Lia entered the night as the driver to beat. His pole-winning qualifying runs and his back-to-back race wins on Monday and Tuesday nights had all drivers at New Smyrna aiming for his #18 car. Lia looked to be the man again Wednesday but he lost control of his car coming to the green flag on lap four. His car shot into the outside wall, came back across the track and was narrowly avoided by oncoming traffic.
Lia escaped unhurt, but his car will need some work to get going for the end of the week.
“I was just trying to beat them down into one and got a little crossed up,” said Lia. “It’s slick up there out of four on the
top and you’ve got to be just right. I guess I just wasn’t right. I got out of shape and tried to correct it but it just unloaded and shot to the right. There was no way I was going to keep it off the fence. We hit pretty hard but we’re going to fix it and we’ll be fine.
“It’s not that bad, it’s just a lot of bolt-on rear end parts. I had a car that was going to win tonight, there’s no question about that. We’ll be back tomorrow night and we’ll get it done. We’ve been creeping up on it and we had it perfect tonight and I went out and wrecked it. I feel bad for my guys but we’ll be alright.”
