LEE, N.H. — Matt Hirschman cruised to victory in Saturday night’s Granite State Derby NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at Lee USA Speedway.
After passing polesitter Doug Coby on lap three, Hirschman easily pulled away from the field to score his sixth NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour win.
One of the most accomplished Modified competitors of the past decade, Hirschman has endured struggles trying to find victory lane on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, which is why he was elated to have such an efficient performance at Lee USA.
“We finally closed one,” Hirschman said. “These races are tough to win, and I feel like we should have had five or six of them in recent years. When the car was good enough to win, we either didn’t have a good pit stop, or maybe the driver wasn’t good enough to win.
“We finally put it all together, and it was a complete performance right from the drop of the green.”
Prior to Saturday evening, the season in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour had been inconsistent by Hirschman’s standards.
After finishing inside the top five in all seven of his starts last year while also leading 384 total laps, the only lap Hirschman had led entering the Granite State Derby came at New Smyrna Speedway, which was also the site of his lone top-five finish in the first three races.
Hirschman assembled a vintage performance Saturday by methodically conserving his equipment while simultaneously minding a healthy gap between him and second place. Yet he nearly received a late challenge in the form of defending Modified Tour champion Jon McKennedy.
Lapped traffic briefly stalled Hirschman’s momentum and allowed McKennedy to erase the sizable gap he had accumulated over the field. Once Hirschman found clean air, there was nothing McKennedy could do to mount a successful charge toward the lead.
Despite feeling disappointment over coming up one spot short to Hirschman, the Granite State Derby was McKennedy’s third straight finish inside the top three.
“A yellow would have been nice,” McKennedy said. “[Hirschman] was kind of maintaining that three or four car-length lead during those last 10 laps. Congratulations to Matt and his team. They’ve been doing this a long time. It was a long day [for us], but we were pretty much a top-five car and ended up second.”
Placing third behind Hirshcman and McKennedy was Austin Beers, who tallied his third top five of the year in his sophomore campaign.
Sam Rameau and Ron Silk finished fourth and fifth, respectively, with Coby, Jake Johnson, Kyle Bonsignore, Justin Bonsignore and Tommy Catalano completing the top 10.