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NASCAR
Whelen Modified Tour
When NASCAR began more than 50 years ago, teams were permitted
to “modify” their passenger cars for better
performance. In fact, NASCAR’s very first event, held
on the beach-road course in Daytona Beach, Fla., was a Modified
race. During the 1950s and 60s, these cars developed innovative
suspension systems, better engines, sophisticated bodies
and soon, the cars looked and drove like nothing else in
NASCAR. That tradition of innovation continued throughout
the 70s and 80s, culminating in today’s NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour, which was officially founded in 1985.
Whelen Engineering, a Connecticut-based manufacturer of
emergency lighting and signaling devices, becomes this division’s
title sponsor in 2005.
As the only open-wheeled division of NASCAR, the cars in
this popular tour are unique in many ways. NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour cars weigh 2,610 pounds and have a wheelbase
of 107 inches. Whelen Modified Tour cars drive on wide Hoosier
bias-play tires, while power is provided by “small
block” 350 to 360 cubic-inch engines.
The Whelen Modified Tour has competed throughout Maine,
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York,
on tracks ranging in size from a quarter-mile, to the 1.058-mile
oval at New Hampshire International Speedway.
Notable Modified Tour graduates include drivers –
Jimmy Spencer, Steve Park, Geoffrey Bodine, Jeff Fuller
and Mike McLaughlin, to name a few – and crew chief
Tommy Baldwin Jr.
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