After more than a month off, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is set to brush the dust off and help break the ice on the racing season in the northeast. NASCAR’s oldest division heads to one of the oldest tracks in the country, Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in Thompson, Connecticut, for the annual Icebreaker 150. 

NASCAR officials just released the entry list for Sunday afternoon’s showdown, which sees more than 30 drivers entered for the second race of the season. Last year the Icebreaker was the third race of the year for the Modified Tour, and it had just 24 cars entered. This year’s race has nine more teams entered than last year, which is a solid boost for the series.

Headlining the entry list nearly every week, and especially for races at the ⅝-mile Thompson, is four-time champion Justin Bonsignore. The Long Islander has a chance to make more history this week as he can tie Mike Stefanik for the most wins in NWMT competition at Thompson. A victory Sunday would give Bonsignore 15 checkered flags here and 46 victories in total across his entire NWMT career. Bonsignore’s first win at Thompson came all the way back in 2012, and was just the second victory of Bonsignore’s stellar career. 

Another driver that typically headlines any entry list he’s on is the newly crowned “King of the Modifieds,” Matt Hirschman. But surprisingly, Hirschman is still chasing his first NWMT victory at Thompson Speedway. Hirschman has nine NWMT victories on his list of accomplishments, but none have come at Thompson. And what makes that so surprising is how strong Hirschman is at New Smyrna Speedway, a track that almost everybody says is the most similar to Thompson. Could this weekend be the weekend? Nobody would be surprised if that’s the case, especially with the momentum that The King has on his side.

Speaking of New Smyrna and Thompson, the winner at New Smyrna last month was Patrick Emerling, who put in a drive for the ages that night. Emerling qualified tenth but had to start in the back and drove all the way through the field to the lead by lap 206. Emerling then drove away from Craig Lutz and Justin Bonsignore on an Overtime restart to win by more than three-tenths of a second. Emerling then went on to win a majority of the Modified races held during the rest of the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna as well, so if New Smyrna and Thompson really are that similar, the field better watch out for Emerling’s No. 1 machine on Sunday afternoon.

Another driver to keep an eye on this weekend based on last month’s race at New Smyrna is 18-year-old rookie, Luke Baldwin. The grandson of “Tiger Tom” Baldwin won the pole for the season opener at New Smyrna, and then went on to lead 67 laps (the most of anybody) before finishing fourth thanks to a botched pit strategy. Sunday’s race will cap off a big weekend for Baldwin that will see him run three races across three days in two different states. Baldwin will make his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut on Friday night at Martinsville Speedway for ThorSport Racing. He will then head north to Thompson to run the season opener for the Monaco Modifieds Tri-Track Series behind the wheel of the Ryan Preece Racing No. 40 on Saturday. Then he will run Sunday’s 150-lap race with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour behind the wheel of the No. 7NY that his grandfather made famous.

The entire entry list for Sunday’s Icebreaker 150 can be found below.

Sunday’s race is the second of 16 races in 2025 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Race fans can watch the entire season live on FloRacing with a FloRacing subscription by clicking here.

NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour At Thompson Speedway Entry List