When talking about the Mount Rushmore of NASCAR modified racing, three drivers immediately come to mind — Mike Stefanik, Jerry Cook and Richie Evans.
However, in the last 10 years, Connecticut’s Doug Coby has quietly made a case to be included in discussions about NASCAR’s greatest modified drivers.
The 40-year-old racer, who flips real estate when he’s not strapped in a race car, has won six of the last nine NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championships. During that same time period, Coby has scored 27 of his 28 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victories, more than any other driver in the last 10 years.
His six NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championships leave him tied with Cook for third on the all-time list behind seven-time champion Stefanik and nine-time champion Evans.
Being mentioned in the same breath as Cook, Stefanik and Evans is something Coby never thought possible when he began his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour career in 2002.
“I never really had high expectations,” he said. “The tour has always been super competitive. Back in ’02, it was Tony Hirschman, Ted Christopher, Mike Stefanik, John Blewett, a ton of guys, Ed Flemke, Rick Fuller, all these guys with experience. Decades of experience, not just a couple seasons.
“It was always just a big learning deal I guess.”
It wasn’t always checkered flags and championships for Coby. Much like any successful racer, he had to claw his way through the ranks. In fact, 10 years ago Coby was still struggling to find a full-time ride on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
After running most of the tour in 2003, Coby ran the full schedule from 2004 to ’06, earning his first victory at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 2006. But by the end of the season, he’d lost his ride with car owner Curt Chase.
“I never looked past the first win until I got the first win. The goal was how do you win another one? I went from 2006 to ’11 with only one win. During that time, I lost my full-time ride and I guess I would say from ’06 to ’11, the focus changed from getting my next win to getting in a full-time car,” Coby explained.
Coby picked up rides on the tour whenever he could. He drove for nine different teams during that time span. Finally, the opportunity he’d been looking for came in the form of team owner Wayne Darling, who turned over the reins of his No. 52 modified to Coby from 2011 through ’13.
Coby repaid Darling with eight victories and the 2012 series championship.
As it turned out, that was just the start of what ended up being an incredible run for Coby.
In 2014, he joined forces with team owner Mike Smeriglio III and together they were nearly unstoppable. During the next six seasons, they won five NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour titles and 19 races.
It’s those numbers that have put him in the same conversations as Cook, Stefanik and Evans. However, Coby has a difficult time believing he’s even in the same league as that trio of NASCAR modified kingpins.
“Those guys, they are legends because they are pioneers,” Coby said. “They built cars, they taught other people how to build cars. They designed entire setups and some geometry on our cars that we all still run today. That was a time in all of auto racing where whoever was the most innovative won races.
“Whoever found a way to squeak some more horsepower or run an entirely different engine package that may have 50 more horsepower, that was the era those guys are in,” Coby noted. “It was like the space race, who can get there first?
“It was a totally different time and I don’t necessarily know. I obviously wasn’t alive then to know how things would have been for a guy like me to race then. Probably not so good.”
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