For the last year and a half, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour has felt like a two-horse race. Ron Silk versus Justin Bonsignore. Two championships versus three. Haydt Yannone Racing versus Ken Massa Motorsports. Phil Moran versus Ryan Stone. But not anymore. Patrick Emerling has arrived.

With three races to go before a champion is crowned, it is officially a three-man battle that will in all likelihood come right down to the final laps at Martinsville Speedway on October 26. 

Heading into Sunday’s World Series 150 at Connecticut’s Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, defending champion Silk leads Bonsignore by 11 points, and Emerling by 16 points. Oh, and who is the most recent winner at Thompson? Well, that would be one Patrick Emerling.

In fact, his win at Thompson in August is what kicked off this improbable run that we’re about to look at in detail.

Let’s take you back to mid-August when the Tour arrived at their garage stalls in Thompson on a nice but hot Wednesday. Silk led Bonsignore by one measely point with one of Bonsignore’s best race tracks as the site for their next showdown that evening. Emerling wasn’t even in the conversation. He was actually fourth in points at the time, 39 points back of Silk.

But Emerling went out and won the race that night. And he did so in extremely dominating fashion. Emerling led all 150 laps and won by 1.766 seconds over Bonsignore. Silk finished a distant seventh. Bonsignore took over the points lead by four over Silk, and Emerling jumped into third in points, gaining eight points in the process to now trail by 39 markers.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks to the next race at Upstate New York’s Oswego Speedway. Emerling won again, proving the Thompson win was no fluke. He had another max-points day as he led the most laps with 81. Bonsignore finished third and Silk finished fourth. Now Emerling trails Bonsignore by 24 points. A comeback is possible, but still not likely with the tracks coming up down the stretch.

Especially not with the Tour heading to Riverhead Raceway and Monadnock Speedway, two of Bonsignore’s three best tracks on the schedule. Silk ends up taking the win at Riverhead in controversial fashion as he and Bonsignore made hard contact late, which resulted in a pitiful 15th-place finish for Bonsignore at a track where he’s tied for most wins all-time. 

Emerling finished fourth at Riverhead, gaining points on Bonsignore, but losing a few to Silk in the process. Emerling left Long Island 26 points back of Silk, who retook the points lead.

That brings us to the most recent race, the third and final visit to “The Mad Dog” at Monadnock Speedway on September 21. On that night, Emerling proved to everyone that he is a legitimate contender for this championship.

Emerling started eighth, Silk started 12th and Bonsignore started fifth. But Emerling slowly and methodically worked his way through the field until he was able to take the lead from Matt Hirschman on Lap 191 of 200 and lead the rest of the way to his third victory on the season and third win in the last four races. 

Did he score max points again? No, but that’s okay. While he would have loved to have gotten another bonus point for leading the most laps, neither of Silk or Bonsignore led a single lap that night thanks to Hirschman and Craig Lutz who combined to lead the first 190 laps prior to Emerling. And on top of that, Silk finished seventh and Bonsignore right behind him in eighth.

That gave Emerling the big gain in the standings that he needed in order to have a realistic chance at winning his first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour title with three races remaining. 

So how good are Emerling’s chances now, you may ask?

Well, he’s still trailing, so there’s that. He only has one victory at Thompson compared to the 20 combined victories between Bonsignore and Silk there. And none of the top three in points have any wins at North Wilkesboro Speedway or Martinsville Speedway, so you can almost consider them all equals there, especially since 2024’s North Wilkesboro with the new pavement is very different from the North Wilkesboro everyone raced on last year. 

There’s also something to be said about momentum in racing. While it may feel like momentum is made out to be some mystical all-powerful being the way some people talk about it, there’s no denying that having positive momentum can be a driving force to success. And right now, Emerling and his team have all the positive momentum on their side.

It’s possible that this was all for naught and it remains a two-horse race heading to Martinsville after races at Thompson and North Wilkesboro. It’s also possible Silk could have it nearly all wrapped up heading into Martinsville. 

But that’s why they run the races, right?

No matter what happens, one thing is for certain: the fans are the winners here, because once again we’ve been treated to a captivating battle for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship.

The final three races of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season kick off with Sunday’s World Series 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET. 

All three remaining races can be seen live exclusively on FloRacing with a FloRacing subscription. Race fans can subscribe to FloRacing by clicking here.