The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour took their 2nd trip of three to famed 5/8 mile oval of Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in Thompson, Connecticut for their eleventh of sixteen races in 2026. Compared to what the tour has done at the short tracks where they spin a wheel for the redraw, they started them straight up at Thompson.

Patrick Emerling was trying to chase some history by winning 4 straight NWMT events heading into Wed essay Night at Thompson. However, from 1st Practice on it was clear that the PeeDee Motorsports #60 of “Big Money” Matt Hirschman was going to be the car to beat all day as he topped the charts in both practice sessions earlier in the day. Hirschman followed that up with a qualifying run of second on the outside of the defending tour champion Austin Beers.

The start of the Thompson 150 saw a shocking development in turn 1 of Lap 1 when the 79 of Jon McKennedy who entered Thompson third in the point standings 36 points back didn’t get going on the start and shuffled all the way to the back. McKennedy would take the 79 machine to pit road on Lap 2 while the team would try and get work done to it. Unfortunately by Lap 10 McKennedy’s team was unable to get the car fixed and their night would come to an early end. According to Jon McKennedy something broke on the car taking the green flag.

With McKennedy’s early end that’s when everyone knew the point standings would shuffle around from 3rd on back. Beers in the KLM Motorsports #64 was having a great run out front early on while Hirschman was stying close to the bumper of the 64. On Lap 30/150 it was Matt Hirschman taking the lead over Beers after a little bit contact between the two ensued down the backstretch out of Turn #2.

Hirschman would never lose the lead from that moment on as he was able to keep the rest of the field behind for the rest of the race even after the one and only caution could fly on Lap 60 for the 24 of Andrew Krause into the turn 1 wall which would be a single car incident. The leaders pitted under that caution and the PeeDee Motorsports team was able to change the right side tires quickly and get him out off pit road first ahead of the 58 of Eric Goodale, the 89 of Matt Swanson and the Energizer 1 of Patrick Emerling with Beers coming off pit road 5th. The 89 of Swanson would unfortunately pit again under the same caution for an adjustment.

Hirschman would choose the outside lane on the start which is the preferred line for a lot of these modified teams which put Goodale to his inside. Just one lap into the restart Beers would quickly go from fourth to second once again getting behind the 60 of Hirschman. Over the last 90 laps of the event it was clear that it was very tough to pass but Matt Swanson made it look easy going from the back of the field on the restart to eventually finishing 5th. Unfortunately, most of the teams didn’t have the same luck as the 89 team did with passing cars as someone like Beers who won the American Racer Pole Award had a really good car all day long but just wasn’t able to get alongside of Hirschman to try and contend for the race lead and with just the one caution in the race the longer run cars were going to prevail. Beers would finish in the runner-up spot which was a half a straightaway behind the 60.

Emerling’s streak which was 3 wins in a row would come to an end but still had a solid finish of 3rd. Really wasn’t much going on Wednesday in the race just with how hard it was to pass for these modified teams Wednesday night. Track position has gone a long way in five of the last six Whelen Tour events at Thompson Speedway as the winners have come from the first two rows the last couple of years.

Matt Hirschman’s win on Wednesday was actually his first win in 34 starts in the Whelen Modified Tour. He’s won in other modified series at the track but never on the NASCAR tour. This would also be Hirschman’s second win of 2026 with his first coming at Seekonk back on July 1st. Austin Beers, Patrick Emerling, Chase Dowling, and Matt Swanson would be the rest of your Top 5 Finishers. Dowling and Swanson who don’t run the full-season continue to impress in the select starts that they do.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be back in action on Saturday August 22nd at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with Qualifying on Friday August 21st as part of NASCAR Cup Series Weekend at “The Magic Mile”.

Image via Thompson Speedway