Donny's News

A fourth-place finish in Monday’s NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series race at New Hampshire International Speedway for the #18 Lia Motorsports, Inc. didn’t fully satisfy driver Donny Lia. Nothing short of a victory would have. Nevertheless, the Long Island (NY) driver was happy about turning around a recent stretch of bad luck for his team by recording a solid top five finish.

“That was fun,” said Lia. “I was just setting him up for the end. He did what I thought he would do. Once I got by him, I knew that he wasn’t going to press the issue because he’s concerned about points.

Another factor that made Lia work hard was the fact that he lost valuable time in the first half of the race when Nevin George ran into the side of him and

caused Lia’s #18 to spin out. George had been battling an ill-handling car and the contact wasn’t intentional, but it still started an uphill battle for Lia.

“I would have had something for them upfront if I hadn’t gotten spun there. Nevin George got into my right rear. He was pretty sideways and out of control. I could tell that his car was really loose. It could have been worse; we could have gone and ended our day. We just got the wall with our right rear, but what really hurt us was loosing the track position. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“By the time, that the car came in and I figured out where I needed to run the car on the racetrack, they were gone ahead of me,” said Lia. “They checked out and I was there to get whatever I could get.”

Lia maintained his seventh position in the Modified Series point standings, but gained ground some ground on the positions in front of him. He is now just 20 points out of sixth and 39 markers from getting into the top five. There are only two races left in the season and making it to the top five is a goal of Lia and the #18 team.

“We didn’t pick up any spots, but we closed it up a little,” said Lia. “We’ll keep trying to get into the top five by finishing races. We’ve just had some real bad luck lately. We’re shooting for the top five now. There was a little stretch there when we were shooting for the championship. Now it’s just a matter of getting to the top five.”

Next up for the Modified Series will be next Sunday’s Fall Finale at Stafford Motor Speedway (CT). It comes at a

track where Lia has run great so far this season, but failed to finish well at. He got collected in a wreck between Ted Christopher and Todd Szegedy early in the summer and was battling for the lead with less than ten laps to go last month when Tony Hirschman spun him out. He looks forward to sealing the deal at the track this time around.

“We’ll be alright at Stafford,” said Lia. “We’ve had a good car there and we will this time. We just need to keep it out of trouble. That’s what we haven’t been able to do recently there.”

Donny Lia and his Lia Motorsports Inc. team are competing for the 2004 Championship in the NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series this season. For more information on the team, please contact Matthew Dillner at (704) 231–7613 and be sure to visit DonnyLia.com.

“This is our first good finish in a couple of races,” said Lia. “I’m happy with that and definitely can’t complain.”

Lia has been fast in recent weeks, but has gotten run into from behind or caught up in other people’s wrecks and he has not finished well since winning the late-summer race at Riverhead Speedway (NY).

The fourth-place finish at New Hampshire didn’t come easy for Lia.

The battle between Lia and Eddie Flemke in the final few laps of the race might have been the best on the track. Flemke passed Lia with five laps to go. With two laps remaining, Lia got alongside Flemke again and beat him to the finish line.