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By KEVIN RICE
Photo Jimmy Hayden
Martinsville, VA- While he says it means “absolutely nothing”, Tyler Rypkema will start from the pole for the “Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200” NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season finale at Martinsville Speedway tonight (8 p.m. FloRacing). The Owego, New York driver turned the fastest lap, beating NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece by 0.020 seconds around the half-mile oval.
Patrick Emerling, who was fastest in practice backed that up with a third place qualifying effort, with Eric Goodale and Matt Hirschman rounding out the top five. Championship contenders Justin Bonsignore and Ron Silk will start sixth and eighth in the 36-car field, with Ryan Newman in ninth.
“Absolutely nothing,” Rypkema replied when asked what it meant to be on the pole at Martinsville. “The only thing that matters is who is there at the end.”
Rypkema is still working towards a first career NWMT win, having earned five top five finishes in 55 starts. He currently ranks fifth in the season standings with an average finish of 11.4 and a season best fourth place finish at Riverhead (NY) Raceway.
“We never really did a mock time trial run in practice and we were still top ten in speed, so I was pretty confident in our car,” Rypkema said of his qualifying lap. “We knew what we wanted to do, to put down a good lap. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get P-1, but I was figuring top five was definitely attainable.
“It was a really good lap. Picked up a couple of tenths on practice at least, and that’s awesome. It was a very good job by my guys too. Couldn’t have done it without them. We did a lot of chassis adjustments that we can get back out of for the race.
“We weren’t necessarily worried about stretching the heck out of the tires on it. We’ve gotten ourselves in trouble with that before. We should be able to get everything back out of the car and tighten it up for the race. We should be really good.”
QUALIFYING RESULTS For THE VIRGINIA IS FOR RACING LOVERS 200
1. TYLER RYPKEMA, 2. Ryan Preece, 3. Patrick Emerling, 4. Eric Goodale, 5. Matt Hirschman, 6. Justin Bonsignore, 7. Austin Beers, 8. Ron Silk, 9. Ryan Newman, 10. Craig Lutz, 11. Tommy Catalano, 12. Anthony Sesely, 13. Dylan Slepian, 14. Kyle Bonsignore, 15. Bryan Narducci, 16. Bobby Santos, 17. Bobby Labonte, 18. Andy Seuss, 19. Brandon Ward, 20. Andrew Krause, 21. Anthony Bello, 22. Carson Loftin, 23. Joey Coulter, 24. Max McLaughlin, 25. Dave Sapienza, 26. Eric Berndt, 27. JB Fortin, 28. Tim Connolly, 29. Kyle Ebersole, 30. Burt Myers, 31. Ken Heagy, 32. Andy Jankowiak, 33. Edward McCarthy Jr., 34. John-Michael Shennette, 35. Melissa Fifield, 36. Chris Hatton.
