Ron Silk dominates at Thompson, earns 30th NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory

THOMPSON, Conn. — Even though Ron Silk is now a part-time competitor on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, he will end the 2025 season with more victories than any other driver.

Silk clinched that distinction in Saturday‘s World Series 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park by leading half the event for his fourth victory this year. With his dominant performance, Silk became the eighth driver in NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour history to tally at least 30 wins.

RELATED: Complete results from the World Series 150

The two-time series champion pulled away to earn the win with an eight-second advantage at the checkered flag. While Silk did not expect the final margin of victory to be that wide, he possessed plenty of optimism about winning the World Series 150 once he got comfortable.

“We just had a great car,” Silk said. “We didn‘t qualify great in 11^th, but I knew the way it practiced and even how it drove in qualifying that I‘d be able to get it to the front. It was probably a weird race for the fans, and I‘m sure they would have liked to see some excitement there toward the end, but it was pretty good from my seat.”

Thompson has long carried plenty of significance for Silk throughout his storied career. He earned his first three Modified Tour victories at the track between 2007-08 and has now visited Thompson‘s Victory Lane on nine different occasions.

The first time Silk prevailed at Thompson with his current team in Haydt-Yannone Racing in 2023 also proved to be a special moment. Finding himself in the middle of a heated championship battle with Justin Bonsignore, Silk‘s victory that afternoon was crucial toward his earning his second Modified Tour title.

Voluntarily skipping several events this year meant another championship was off the table for Silk and Haydt-Yannone Racing, yet they remained one of the most potent combinations on Tour. Not only does Silk have the most wins in 2025, but he has also led the most laps, a statistic he bolstered at Thompson on Saturday.

Silk is grateful for the chemistry he shares with everyone at Haydt-Yannone Racing and how the program continues to be efficient despite scaling back to part-time. No matter the number of events they run in a Modified Tour season going forward, Silk takes pride in knowing he and Haydt-Yannone Racing remain atop the pedestal.

“I thought there were a couple [of races] we could have won earlier in the year, but you don‘t want to get greedy,” Silk said. “Four [wins] was good for the amount we ran, and we‘re happy with it.”

Matt Swanson was the closest driver to Silk in the closing stages, earning a distant-but-stellar second at Thompson. By finishing runner-up to Silk, Swanson clinched the FloRacing Connecticut Challenge, an in-season championship between the three Thompson events exclusive to new teams or programs that have not competed in the past three years.

Modified Tour points leader Austin Beers departed Thompson with a slightly larger margin over Justin Bonsignore. After methodically biding his time behind Bonsignore for most of the second half, Beers finally overtook the veteran driver to come home in third.

The rest of the top five consisted of Matt Hirschman and Craig Lutz. Bonsignore, Kyle Bonsignore, Patrick Emerling, Tyler Rypkema and Stephen Kopcik rounded out the top 10.

One race remains before the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion will be crowned. Martinsville Speedway hosts the season-ending Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200 on Oct. 23, with FloRacing carrying live coverage of all the on-track action.

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