This is freaking awesome,” Goodale said in victory lane last October.

Prior to Goodale’s trip to victory lane in October it was Lutz who had a stranglehold on Thompson’s victory lane. The Miller Place, New York driver has four career NWMT victories, and half of them have come at Thompson. Lutz’s first Thompson win came in 2020, when he led 42 of the 150 laps during that year’s World Series of Speedway Racing. Lutz backed that win up by thoroughly dominating last August’s return to Thompson. Lutz led 119 of the 150 laps that night.

The 2022 races at Thompson were a bit rough for points leader Ron Silk. Really, the only three blemishes that Silk had in 2022 were the two Thompson races and a hard crash at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. If just one of those three races went better, we’d probably be calling Silk a two-time champion. Silk was caught up in two incidents with eventual champion Jon McKennedy last August, which left him to settle for a 12th-place finish that night. Then in October, Silk finished ninth, one lap down. 

Normally, Thompson is a track that fits Silk’s strengths. The 2011 champion has a total of five victories throughout his career at Thompson, with his most recent win there coming in August of 2020. In fact, the first three wins of Silk’s career all came at Thompson in 2007 and 2008.

Thompson is also a track of strength for six-time NWMT champion, Doug Coby. Coby’s win total at Thompson matches his championship total as the Milford, Connecticut driver has seen Thompson’s victory lane six time in NWMT competition. Coby’s first win there came back in 2011, and his most recent triumph came in 2019. Five of Coby’s victories at Thompson came with crew chief Phil Moran, who is now the crew chief for Silk.

That leads us to three-time NWMT champion, Justin Bonsignore. While many think that Riverhead Raceway is Bonsignore’s best race track, a better argument can be made for Thompson. Coby and Silk have 11 wins at Thompson between the two of them. Bonsignore still has more. Bonsignore has a total of 12 victories at Thompson, which puts him third on the all-time NWMT win list at this historic oval. Even though Bonsignore hasn’t seen victory lane there since 2019, it would be a shock to absolutely nobody if his No. 51 parks it on Wednesday night.

Wednesday’s Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com will be broadcast live on FloRacing, as will the entire NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season, as part of a FloRacing subscription. Race fans can subscribe by clicking here.

NWMT Thompson 150 Entry List