During Donny Lia’s last tour of duty with the #4 Bob and Joan Garbarino-owned Mystic Missile team, the combination of driver and team set the bar high.  In 2007, they teamed up to win the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship and six races along the way.  Four of those six victories came during the first half-dozen races on the WMT schedule, so everyone on the team was used to getting a quick start together.

Lia left the team in 2008 to compete in the NASCAR Truck Series, where he won a race at Mansfield Motorsports Park (OH).  In 2009, he returned and expectations were high.  While finishes of third, sixth and fifteen in the first three events of the season would satisfy most teams, it wasn’t on par with what the Mystic Missile bunch was used to.

But in the fourth race of the season, Donny Lia broke through to visit victory lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  As he stood in victory lane, he knew that there was no place on earth where he team belonged more.

“This is where we should be, because these guys are the best,” said Lia.  “Anything less and I feel like I didn’t do my job.

“It really feels good to get back on track and run up front like we did in the past.  This year, we’ve struggled.  We had a really good car at Stafford.  I got together with somebody there when I had a car to win the race.  We’ve had some mechanical issues that people don’t know about.  We’ve been fighting with power steering.  I lost power steering again today on the second to last caution.  I’m getting good at driving racecars without power steering, but we’ll work on that and we’ll get a little better.  As long as we have a car in the end and we can just race it out we’ll be ok.”

The victory at NHMS was especially satisfying for a few other reasons as well.

“If you are going to win a Modified race, Loudon is the place to do it,” said Lia.  “Martinsville, Stafford and Thompson are all right up there, but there is nothing like winning at New Hampshire.”

The other reason was that the New Hampshire race was the first event where JoJo Energy Drinks was on the #4 Mystic Missile as a sponsor.

“JoJo Energy Drinks was on the car for the first time and that went really well,” said Lia.  “We’re hoping that this is a good start to a long-term relationship with them.”

Lia’s victory was also an exciting one for the fans to watch.  Coming out of turn four on the final lap, Lia was racing neck and neck with Ted Christopher and Todd Szegedy when the three all got together.  Christopher and Szegedy wrecked while Lia made it to the finish line first.

“Teddy was on the bottom, I was in the middle and Todd was up top,” Lia explained.  “He was just going to use me up or use Todd up, but what happened was that he was in a bad position to do that.  I wasn’t all of the way up beside him.  My left front was probably at his right rear or maybe a little bit in front of that.  So when he did that, it hooked him up the racetrack.  That knocked me into Todd with the right front.  That put those guys together and they went on top of the fence real hard. 

“I was able to roll out and drop to the bottom and drive across the finish line. I’m not quite sure how.  I don’t know if I could do that again if I tried.  I thought that we were going to have a nice drag race to the finish there, but I guess that we just couldn’t stay off each other.”

Lia’s next race with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will come on July 11th at Spencer Speedway (NY).

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

New Hampshire Motor Speedway

June 27th, 2009

Donny Lia – No. 4

Mystic Missile Racing

Car Owner: Bob Garbarino

Hutter Racing Engines

Lia Leads Mystic Missile Team Back to Victory Lane at New Hampshire

Donny Lia Race Recap

Jim Dupont Photo

Jim Dupont Photo