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Doug Coby led all but three laps on Friday night in the Whelen Modified Tour 150 at Stafford Motor Speedway but wasn’t able to deny the unstoppable force that is Ryan Preece, whom used a restart with two laps to go to score his third victory of the season.

It was a crushing blow for Coby who is still looking for his first victory of the season and seemed destined to get it until a series of cautions with less than 10 laps to go provided Preece the opening he needed.

Preece qualified third but was forced to start from the back of the field due to an ride height failure in pre-race inspection. Within the first 20 laps, he surged from 27th to the top-10.

Avoiding attrition and capitalizing on opportunities was the 2013 NWMT champion’s calling card on Friday night — just like it has been all season.

Preece previously won the NAPA Spring Sizzler 200 at Stafford on April 30 and the Thomspon 150 on June 14. But most notably, Preece is coming off his first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory for Joe Gibbs Racing last weekend at Iowa Speedway and a second place a few weeks before at New Hampshire.

Preece is simply unbeatable right now.

“I’m just riding this wave,” Preece said. “I’ve known because I’ve been racing for years, you can have a high and go and dominate everything and next week I could be running 15th and holding on for dear life and everybody would be like ‘Man, Ryan is off his game.'”

Craig Lutz scored his surprise first career pole earlier in the afternoon, but was quickly dispatched on the first lap by Coby.

The four-time and defending Modified Tour champion was pulling away from the field until Lap 141 when Bobby Santos III spun in Turn 2 just as Preece got around him for second. There was yet another incident on the Lap 145 restart involving Woody Piktat, Eric Goodale and Williams.

Once the ensuing red was lifted and the race resumed on Lap 149, Preece used the outside lane to beat Coby into Turn 1 and pull away off the exit of Turn 2.

Coby was disappointed but believes his improving pace is a sign that his first victory is looming around the corner.

“I got beat,” Coby said. “It happens. Ryan had a great car. I knew he was coming even when we were out front. The red flags and the restarts just don’t help. We spun the tires a little bit on both restarts. I thought I got a better restart the second time but he just had massive drive and he did a good job. We got beat tonight and didn’t get our first win of the season. But it’s coming. We’ve been really fast.”

Preece believes the finish came down to tire management.

“I think the biggest thing was I had a better left-rear tire to fire (on the restart),” Preece said. “Having both fresher rear tires helped me be able to get in front of him and have the right line going into turn one.”

Timmy Solomito took the championship points lead with a fourth-place finish, while Jon McKennedy completed the top five.

Rob Summers was sixth, followed by Dave Sapienza, Lutz, Gary Putnam and Matt Swanson. Rowan Pennink, who held the points lead coming into the event, finished 17th and is seven points behind Solomito. Preece is fifth in points, one behind Eric Goodale and Bonsignore and 26 back of Solomito.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour returns to action on Wednesday night, with the running of the Bud 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park. From there, the series will visit Bristol Motor Speedway on Wednesday, August 16.

The complete results can be viewed below.

  1. Ryan Preece
  2. Doug Coby
  3. Justin Bonsignore
  4. Timmy Solomito
  5. Jon McKennedy
  6. Rob Summers
  7. David Sapienza
  8. Craig Lutz
  9. Gary Putnam
  10. Matt Swanson
  11. Bobby Santos
  12. Andrew Krause
  13. Eric Goodale
  14. Walter Sutcliffe, Jr.
  15. Ronnie Williams*
  16. Gary McDonald
  17. Rowan Pennink
  18. Woody Pitkat
  19. Max Zachem
  20. Brendon Bock
  21. Calvin Carroll*
  22. Shawn Solomito
  23. CJ Lehmann
  24. Todd Szegedy
  25. Wade Cole
  26. Ted Christopher
  27. Dave Salzarulo
  28. Melissa Fifield

Paul Lambert contributed to this report.

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Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

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