Once he got out front, the Holtsville, N.Y., native paced the final 61 laps en route to victory lane.

“We were a little too tight at the end, and that was a lot of how Chase was able to stay with us,” noted Bonsignore. “I just kept moving my line around and took as much momentum away from him as I could at the end, and we were finally able to gap him just enough to get the job done.

“(Racing at Bristol) is huge for our series, and winning at Bristol is huge for me personally,” Bonsignore added. “I’ve been coming here since 2010 and we’ve always had a lot of speed, but the last couple years have been feast or famine. The last couple of years we’ve either finished strong or left with a wrecked race car. We were adamant that we weren’t going to points race here because we wanted to win Bristol and we finally got to drive up the ramp into victory lane tonight like we’ve wanted to for a long time.”

Dowling came home as the runner-up, a half-second adrift of Bonsignore, saying after the race that there wasn’t much more he could have done with the way the lead duo caught traffic in the closing laps.

“This was a pretty good night; it put on a good show for the fans, at least,” said Dowling. “There was a lot of two-by-two racing up top and it was really competitive. I just couldn’t run my car on top like I needed to and it killed our straightaway speed. This was momentum racing tonight, with the package that they gave us to run, and we were close but just didn’t quite have enough. We’ll have our day.”

Rob Summers collected a season-best third-place finish, followed by Emerling, who rallied back to fourth after his first-half spin.

“We started out pretty decent. I was good in clean air on the bottom,” Emerling said. “Once I lost that clean air, though, we just got way too free. We made some adjustments at the break, but it was just really tough to gain track position between the track configuration and the different aero package.

“A top five is a good day, though. For a part-time team to be fastest in practice, qualify second and contend for another victory is a testament to how hard these guys work. If we’d had a caution, I think we’d have gotten back pretty close (to the front).

Five-time series champion Doug Coby completed the top five, ahead of Ronnie Williams, Dave Sapienza, Rowan Pennink, Burt Myers and Eric Goodale.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour returns to action Sept. 1 at Oswego Speedway.

The finish:

Justin Bonsignore, Chase Dowling, Rob Summers, Patrick Emerling, Doug Coby, Ronnie Williams, Dave Sapienza, Rowan Pennink, Burt Myers, Eric Goodale, Craig Lutz, Tommy Catalano, Andy Seuss, Gary Putnam, Timmy Solomito, Gary McDonald, Wade Cole, Austin Pickens, Woody Pitkat, Ken Heagy, Melissa Fifield.