Jon McKennedy is one of the most accomplished Modified racers across the Northeast.
The success he‘s had, however, hadn‘t found its way to the Whelen Modified Tour heading into the 2020 season.
Sure, McKennedy has dominated other Modified series. He‘s won the Modified Racing Series title four times and the Tri-Track Series title in 2014. It just hasn‘t quite come on the Tour yet, where he has just one win, at Myrtle Beach in 2018.
For the first time, however, McKennedy took on the entire Tour schedule with car owner and crew chief Tommy Baldwin.
Baldwin and McKennedy have been working together on the Tour since the 2018 season, racing the series part-time. In their first race together, McKennedy picked up his first career win.
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But the results after that were somewhat sporadic. In 11 more races they ran in 2018, the No. 7 team failed to finish five of them. 2019 was better, but running only eight races of the 16 on the schedule kept the team from reaching its full potential.
The 2020 season was different, however. The No. 7 team made the decision in the offseason to run all the races on the schedule. Even after the pandemic hit, Baldwin and McKennedy were still able to complete the entire season.
“The more you get to race with the same group of guys, the more you get to learn how they race, their habits, good and bad,” McKennedy said. “Racing against the competitors makes a difference the longer you race against them.”
The improvements the pairing have worked on the last three years together were apparent immediately. Besides Justin Bonsignore, McKennedy was the only driver to finish inside the top-10 in all nine races in 2020, finishing second in points overall. He set career-highs for a single season in laps led, top-10s, poles, and average finish. The only boxes left unchecked were the points title itself and a race win.
“We didn‘t get that win last year, but we certainly ran very well,” McKennedy said.
“This year, I think we‘ve got a lot of momentum to build on from last year and a lot of good notes… We‘re going to try to do one position better.”
The focus isn‘t quite on the 2021 Whelen Modified Tour season just yet, however. Next week, McKennedy and Baldwin will be one of the 40-plus Modified teams to compete in the Tour Modified Division in the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna, just 10 miles from Daytona International Speedway. Of course, cars will be turning laps at Daytona as well, with the Daytona 500 coming up a week from Sunday. Baldwin went to victory lane there in the 2002 running of The Great American Race as Ward Burton‘s crew chief.
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To get back racing in a Modified for the first time since October has McKennedy, much like the rest of the garage, excited.
“Whenever you can win any type of Tour Modified event, it‘s something to be proud of,” McKennedy said “It‘s probably going to be one of the strongest fields of cars we‘ve seen in a long, long time. If you can crack out a win or two down there, that‘ll certainly be huge and be some pretty cool bragging rights for sure.
“We‘ve got a ton of cars coming down, which is great. It‘s going to bring out some of the best there is in Modifieds.”
The World Series of Asphalt may not just be about bragging rights for Jon McKennedy. It may be the catalyst for a Whelen Modified Tour championship run in 2021.
