The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race at New Hampshire International Speedway was not much different than many of the series’ other events there. Fans witnessed plenty of passing, dicing and battling for the lead and at least a half dozen cars looked to be capable of winning the race.
One of those cars belonged to Donny Lia, whose #18 LMI Modified led laps and stayed near the front all afternoon until its engine expired and dropped Lia out with just a few laps remaining. Lia was credited with the 30th finishing position.
“We had a really great car,” said Lia. “We could run with anybody and I could pretty much race anywhere I wanted. My game plan was to pretty much ride to the end and be in the top-five with about five or 10 laps to go. I was in the position I wanted to be in and then something in the engine broke.”
Before that point, Lia noticed a warning sign, but he hoped that it didn’t amount to much.
Lia's #18 puts out smoke late in the NHIS event. (51 Photos)
“I was running a little hot all race but nothing that was detrimental to the engine. You always run a little hot here at Loudon because you are running in the draft and when you are tucked behind someone you aren’t getting much air. The next thing I know it blew the water out of it and there was a big puff of smoke. After that it was a matter of how long it would run without any water. It started smoking and then NASCAR told us to pull of the track. It’s okay because I didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s day because we weren’t going to make it to the end at that point.”
The LMI team isn’t going to get down about the day though.
“It’s unfortunate because I have a great group of guys and we really worked hard. We have a crew chief by committee type deal and we worked together well and made some really good calls this weekend. One of these days the luck will turn around and we will get a real good run here. This won’t get us down. We will just keep plugging. I am having fun racing and so are these guys. You can’t get too down on these things.
“The guys don’t deserve to have me pouting about it. I’ve come to learn that because I have had my share of bad times and bad luck. You have to make going to the races fun. There are some things in racing that you can’t control and are never going to control. This is an example of what you can’t control
Speed51.com's Mike Twist interviews Donny during Thursday's rain delay as Howie Hodge snaps of photo.
and you have to learn how to deal with it and take the good with the bad. I’ve been trained to deal with stuff like this through experience of some bad things happening. We don’t have good luck right now and I will be grateful when the luck does roll around. That one good week when it turns around is going to be worth it because we are having fun. I know it’s coming because we have paid our dues.
Next up for Lia will be a visit to Waterford Speedbowl (CT), which is a track where he won at in 2005, leading all 150 laps of an event there.
“We have a bunch of top-three finishes there. We almost lapped the field there last year. I think we will be good there. I like that racetrack a lot. There are some racetracks I run better at and that just happens to be one of them. I don’t know what it is but that track, Concord Motorsports Park (NC), New Hampshire and Riverhead I seem to always run pretty good. We seem to struggle from time to time at Stafford or Thompson.
“I haven’t gone there with the team I have right now. We are going to go to Waterford with a setup that is hopefully pretty close and we can adjust from there to get it right. We are going to feel it out. I am still looking forward to it. We came to New Hampshire with a setup we didn’t have the last time we were here and we adjusted and were fast. I just want this for my guys real bad. It’s not fair for them to get dealt the stuff we get dealt every week so I really want to turn it around for them.”
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at Waterford is scheduled for Sunday, September 24th.
