After his team shut down back in June, nobody knew if or when reigning NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Jon McKennedy would be back on track. And that includes McKennedy himself. But this weekend at Oswego Speedway, McKennedy is back. At least for now.

McKennedy was approached by Gary Putnam to drive Putnam’s blue No. 77 modified at Upstate New York’s Oswego Speedway on Saturday evening for the Toyota Mod Classic 150, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour’s portion of the famous Classic Week.

The 2022 champion has been absent since finishing seventh at Seekonk Speedway in early June with rumors aplenty about why his team shut down. 

But for this week, at least, McKennedy will be back with the Tour, racing a car that has been driven four times this season by dirt racer Max McLaughlin. McLaughlin drove it to a third-place finish at Richmond Raceway back in April, and most recently he finished eighth in this car at the last NWMT race at Virginia’s Langley Speedway.

McKennedy posted on Facebook that he got a “few phone calls out of the blue the last few days,” with one of them being from Putnam with an offer to drive his car at Oswego this weekend. 

McKennedy, who is also a past ISMA Supermodified champion, also said he received a call from Dave Shullick about potentially filling in for Shullick in Sunday’s 200-lap Budweiser International Classic Supermodified race to cap off the big weekend at Oswego Speedway, but whether or not he’ll actually race that car still remains to be seen.

Race fans can find the entire entry list for Saturday’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Toyota Mod Classic 150 from Oswego Speedway here.

The entire weekend of action from Oswego Speedway, including the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour on Saturday, and the Budweiser International Classic on Sunday, will be streamed live on FloRacing. Fans can watch it all live with a FloRacing subscription, which can be purchased here.