Young Star Shines on Mods' Biggest Stage Before Blown Motor
Donny Lia had everything going his way in Friday’s New England 100 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at New Hampshire International Speedway. It was a typical Donny Lia race. He started up front, rocketed into a battle for the lead, and had one of the best cars on the racetrack. That’s been the story all season long thus far in 2006.
Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t going to be a strong result like most of Lia’s race have been so far this year.
Lia led 15 laps early on in Friday’s race, but while coming back through the field after a mid-race pit stop, the engine inside his #18 Modified failed, relegating him to a 39th-place finish.
“There’s a lot of frustration, but that’s just racing,” said Lia. “Every motor builder in racing blows motors sometimes and even one of the best like Performance Technology has blown up motors before. I have probably run about 100 races with Performance Technology and other than one freak deal I’ve never had a problem. You’re going to have that kind of stuff happen sometimes in racing.”
When the NASCAR stars come to New Hampshire International Speedway, Loudon, NH becomes one of the biggest towns in the Granite State. On Friday, every person at the Loudon 1.058-mile track took notice of Donny Lia. The #18 made daring passes both on the high side and the low to work to the lead on lap eight. Lia stayed in the lead until lap 22 before getting shuffled back, but still the Long Island-native never lost hold on the top five.
“I could put the car anywhere I wanted, top or bottom. It was a really balanced racecar. Me and (Crew Chief) Doug (Chouinard) brainstormed a little bit and we each had some ideas for this weekend. He had some good ideas and I had some good ideas, but we went with his ideas and I have to give him credit because they were right. This was the best racecar I’ve ever had. I have to give it to him. He made some good calls.”
A caution flag brought Lia to pit road on lap 33 for tires and fuel. The LMI team banged off a solid pit stop and the car went back up to speed as if it hadn’t missed a beat. Lia restarted 28th on lap 36 but within seven laps had worked up to 16th. With a sporty car, Lia was looking good for what could have been his first-ever win at NHIS. Instead, a blown motor on lap 50 put an end to what was shaping to be a great day.
“We’ve had a pretty good season so far so we can’t be mad about what happened today. We know what we had to do to run good here. We’ll come back and we’ll be fine to keep going for a championship.”
Smoke pours from Donny's car after the motor blew.
Lia will be out to bounce back from the hardships at NHIS when the Whelen Modifieds hit Waterford Speedbowl (CT) on July 22nd.
Donny leads the field down the frontstretch at NHIS.
