When Donny Lia steps to the podium Friday to accept the
trophy as the 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion, he will
extend a lineage of championship drivers that dates back not
only to the beginning of the Whelen Modified Tour in 1985 but
even further back, to the earlier days of NASCAR.
As NASCAR’s oldest division, the Modified division have
always held a special place in NASCAR history. In 2008, both
NASCAR and the Modifieds will celebrate their 60th year of
racing. And Friday, as Lia is crowned the newest champion, he
will be surrounded by some of the sport’s greatest drivers.
Sixteen NASCAR Modified champions, representing 34
championships, have confirmed their attendance at the 2007
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour awards banquet Friday at the Mohegan
Sun Resort in Uncasville, Conn.
Among those attending will be 1952 NASCAR Modified Division
champion Frankie Schneider who, at 81, is the oldest living
Modified champion. The New Jersey driver won hundreds of races
in a career that spanned more than five decades. He is just two
months older than Ernie Gahan. Gahan won the 1966 NASCAR
Modified championship in a 1936 Chevrolet coupe.
Other champions from the pre-Tour era scheduled to attend are
former NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series champion Bobby Allison, Jack
Choquette, Bugs Stevens and Jerry Cook. Eighteen years before he
won the Cup Series title, Allison captured the second of his
back-to-back NASCAR Modified championships (1964-65). Choquette
won the 1954 Modified Division championship and his grandson
Jeff is now a championship ASA Late Model driver. After
finishing second to Gahan in 1966, Stevens won three straight
NASCAR championships from 1967-‘69. And Cook, now a Competition
Administrator for NASCAR, won six Modified Division
championships (1971-‘72, 1974-’77).
The NASCAR Whelen Modified era, which began with the
formation of the Tour in 1985, will be well- represented as well
with Mike McLaughlin, Mike Stefanik, Jamie Tomaino, Jeff Fuller,
Rick Fuller, Wayne Anderson, Tony Hirschman Jr., Jerry Marquis,
Todd Szegedy and Lia.
Stefanik’s nine NASCAR championships – including seven on the
Whelen Modified Tour – ties him with the late Richie Evans,
another Modified great, for the record for the most NASCAR
titles. Hirschman has won five. The Fuller brothers won
back-to-back years (Jeff in 1992 and Rick in 1993). McLaughlin
(1988) won the first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour on a
superspeedway with his victory at New Hampshire in 1990.
Tomaino (1990) has made more starts than any other driver in
Modified Tour history, while Marquis followed up a NASCAR Whelen
All-American Series regional title driving an SK Modified at
Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway in 1999 with a NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour championship in 2000. Anderson teamed with veteran
car owner Len Boehler to capture the 1994 championship. And
Szegedy was the youngest driver to win the Whelen Modified Tour
title with his 2003 championship.
As the 2007 champion, Lia will receive a special championship
trophy introduced this year by NASCAR and series sponsor Whelen
Engineering. The trophy features the names of all the NASCAR
Modified champions dating back to 1948. With Friday’s gathering
of champions, NASCAR is set to kick off a year-long celebration
of the 60 years of Modified racing for 2008.
Source: Jason
Christley/NASCAR PR
Posted:
December 11, 2007
