Teddy Hodgdon recaps rookie year with Modified Tour

For any racing series or tour, whether it is national or regional, it takes a big commitment from a driver, car owner, and team to make it successful, with the ultimate goal, to win races. For Teddy Hodgdon and the family owned modified, they did just that in 2026.

After racing a select few races in 2025, Teddy Hodgdon and his father Ted Hodgdon committed to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour in 2026 with expectations from the beginning.

Teddy knew it was going to be a tall challenge for him and the team around him to follow the Modified Tour, but they felt confidence in themselves. 

“The Modified Tour is the biggest modified series in the country and there’s a lot of great competitors and a lot of great teams that try their hand in this series and don’t do as well,” Hodgdon said to Short Track Scene. “The first half of the season was all right. We got our footing down, but we weren’t getting great finishes. We had some speed, but it all turned around at the midseason point, we found a breakthrough with our setup and we were able to click off good finishes, and obviously we had the two wins, and a Top-5 in there. If not for an unfortunate incident at Riverhead, we could have capitalized there too.”

Heading into the 2026 season, Hodgdon had one goal in mind, chasing after the Rookie of the Year award. He did that, beating out the 15-year-old hot-shoe of Paulie Hartwig III by 49 points. 

“That was kind of our goal coming into the season, just to be the top rookie, and we were able to do that,” Hodgdon said. “I would say not an amazing strong start, but we ended off with a lot of momentum and hopefully we can carry that into next year.” 

For the small family owned team based out of Danbury, Connecticut, it would be quite the endeavor following the Modified Tour. Hodgdon knew it would be a difficult battle, specifically when it comes to having a consistent core group of help at the track, a battle many teams, big or small, run into each season.

“I’m very grateful for the guys that have stuck with me throughout the last couple years, it’s pretty much me, my father, and my right hand man, Tyler,” Hodgdon said. “That’s pretty much all there is in the shop for help. Of course we have a core group of guys that come with us every race to the track, but even the big teams struggle with rounding up that type of group, you need a strong five or six guys there. Need them there taking tire stagger, tire pressures, and making changes on the car. I know a lot of teams struggle trying to find even two or three of those good guys. That’s kind of been the main focus point of a lot of teams this year, especially the travel, just trying to find good, reliable help.”

Since Teddy began to take on the Modified Tour in 2025, he and his family had to spend time recruiting the right people that could pitch in at each race. It takes commitment and sacrifice not just from drivers, but from crew members as well to travel, show up, and go to work.

“I’ve exhausted a lot of resources in time just trying to find guys, let alone have them be on the same pedigree and meet the expectations we try to keep,” Hodgdon explained. “It’s not just a problem for us. It’s kind of a sports issue. You know, in the broader scheme of things, it’s a pretty niche group. You have to be really dedicated and have a passion for the sport, it’s hard on everyone. I know everyone pulls through the best they can, and does a good job of what they can to try and find help.” 

Hodgdon was a rookie by NASCAR standards, but has competed on other Tour Type Modified series in New England, but there was one bigger challenge that stuck out with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.

“I think the hardest thing was trying to adapt to different racetracks, I would say three or four tracks we haven’t been to or I’ve never raced at,” Hodgdon said. “Oxford was a track that I’ve never even set foot on the property. We raced Riverhead twice, Oswego was new to me, and then New Hampshire Motor Speedway(NHMS). I hadn’t raced there(NHMS) in a couple of years, and I raced with a different package back then. It was just hard, bouncing from one track to another. You get a bull-ring one week and then end up in a big fast half mile the next week. Just trying to take all your notes and learn on the go was pretty tough at the beginning of the year. But, we really found our stride in late July, early August, and just tried to keep that momentum going.” 

Hodgdon has proved his success at different levels of modified racing, starting off with SK Light Modified racing at Stafford to now a winner on different Tour Type Modifieds like the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series. But as races go by, and the results aren’t representative of the passion and work committed, it can become a mental game.

