Hirschman Wins in Chemung

CHEMUNG, NY (October 4, 2008) - Matt Hirschman of Northampton, Penn., exclaimed that ‘he loved New York’ upon exiting his Ed Bennett Properties machine this past Saturday night after conquering the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Chemung 120.

It was a sweep of both Western/Central New York appearances of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and it was true sweep for Hirschman on Saturday evening as he swept the pole, won his heat and led all 122 laps to take home his second career victory. The only other time that the Tour visited the track in August of 2001, Jerry Marquis earned the victory with Tony Hirschman (Matt’s Father) won the the Pole.

Hirschman was never truly challenged the entire day. Eric Beers of Northampton, Penn., Chuck Hossfeld of Ransomville, N.Y., and Todd Szegedy of Ridgefield, Conn., all gave chase to Hirschman throughout the day, but it wasn’t to any avail as Hirschman went on to the victory.

“It was the perfect day for us,” grinned Hirschman. “The way the format was. Practice set up the time trial order, the qualifying race and the feature. It was the perfect way to execute the day, you really couldn’t write a better script for us.”

What Hirschman is referring regarding the format is that this was the final ‘Flash’ race of the season (the others were at Riverhead and Spencer). The ‘Flash’ race format includes time trials and qualifying races without a redraw. The time trial order was set by practice speed, so the fastest cars in practice were rewarded with late spots in the time trial order.

"We swept the day and that is difficult to do because the competition is so tough these days,” continued Hirschman regarding the race. “In the heat Eric Beers chased me a little and in the feature, they could challenge me on the restarts, but that was about it.”

Beers chased Hirschman for a majority of the feature before slipping back to fourth behind Todd Szegedy and Mike Stefanik. Szegedy picked up the chase, but couldn’t run down Hirschman to make the pass for the lead.

Chuck Hossfeld and Ronnie Silk rounded out the top-five. Hossfeld won the second qualifying race.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour picks back up into action this weekend with the 36th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final at Stafford Motor Speedway, this Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th