Donny's News

– A good weekend could be defined in several different ways. For one guy, a good weekend might mean a few more tugs than usual on their fishing pole, to others it might mean an especially low golf score.

For Donny Lia, a good weekend means getting the chance to race four times over a five-day period and not finishing worse than 11th in any of those starts.

Lia’s long weekend actually got started at Seekonk Speedway (MA) on Wednesday night. That is where he took advantage of a late-race tangle between a lapped car and leaders Kirk Alexander and Eric Beers to put his own #18 Lia Motorsports, Inc. out front and beat some of the best in the business in a rare

open-competition Modified show paying $10,000 to win.

“That was a good race,” said Lia. “It was a great run. It kind of fell into our hands, but we had an awesome car. It would have been a top-three run or better for us no matter what happened. The leaders got taken out, but once we got past the slower cars, we would have been good. It was an awesome run for us.”

Thursday was a day of rest for Lia, but on Friday he was back in the driver’s seat wheeling the #47 Wisk/Snuggle SK Modified at Stafford Motor Speedway. Lia took command early in his 100-lap event there and was leading when the race was postponed due to rain. The remainder of the race will be held on Friday night, July 29th.

Lia was pulling away with a car that was actually less than perfect.

“We were tight, but I was still able to keep it in the lead and put a few car lengths on second before the rains came, so we had a good car.”

Lia hauled north to Maine’s Beech Ridge Motor Speedway on Saturday for a 150-lap NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race on Saturday. He qualified outside of the top 10 for that race, but moved up early before getting spun out.

“I was trying to squeeze into a big hole there and not get stuck up top and as I came down, Kenny Barry tried to fill that hole and he wasn’t even close. He got me in the left rear nerf bar and turned me around.”

Lia didn’t let that get him down though. He battled back into the top 10 again before once again getting caught in the outside groove and falling back.

Lia was pulling away with a car that was actually less than perfect.

“We were tight, but I was still able to keep it in the lead and put a few car lengths on second before the rains came, so we had a good car.”