WINCHESTER, NH :: Justin Bonsignore has cemented himself as a legitimate championship contender in 2014, and now he heads to Monadnock Speedway as the defending winner of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 200. It’s not often that Bonsignore heads to a track as the defending winner, but it’s something he said he’s very excited about.

“It’s awesome,” said Bonsignore. “I really like going there. It’s a track we run well at with the Tour and even this year with the MRS car. It’s just somewhere I feel really comfortable going to and I always look forward to being back up there. And being the defending winner is cool. Hopefully we can go two-in-a-row.”

It’s no surprise that Bonsignore runs well at Monadnock considering the track is a tight, quarter-mile bullring like his home track on Long Island.

But Bonsignore is quick to point out that Monadnock and Riverhead Raceway are completely different even though they’re both bullrings.

“There’s not really anything in comparison about the two,” said Bonsignore. “They drive totally different. Monadnock is totally different on each corner. It’s almost egg-shaped. Two totally different race tracks from Riverhead to there, but both are a lot of fun and unique in their own ways.”

Bonsignore said he feels that in order to succeed on the bullrings you have to try to get yourself to like going there. He feels that you won’t run well if you dread going there or don’t go there often.

“A lot of guys tend to not like going to those types of race tracks,” he said. “That in itself might be a little bit of an advantage. When people don’t like being in certain places they tend to not run that great there. And knowing you’re going to have a good car underneath you definitely makes you excited.”

Bonsignore and his M3 Tech team are coming off of two strong runs at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this past weekend. He scored finishes of second and sixth at NHMS which is a track that he and his team always seem to struggle with.

“We took a not so great car on Friday and finished second and were in contention to potentially win that race,” he said. “And then Saturday we fell back a bit in the beginning, but we really got the car going in the second half. We kind of just fought being in the wrong lanes on some of the restart. And some luck didn’t go our way but we had a great car.”

Just having strong runs at that place has Bonsignore excited for this week and beyond. He feels that he and his team can build off those performances.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he  said. “We didn’t win up there, but I think we still have some momentum riding on our side.”