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NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Dover International Speedway
May 14, 2010
Donny Lia – No. 07
SS Greenlight Racing
Cover Edge
Monster Bad Luck for Lia at Dover
Donny Lia Post Race Report
The #07 at speed at Dover.
Donny Lia had a race filled with obstacles Friday at Dover International Raceway. From a pit road penalty to a cut right front tire, luck was not on the SS Green Light team's side. At the end of the Dover 200 Donny was running lap times consistent with the top-five trucks, but the bad luck resulted in a nineteenth place finish.
Lia was solid in both of Thursdays practice sessions on the high-banked one-mile oval. The SS Green Light crew set-up the Autism Speaks Chevy in qualifying trim and Donny qualified sixteenth at 23.58 seconds.
The concrete surface of the Monster Mile had taken a lot of rubber from Friday’s Nationwide & Sprint Cup practice and qualifying sessions and the added rubber tightened up Lia’s mount early in the 200-lap NCWTS race. During an early caution on lap twenty, Crew Chief Jason Miller called Donny to the pit for two right side Goodyear tires and topped-off the No. 07 with Sunoco racing fuel. Unfortunately, Donny was caught speeding exiting the pit lane and had to restart at the tail of the longest line.
Donny ran hard and was working his way through traffic and racing back towards the top-twenty when the right front tire blew coming out of turn four. Lia did a great job of keeping the truck off the wall and made his way all the way around to pit lane under the green.
By the time Donny was back out on the track, the New York native was three laps down to the leaders in 25th place. From that point forward, his job was to stay clean and get as good a finish as possible for the SS Green Light team.
At the races end, even though he was four-laps down to the leaders, Donny was running lap times consistent with the top-five trucks and he brought home the Autism Speaks Chevy in nineteenth place behind winner Aric Almorola.
“All we need is some luck, some good luck,” Miller said after the race. “We didn’t have thirty laps on those right side tires when that tire went down. It almost looks like was a defect in the sidewall on the inside of the tire.”
“I’ll tell you… Donny Lia is a real wheel-man and if we can just catch a couple of good breaks we’re going to get some good finishes yet this year,” Miller added. “This is the second race this year a flat tire caused us to miss out on what should have been a top-ten. We could have run right up front with the trucks on the lead lap at the end.”
“The truck is in good shape and we’ll be ready for Charlotte, maybe we’ll catch a lucky break next week.”
The next NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race for Donny Lia and the SS Green Light Racing team is the N.C. Education Lottery 200 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Friday, May 21, 2010.
For more on Donny Lia and SS Green Light Racing visit www.SSRacingonline.com or email: pr@ssracingonline.com.
A Goodyear rep takes a look at Lia's blown-tire.
