MOORESVILLE, NC :: Danny Bohn’s first career championship was a memorable one as the Freehold, New Jersey native prevailed in a wild championship battle that came down to the wire to score a first championship for himself and for car owner Melvin “Puddin” Swisher at Bowman Gray Stadium.
While his two victories at Bowman Gray Stadium fell short of his expectations, the glory of winning a championship at one of the oldest racetracks in all of motorsports made up for any proverbial disappointment. Late season penalties assessed to Tim Brown and Burt Myers put Bohn in the driver’s seat for a championship race that he otherwise felt was a longshot.
“We didn’t have the greatest of seasons,” Bohn said. “We had some mechanical issues. We blew a motor, broke a rear end, broke and axle and wrecked one night to win a championship with four DNFs is not common but with the penalties Tim and Burt had, it put us back in the hunt. If I didn’t have those mechanical issues, we would’ve had a chance anyways. It just ended up working out in the long run being able to get the points deal.”
For Bohn, it was a mid-summer push, a swing of momentum that changed his confidence and propelled his late season march toward the track championship. He’d score his first win of the season on July 19th and then, a couple weeks later, he went on to score a victory in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour (NWSMT) race at Bowman Gray Stadium, his first of two wins on the season in the tour. He went on to win the championship in style, with a victory in the season finale at the Madhouse.
Bohn says the victory on July 19th was the confidence booster he needed after a difficult 2013 season where he scored only one win – which came exactly 364 days prior to his first win of the 2014 season.
“Any time you can run up front and contend for the lead or win definitely is a confidence booster,” Bohn explained. “It’s all about momentum and it seems like it takes a little while to get things in the right direction but, once they do, you can ride that wave for a while. 2013 wasn’t a good season at all. I wrecked more racecars and tore more stuff up in 2013 than I did in my life. It’s easy to get down on yourself but I remember the year before when I had one of the best seasons of my life so you keep doing what you’ve done all along and things will turn around eventually. This year, it turned around quite a bit.”
Bohn knows the history of Bowman Gray Stadium and he knows the culture and the passion of the fans. It’s that history and that culture that made winning the championship special for him, a longtime Modified competitor who got his start racing up north at Wall Township, New Jersey’s Wall Stadium — where he won championships in 2006 and 2007.
“The Bowman Gray championship, there are so many people that have won championships over there. Honestly, I was sitting in the stands there five or six years ago. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. There are 20,000 people watching modified racing where, up north, you get a couple thousand people. These people live for it at Bowman Gray.”
Bohn was instantly hooked by the allure and the atmosphere at Bowman Gray and decided that he just had to come down south and race at Bowman Gray.
“Until I sat in the grandstands, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. I said I’m a modified racer and wanted to race there one day. I took the car I used to run up north my dad raced when he was younger, that’s the car I started racing at Bowman Gray four years ago. Mainly, I wanted to say I wanted to race there. I ran like crap the first race there. I actually got lapped. I think it was the first time I got lapped in my life. I knew I was better than that but it’s a different style of racing. We did some homework and I just thought about what happened that night. We went back the next week and they had twin races. They inverted eight in the second race and I started on the pole and won my second night at Bowman Gray.”
While Bohn has been racing at Bowman Gray for four years, 2014 was the first year he started in every race. Last year, when running on a partial schedule, he was approached by longtime car owner Melvin “Puddin” Swisher who asked him to drive his car.
“I never raced for points at BGS going into this season. Every year since I started racing there, first year I ran some Super Late Model races for Dave Moody so I missed a few races. The following year, my brother got married on a Saturday and I couldn’t miss that so I missed a race. Last year, I wasn’t racing the full season in my car. I sat out the second race last year and that’s when I talked to Puddin Swisher. He asked why I wasn’t racing and I told them I didn’t plan to race the whole season and they offered the 53 ride to me.”
For Bohn, the only thing more special than the winning of a championship was to be the first driver to bring home a championship for Swisher.
“Puddin’s been racing since the beginning, as an owner and a driver. Johnathan Brown and Junior Miller drove for him and he was never able to win the championship there. We raced for points for points for the first time and just wanted to see how it would go. To win the championship for him, since he put all the years and dedication, that makes me happier than winning it for myself. It’s good for my resume and awesome to say I did that but for his guys, they’ve been there forever and never got to experience a championship so, to do that for them and myself, I think I’m the first new one in 18 years to win the championship there, just to put my name on that list with those names, it’s definitely awesome.”
With a championship at Bowman Gray in the books, there are two things left in Modified racing that Bohn would like to accomplish – a win in the Turkey Derby, the annual Thanksgiving weekend classic run at Wall Stadium, and a championship in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour.
Looking ahead to next season, Bohn plans to again race for Swisher at Bowman Gray Stadium and in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour and may look in to running the KOMA Unwind Modified Madness Series.
