NASCAR Home Tracks

NOTEBOOK: Partridge, Silk Team Up At Top

Owner And Driver Each Earn First Tour Championship In 2011

THOMPSON, Conn. --After 10 years of trying, Eddie Partridge was able to celebrate in a champagne bath on Sunday night at Thompson International Speedway.

Driver Ron Silk overcame an early mishap and earned his first career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship in the Sunoco World Series, in turn handing his car owner Partridge his first series championship, too.

“It's incredible. It's very hard to win just one race in this series, and to end up winning the championship is a real honor,” Silk said. “I'm proud of all my guys that we were able to do it, and I'm really happy to do it for my car owner and all the guys that work on the car. And, it feels pretty good to me, too.”

Silk, who had three wins this season in Partridge's No. 6 T-S Haulers Chevrolet, joined the team late in the 2009 season. Partridge said that Silk has brought a level of composure to the seat that helped get it over the proverbial hump.

“He's just very cool, calm and collected in the car,” Partridge said. “He doesn't really send it in there (in the corners) when it shouldn't be. He's a very smart driver. He drives the car, basically, like he's paying for it. He's just good. He relates good to (crew chief Tommy Grasso), and together the whole crew put it together.”

Partridge admitted to some jitters this weekend, but he never thought that a championship was out of reach for his team. The team had a clutch problem in practice on Saturday and then was caught up in the oil left behind by Timmy Solomito early in the race. Silk lost several laps under green while making repairs but kept after it – using a succession of “Lucky Dog” awards to go from 29th to 16th at the checkered flag.

“The first couple of years (as a team), I didn't think we were really championship-caliber,” Partridge said. “We ran very good, but we just didn't have a championship guy behind the wheel, but now we do. I think we're going to be very good for a few years to come.

“This is as good as it gets in racing.”

Silk has seven career victories on the Tour, four of them with Partridge.

Winning the title, Silk said, is just the topper for what has been a very good owner-driver relationship.

“Oh man, there's a lot of great drivers that have never won the championship,” Silk said. “I don't think it defines who you are as a driver, but it's certainly an awesome feeling to win one. You take the whole year, and to know you came out on top – it's a pretty good feeling.”

SZEGEDY COMES UP SHORT: Todd Szegedy appeared to be in the driver's seat for the championship when Silk was caught up in an accident in Turn 1 early in the race.

But Szegedy found trouble himself in the form of heavy traffic and a number of incidents around him – the last of which came with only a handful of laps remaining. His day ended on Lap 148 of 168, his car screeching to a stop on the frontstretch off of Turn 4.

Szegedy, the 2003 Tour champion, finished 25th.

“The fighting that happened I think is great,” Szegedy said, alluding to several drivers approaching other cars after on-track incidents. “There needs to be some massive penalties for the way people are driving – there's no doubt about it. Guys are out of control. It's nothing new, they've been out of control all year.

“Tonight, trouble was totally unavoidable. All the championship contenders got taken out at some point, and it's a joke. There's a lot of things I could say, and I could get really nasty, but all I can say is things need to be done. Penalties need to come out. Cars need to be parked for days, weeks, maybe months. That's the only way around it, otherwise it's not going to happen.”

Szegedy's season nearly mirrored the champion Silk's – he had three wins and nine top-5 finishes in 16 races. Sunday, though, was the the final blow to his championship hopes.

“It would have been nice to finish without getting wrecked, but that was pretty much impossible tonight," Szegedy said. "We wasted a whole year. We wasted a whole year and ruined a perfectly good car.”

HARD FEELINGS: Following an incident on Lap 137 which took out a number of contending cars, Rowan Pennink could be seen running the length of the infield to approach the car of Justin Bonsignore. Bonsignore was parked on the inside of Turn 3 while the field was stopped under a red flag.

Pennink approached Bonsignore's car for a heated exchange. Eric Berndt was stopped by officials when he, too, tried to get to Bonsignore.

“The 51 car (of Bonsignore) junked everybody,” Pennink said.

Bonsignore took responsibility after the race.

“We were in position, and we probably had the best opportunity to win,” Bonsignore said. “Coming to the restart, I got underneath Eric (Berndt), and I just messed up. I got in way too deep. I thought I was going to be able to clear him, and I just slid the nose a little bit. It didn't take much as fast as we were going into the corners.

“I feel terrible, but it ruined our chances, too.”

Bonsignore's night ended on the second-to-last restart of the race when he and Ted Christopher got together on the backstretch while trying to chase down winner Glen Reen. He finished 21st.

“On the last green-white-checkered, it was the same thing over and over,” Bonsignore said. “We just got run into the fence by (Reen), who was going for his first win so I don't blame him. We just got collected in the mess.

“It was probably my fault. I probably should have been a little more patient.” 

Ron Silk (l) is congratulated by Bob Duvall, NASCAR Director, Weekly & Touring Business Development, on his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship in Victory Lane at Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway. Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images for NASCAR