Donny Lia and his #18 Lia Motorsports, Inc. didn’t just survive the Turkey Derby at Wall Township Speedway (NJ) on Thanksgiving weekend. They collected a third place finish in the rough race at a tough New Jersey bullring.
“It’s Wall, so to finish third and to come out of the race with a podium finish and a straight racecar is a good thing,” said Lia. “It was a good run for us. We had a really, really good car all day but it got tight in the end. There weren’t any really long runs, so we never had a chance to get it going.”
Lia’s original plans for the holiday weekend were to race in Virginia at South Boston’s Mason-Dixon Meltdown. He changed his plans for the Turkey Derby though after several of his crew members were unable to make the trip down South.
“I would have rather gone to South Boston [for the Mason-Dixon Meltdown],” said Lia. “I just didn’t have enough crew members to go down there. I wish that the timing had worked
better for us. The Turkey Derby was the next best thing for us. It’s a fun race with a lot of tradition, so we went there. We still had a good time and got to get one more race in.”
The Turkey Derby concludes Lia’s 2006 racing season.