Some like to buck the trends, such as SK modified driver Tom Bolles. His home track of Stafford Motor Speedway, in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, features mostly cars built by dedicated chassis manufacturers. Then, there’s Bolles’ car. He crafted it himself.
“I built [my SK modified] from the ground up,” said Bolles, of Ellington, Connecticut. “I got a pile of tubular steel last winter and built the whole thing, including the suspension, A-frames, and spindles. It’s what I enjoy doing.”
Bolles’ story begins decades ago, when his family made racing at Stafford their weekend activity. His father, Ed, and older brother, Brian, fielded an All American sportsman in 1976. Two years later, Bolles got a precut roll cage from a chassis builder and welded it into a car he bought from a drag racer. He then joined his brother on the racetrack. By 1984, Bolles raced in track’s headlining division, the SK modifieds.
“The SK modified division was my steppingstone to race with the [NASCAR Whelen Modified] Tour modifieds,” Bolles said. “I had the privilege to be in the same races as some of the greatest drivers in pavement modified racing — like Bugsy Stevens, Ron Bouchard, Mike Stefanik, and so many more. I started by racing my SK modified on the NASCAR Whelen Modified [Tour], which was allowed back then.”
Bolles would go on to make 191 starts, from 1985 to 2006, on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, with one win in 1988 at Jennerstown Speedway in Pennsylvania.
Bolles also made 145 starts, from 1989 to 2003, in what would become the ARCA Menards Series East. He earned two victories on that circuit — one in 1995 at Stafford, the other in 1997 at Jennerstown. Bolles has 11 starts to his credit in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series, which resulted mostly from combination events held at the time with the ARCA Menards Series East.
Today, Tom Bolles is back home in the SK modifieds at Stafford. He enjoys racing as a welcome break from the family business, a local Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership.
“I call racing my golf game,” Bolles said. “I still enjoy it just as much at 59 [years old] as I did when I was a teenager.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