 “A lot of it was wearing down on me to be honest with you. Questioning myself, ‘could I actually do it? Could I run up front with these guys,’” Hodgdon explained. “The Modified Tour is a big deal, but we just kept our heads down, just never gave up and kept investing into the program and to come away with a win at my home track at Stafford. Then another win at a track that I have a lot of laps at, at Thompson, is huge. It just shows what we can do when we put everything together and execute on a good day. Just a lot of things done to come together and they finally have and hopefully we can repeat that next year.” 

For Teddy’s dad, Ted Hodgdon, it has been a special year sharing this success with both Teddy and the rest of their family.

“It’s been fantastic,” Ted Hodgdon said. “We’ve been doing this since he was seven-years old and going to races many weekends of the year as a family with my wife and daughter. So we’ve always been together in the truck and to get to this level and then win at that level as a family team is fantastic.”

With the release of the 2027 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule, there was one track that stood out to Hodgdon and he’s already looking forward to it. Thunder Road Speedbowl, a place where Hodgdon had a Top-5 finish in 2024 with the Monaco Modifieds.

“I never heard about that track coming up in the rumor mill until like a day before and even then it was kind of like, ‘oh, that’s kind of a long shot’, but I’ve had good success there in the past,” Hodgdon said. “I love to run there, it’s a beautiful facility. Obviously going back to Stafford twice is huge. Stafford is great, if not the best short track in the country and obviously my home track and love going there. Then Lancaster will be exciting to go to. I know a lot of PA boys and the tour veterans that have run there before and have a lot more experience there at that circuit, especially with the drag strip there on the front stretch, that’ll be interesting to try and navigate.”

There was one track on the schedule though that Hodgdon was disappointed to see be subtracted from the 2027 season, but understands what NASCAR is doing with the schedule being more local to the Northeast and New England.

“I have a lot of history with New Smyrna Speedway, with my mom’s family living three miles away from the racetrack,” Hodgdon said. “It’s always good to go. It sucks that it’s not going to be on the schedule next year. We always plan our season around starting there, but I know the Modified Tour is putting a lot of focus into trying to cut down the travel time, which is really good for a small team like us and having all, but one race up in the northeast is really beneficial for our team.” 

Hodgdon had commanded the Rookie of the Year award early in the season as runner-up Paulie Hartwig III had to miss the first race at New Smyrna due to not being 15-years old for another two weeks. Hodgdon was impressed with how Hartwig closed that gap.

“Hartwig was behind the eight ball at first and I give a lot of credit to them,” Hodgdon said. “They’ve done a lot of homework this year. They’ve been really fast, especially during the summer months. They had a lot of good chances to win races and be up front and capitalized when we weren’t having good days. I was definitely keeping an eye on it all year. The points may have not seemed like it, but we were kind of on our heels for a lot of the time there and trying to do damage control when we weren’t doing good. Then August and September came around and we really hit our stride and just tried not to worry about that as much and just go out there and do the best we can, and we became hot at the right time and were able to capitalize on that.” 

At the end of the day, Hodgdon remains thankful to his supporters for helping him continue to live out his dream of racing on the Modified Tour and he is building confidence and momentum into 2027.

“I am just really grateful for the position that we’re at and all the great people, the sponsors, and family members that are behind this operation, it takes a village,” Hodgdon explained. “There’s a lot of people behind the scenes that put a lot of effort into this. Just very grateful that I can be in this position and have an opportunity to race on the Modified Tour. I’ve said it a bunch, I was a little kid in the stands, 20 years ago watching the greats do this and be able to race these cars at the best of our ability and to be able to beat one of them and sew my name in the history books is really special and hopefully we can do more next year and have a shot at the title.” 

All the focus turns to the offseason now for Teddy Hodgdon and the family owned team, as Teddy is ready to carry the late season momentum into 2027 with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.