Donny Lia

Coming off his career-best NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series performance (ninth) at Martinsville Speedway, Raybestos Rookie of the Year contender Donny Lia was excited to enter Kansas Speedway for the first time during Saturday afternoon’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 250. Lia’s excitement continued after he took home 12th-place honors in his first visit to the 1.5-mile oval.

The 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Champion claimed his season-best qualifying effort when he drove the No. 71 AutismSpeaks.org/TRG Motorsports Chevrolet to a 13th-place starting spot after laying down a lap of 32.081 seconds at a speed of 168.324 miles per hour. “We really put a good effort forth in qualifying,” said Lia, despite kissing the wall in practice and causing minor damage to the right front of his Chevrolet. “Unfortunately one mistake that I did make is that I got into the fence a bit in practice and we lost about ¾ of the final practice session. That kind of put us behind, but the guys did an awesome job of getting our truck put back together. We were probably a little too tight in qualifying, but overall to qualify 13th and have a competitive truck that could have finished in the top-ten is a great feeling."

Lia’s truck was fast on the straightaways with its Pro-Motor Engineering power plant, but was tight throughout the 167-lap race. “We were real tight all race long but that’s ok,” explained Lia. “We learned a lot and we know what we’ve got to do as we move forward from here. That’s the only way we’re going to learn really, is to go out there and find out what we need. We definitely need to work on a few areas to help us get the trucks to turn a little bit better, but the biggest thing is that I was comfortable and that is big part of the battle that we fought earlier this season. Now I’m comfortable and now we can focus on going faster which is a really good situation to be in.”

Lia looks at his second-consecutive top-12 run as a “huge improvement” over his start to the year. “I look at it as a huge improvement and pretty much right on par on with what I thought we would go there and do,” explained Lia after the race. “I would have liked to have gotten a top-10 out of it – and we were in position to get a top-ten but we got together with David Starr and that put us in a situation where we had to go to the back and put on some old scuffed tires, so that made it harder. Overall, I still think it was a great run. I’m definitely proud of the effort by everybody; the whole team. Jason and the guys did a great job. I’m proud of myself too because I didn’t make that many mistakes and I definitely made some headway. It was definitely a success. We can’t really ask for more than that in our fifth race of the season with a start up deal like this. I’m proud of the guys. They’re doing an awesome job. Every race we go to we’re making improvements and this was definitely another one.”

Lia has only competed in four of the five races this year, but is rocketing up the rankings and is currently shown in 23rd spot – only 38 points out of the top-20. He is ahead of four drivers who have raced in all five events this year, which is notable because Lia did not race in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Lia’s next shot to work his way up the standings will occur at Lowe’s Motor Speedway on Friday, May 16th when the Series’ returns to action for the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. Live television coverage will be provided by the SPEED Channel at 7:30 p.m. ET with radio coverage coming to you live courtesy of MRN Radio.

“I’m just excited to go to Charlotte,” explained Lia. “Lowe’s Motor Speedway was one of my favorite tracks as a kid growing up. To be able to go there and race on it now is an awesome feeling for me. I think we’ll be competitive there. If we make improvements every week like we have, there’s no reason that we can’t go run in the top-ten and eventually be competing for top-fives and after that, wins. I think we’re on course and I can’t wait to go to Lowe’s Motor Speedway.”