Donny Lia Has Engine Expire While Leading at Thompson
Rare Mechnical Failure Ends Dream Mod Tour Season
Donny Lia has enjoyed a dream season on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. In the 16 races before this past weekend’s season finale at Thompson International Speedway, he collected six victories and 11 top-five finishes. Not once had he finished outside the top 20 and that was good enough to clinch the Tour championship one race early.
That breathing room was a good thing, as Lia retired on lap 85 of this past weekend’s World Series at Thompson. He was crediting with a 28th-place finish. At the time of his mechanical problem, Lia was leading the race.
“We just broke a motor,” said Lia. “We had a great race car at the end. We had a car I got to lead with.”
Getting to the lead was a bit of a challenge though.
“We had bad rear tire right from the get go. It actually blistered qualifying and the guys thought that it would clean itself up during the first few laps of the race. They were evidently wrong about that, actually it got worst the whole way around and then it got loose. We pitted kind of early.”
On lap 42, Lia pulled his car down pit road, as one of the first cars to stop during the race..
“While we pitted we made quite a few changes. And I mean the thing just came alive. It just drove right through the field. We were able to get the lead on a restart and once we got out front we were just riding, just cruising. Then we broke something in the motor. So that was the end of that.”
“It is a shame. We had a great race car. It was another win that could have been but the thing is that motors break sometimes. Believe it or not, though, that was the first motor that Bob Garbarino ever lost since 1981 from Hutter. That says a lot about the job that Ron does for him.
“The bottom line is that we had a great season, a great car today and we were going to close the season out strong and that did not happen . We will just take our championship and enjoy the next few months.”
