Less than a week after the team won at South Boston Speedway, David Calabrese and Hillbilly Racing announced today that the New Jersey native will be driving the famous No. 79 when the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour rolls into Caraway Speedway this weekend. The agreement is a race-to-race deal that could also see Calabrese in the car for future events.
This announcement reunites Calabrese with the Hills after he drove for them in previous races, most recently earlier this year at Bowman-Gray Stadium. While the Hillbilly Racing team won the most recent NASCAR Southern Modified Tour event at South Boston, Calabrese was most recently behind the wheel in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series at Greenville over Labor Day weekend.
“I’m really excited to be driving for David and Susan Hill again, and to make my first start in a NASCAR tour modified since last season; they’re an amazing group of people to work with,” Calabrese said. “The confidence in the team is way up going into this weekend. We’re all putting in the extra hours to make sure everything is absolutely right so we can contend for back-to-back victories for the No. 79.”
Calabrese joins a list of legendary modified names who have piloted the No. 79 in NASCAR modified action. Among those names are current NASCAR national series drivers Corey LaJoie and Daniel Hemric, along with Chuck Hossfeld, Ed Flemke, Jr., Woody Pitkat, Ronnie Silk and last week’s race winner James Civali.
This weekend’s race location, Caraway Speedway, is a staple on the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour schedule. With over a third of the tour’s events taking place at the facility, success there is arguably more difficult with drivers having more track time there than anywhere else on the tour. While Calabrese competed with the tour at Caraway last year, his adventures in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series have exposed him to a completely different style of racecar for most of this season.
“The only thing similar between a modified and a K&N car is the steering wheel,” Calabrese quipped. “Driving a modified is pretty fun, it’s definitely a fast place for a modified, and there are always awesome battles throughout the race at Caraway. But once you drive a modified, you never forget how to drive the heck out of it on pretty much every lap. With a K&N car, you need a bunch more patience to wait on the car to turn.”
Racing with the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour at Caraway brings good memories for Calabrese. Twice, he has equaled his career best finish at the .455-mile track with the most recent occurrence coming last spring when he finished fourth in the season opener for the tour.
On-track activity commences at 3pm on Saturday afternoon with a single hour of NASCAR Southern Modified Tour practice, followed by pole qualifying at 5pm. A driver autograph session begins at 6:15 while the Caraway 150 will take the green flag at approximately 7:45pm ET.
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