Lately, Donny Lia has been finishing up front the hard way.  He recently won the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race at Thompson International Speedway (CT) and finished second in the WMT event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway despite fires, spins, wrecks and just plain bad luck along the way.

At Stafford Motor Speedway (CT) this past Sunday, Lia didn’t have any of that bad luck.  He did, however, end the day in a familiar place – victory lane.  Lia won for the fourth time in 2009 and moved into the WMT point lead with one race remaining as a result. 

Lia almost made everything at Stafford actually look easy… well, almost.

“To win a race is never easy,” said Lia.  “But today nothing went wrong.  That was refreshing – just being able to race.  It was just a good day with no major events.  The car was good in practice; we won the pole and we won the race.  You don’t get too many perfect days in racing, but this was close to one.

“At the start, I fell back to fifth.  I rode there for a while.  It took a little while for the car to get going.  Then TC [Ted Christopher] and the #19 [Doug Coby] got together and that got us into third.  On the next two restarts, I gained a few positions and got into the lead.  Once I was out front, I was able to build up a lead.  I had a really good car and it was really good by itself out front.  Doug [Coby] challenged us a little bit for the lead at the end, but my crew gave me such an awesome car.  It was one of the best cars that I’ve had all year and these guys just do so good every time at the track.”

Lia, who in essence is defending his 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship after spending 2008 in the NASCAR Truck Series, is now leading the point standings for the first time this season.  He heads into the season finale at Thompson with a 26-point cushion over Ryan Preece.

“This is the first time this season that I have led the points.  But it is the only time that I really care about leading.  Still, this championship is not in the bag at all.  Anything can happen and there’s some great competition to go up against.

“We got a little bit behind at the start of the year and we’ve just been chipping away.  We took a nice chip out of the point standings this week and that was good.  We’ve just kept our heads down and kept digging.

“Hopefully, we’ll have no major problems, but you never know.  If it doesn’t happen, we’ve still had a great season.  There’s been a great team effort this year by everyone involved.  So no matter what happens, the guys on this team are all champions.”

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will end its season at Thompson International Speedway on Sunday, October 18th.

For more information on Donny Lia, please contact Matthew Dillner at (704) 788-2134 and be sure to keep checking for news and results at www.DonnyLia.com.

NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour

Stafford Motor Speedway

October 4, 2009

Donny Lia – No. 4

Mystic Missile Racing

Car Owner: Bob Garbarino

Hutter Racing Engines

Donny Lia Wins Stafford’s Fall Final and Takes WMT Point Lead

Donny Lia Race Review

Donny Lia and the #4 team in victory lane at Stafford.  (Jim Dupont Photo)