Three-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Justin Bonsignore will join Joe Gibbs Racing to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on June 22. This opportunity arose from the unexpected experience the 36-year-old from Holtsville, New York, gained in Florida earlier this year.
“It all stems back to the opportunity we had with the ARCA race at Daytona and the Road to Daytona program,”
said Bonsignore, who will drive the No. 19 Toyota GR Supra at the Magic Mile, where he has two Modified Tour wins. “That kind of sparked some interest. I really enjoyed the experience I had at Daytona and everything that went into that.”
Bonsignore said that after that race, some opportunities came up with partners, and they started making some phone calls. They decided that the next best step for Bonsignore and his goals as he gets older was to try and make an Xfinity race.
Bonsignore’s Modified Tour resume speaks for itself. Besides being a three-time champion, he ranks fourth with one of the highest odds on the all-time win list with 41 victories and fourth on the all-time pole list with 31. Among those 41 victories are two at New Hampshire, making it a natural choice for his Xfinity Series debut.
“Steve deSouza at Joe Gibbs was really helpful in this whole process and was pushing for us to try and run New Hampshire because of my experience there,”
Bonsignore said. “He thought it would be a great fit and a cool storyline for me running both races (Xfinity and Modified Tour) that day.”
This isn’t the first time Joe Gibbs Racing has welcomed a Modified Tour champion to compete in an Xfinity Series race at New Hampshire. In 2017, Ryan Preece joined the team at the one-mile oval and finished second.
Bonsignore emphasized that if he was going to compete in the Xfinity Series, it would only be with a competitive team. JGR, with over 200 victories in the series and five already this year, stood out as his best option.
Bonsignore said that Joe Gibbs Racing is definitely a top-notch team and one of the best in the series.
Bonsignore doesn’t plan to make a full-time jump to the Xfinity Series. He describes himself as a Modified Tour lifer who intends to spend the rest of his career racing with the series.
For him, this opportunity is about crossing an item off his personal bucket list and showcasing the talent of drivers on the Modified Tour.
“I’ve always wanted to do it; I’ve just never really had the opportunities or the partners to help us out,”
he said. “Things have come together this year and are working out well. I hope I can run well and make the community proud and shed some more light on the fact that there are some very, very good race-car drivers in this part of the country.”
