The 2025 season for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is just days away from kicking off on the sunny Florida shores. The entry list for the New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau 200 at New Smyrna Speedway has been released, and it is packed deep with potential winners.

Headlining the entry list, as he always does, is the now four-time and defending champion, Justin Bonsignore. The Holtsville, New York native has yet to visit victory lane at New Smyrna Speedway in the three races that the Tour has run there, but he finished 2024 on a mega hot streak, winning the final three races of the season to secure his fourth championship. Bonsignore now finds himself in second on the all-time NWMT wins list with 45. Adding a 46th at New Smyrna to kick off a Speedweeks that will also see him running the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway just seven days later would be big.

Speaking of big, the big news that just came out late last week is that Bonsignore’s biggest rival the last few seasons, Ron Silk, would be scaling back his efforts to a partial schedule in 2025. That said, Silk is still the top contender to Bonsignore for the victory at New Smyrna on Saturday night. Silk has won two of the three NWMT races held at the historic Florida half-mile, including the last two in a row. 

You can’t talk about competing for wins at New Smyrna Speedway and not mention Northampton, Pennsylvania’s Matt Hirschman. “Big Money” won the inaugural NWMT race at New Smyrna Speedway back in 2022, then backed that up with a third-place finish one year later. 2024 was a bit of an off night for Hirschman, though. He started eighth and finished tenth without leading a single lap that night. But, Hirschman got his mojo back soon after and went on to score three race wins throughout the World Series of Asphalt the following week, as well as his fifth World Series championship.

The biggest question entering the 2025 season is who is going to step up and challenge the likes of Justin Bonsignore and keep him from scoring a potential fifth championship. Is it Austin Beers? Beers has finished in the top five in points each of the last three seasons. He’s now up to three victories in his career with two in 2023 at Richmond Raceway and Lancaster National Speedway and one victory last year coming again at Lancaster.

Or is it Patrick Emerling, who went on a late-season charge last year to give himself a shot at the championship heading to Martinsville Speedway in October. Emerling and KPL Racing are now in their second season together, and after scoring three wins in 2024 they seem poised to be championship contenders all year. 

We’ve been waiting a while to see the Catalanos also become championship contenders. Oldest brother Tommy Catalano has come so close to scoring his first win on multiple occasions, including a runner-up finish at Richmond in 2022, and a third-place finish at Stafford Motor Speedway in 2021, but he just hasn’t been able to break through. Meanwhile, younger brother Trevor Catalano did break through as a rookie at Monadnock Speedway last season. Trevor Catalano led 56 laps that day to score his first victory and the first NWMT win for any of the Catalano brothers. 

Fortunately, we’ll start to get answers to this question on Saturday night when the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour kicks off its 41st season of racing at New Smyrna Speedway.

Race fans can watch the New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau 200 live on FloRacing with a FloRacing subscription. Fans can subscribe to FloRacing by clicking here.

NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour At New Smyrna Speedway Entry List