Roger Turbush ready to expand his horizons by joining NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Thompson

Roger Turbush doesn’t want to be known as just a short-track guy. The 43-year-old competitor has made 15 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour starts with all but one coming at his home track in New York’s Riverhead Raceway. On Wednesday, Turbush will load up his No. 88 Modified and travel to Thompson, Connecticut, to join the Modified Tour for the Thompson 150 presented by FloSports.com at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (8 p.m. ET on FloRacing). “Riverhead is a bullring. It’s a lot of rough-and-tumble racing. You’ve got to be very strong to do it,” Turbush said. “You’ve got to have a big backbone for it, and I’ve got that. But I want to try somewhere else where we can use some of our speed and setup and see what we’ve got. “I want to do more. I want to do more than just Riverhead. I want to try it.” RELATED: Entry list for Wednesday's race at Thompson The Turbush family is well known amongst Long Island’s many dedicated racing families. A member of the Turbush family has been active in the local racing scene since the 1950s, when Turbush’s grandfather Charlie raced at tracks like Riverhead, Islip and Freeport. That racing tradition has been carried on by each subsequent generation. In all, at least seven members of the Turbush family have driven race cars. They include Turbush’s father, Dan, his aunt Lolly, his uncle Buddy, his brother Chris, his cousin Brandon and his nephew Mark Stewart. Roger Turbush began his racing journey 16 years ago. He was a force in Riverhead Raceway’s Super Pro Truck division, winning his first track championship in 2010. He added subsequent championships in 2012 and 2016. The 2017 season saw him make the jump to the headlining Modified class. He broke through for his first Modified win at Riverhead in 2019 and always makes a point to join the field when the Modified Tour visits the quarter-mile bullring. “It took us a little while. We’ve had some good runs here and there,” said Turbush, who earned a career-best third with the Modified Tour at Riverhead in 2021. “I got my first win at Riverhead in 2019. I’ve had some good runs with the Tour. I got third back in 2021 at Riverhead, and I’ve gotten a bunch of top 10s since then. “I’ve been pretty decent, just obviously not good enough. The last two years we’ve been knocking on doors now. We’re getting closer.” While most of his racing career has been spent at Riverhead, Turbush has always dreamed of traveling to race. It’s why during his days racing in the Super Pro Truck class at Riverhead he did some traveling with the Northeastern-based ProTruck Challenge. [caption id="attachment_441344" align="aligncenter" width="1300"] Roger Turbush, driver of the No. 88 Rheem Modified, signs autographs for fans during the Miller Lite Salutes Mike Ewanitsko 200 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Riverhead Raceway on June 24, 2023 in Riverhead, New York. (Photo: Dakota Moyer/NASCAR)[/caption] That allowed him to make his debut at Thompson during the 2014 season, which saw him charge from the eighth starting position to win at the 0.625-mile paved oval. In four seasons with the series, he won eight times and captured the 2015 series championship. He also won at Thompson two additional times, with his last victory coming in 2017. However, he’s never raced a Modified at Thompson, and he knows that will be vastly different than the Truck he last raced there seven years ago. “We don’t expect to qualify (well) because I’ll still probably be getting used to it,” Turbush admitted. “During the race is probably when I’ll get up on it and I’ll start focusing on the cars. I race the cars; I race the competition. In practice you’re not doing that. “I expect to do a little bit better in the race than I do in practice and qualifying. I expect to qualify in the back. I’m not expecting anything crazy.” Turbush is not anticipating a win Wednesday. For him and his family-owned team, a top-10 finish at Thompson would be a victory. Realistically, he thinks a finish inside the top 20 and loading a clean race car in the hauler at the end of 150 laps would make Wednesday evening’s race a success. “I’ve been there before. I’ve got the feeling (for the track),” Turbush said. “We’ve got a pretty basic setup for it. I think we can definitely get a top 20. I want to get 150 laps under my belt. “We’ve had a lot of people come together to get to this race here on Wednesday. We’re definitely looking forward it.” Assuming all goes well Wednesday, Turbush hopes to be back at Riverhead on Saturday night to compete in the annual running of the Baldwin/Evans/Jarzombek 77. After that, his next scheduled race is the third annual Eddie Partridge 256 on Sept. 14. In a perfect world, Turbush would like to do a bit more traveling with the Modified Tour this year. If he does well at Thompson, then who knows: He might just load up his hauler and take a little trip south near the end of the year. “I want to span the horizon. I want to do more than just Riverhead,” Turbush said. “I want to try and see what we can do elsewhere. We don’t want to just do one track. We want to try out different tracks. I’ve been trying to do this. “Another bucket list is New Hampshire. Another is Martinsville. I watch it all the time. We’ve got good cars. I want to see if we can get to where we compare.”