It’s going to be a short week when it comes to spending time in the shop for Donny Lia and his #18 Lia Motorsports, Inc. team. The team ran their westernmost event of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season Saturday night at Jennerstown Speedway (PA) and finished 13th. Then, they returned to their Long Island raceshops to prepare for one of the biggest events of the year; the July race at New Hampshire International Speedway.
Qualifying at the Magic Mile will take place on Thursday, with the race being run right after lunch in front of a NASCAR Nextel Cup crowd on Friday.
Lia and the other Mod teams aren’t going to New Hampshire to play second fiddle to the Cup boys though. They are there for one of their biggest races of the year and it doesn’t matter who might be racing later in the weekend.
“The way that I look at it, New Hampshire is Daytona to the Modifieds,” said Lia. “Going there is special to me. It’s the biggest and fastest track that we race on. There is a lot of strategy to racing there that doesn’t come into play anywhere else where we go. Drafting is important and there is a lot that you need to do to run well. I really love going there.”
The Whelen Modified Tour is scheduled to start their race at New Hampshire at 1:15pm on Friday, July 15th.