Donny's News

Lia continued on with his hot streak in Saturday’s 150-lap event at the Seekonk Speedway (MA). Lia was the fastest qualifier for the second time in the last three events and backed that up with his second runner-up finish and third top-five finish in the last three races.

The Long Islander turned a near record lap of just under 100-miles per hour to win the pole position. He started the race fourth after the redraw for starting positions.

“The pole surprised us quite a bit,” said Lia. “I don’t know what to say except that I really have to hand it to my guys. They are doing an unbelievable job on this racecar. Every single week that we go to the track, I have a car that is great; I’m just the lucky guy who gets to steer it. I know that’s been said a million times, but I’m serious. Every time that we go to the track, this car is right on the money.”

It was the first time Lia had ever seen the Seekonk track, much less turn laps on the tight one-third mile oval. His learning curve consisted only of a few dozen laps. In the beginning of the race, he got caught in the outside groove and slipped back to the seventh position. By lap 50, he was using that same outside groove to start working his way towards the front.

He was able to pick off cars one by one before settling into the tracks of the #4 of Chuck Hossfeld. Lia set Hossfeld up to make a pass for the lead, but a late-race caution period changed the strategy that Lia hoped to use to take over the lead. With five laps left after the final restart, Lia tried to get around Hossfeld a few more times, but was forced to settle for the second position.

“I think that we had a good shot at getting into the lead before the last caution came out,” said Lia, “but that’s the way it worked out. That’s racing. We’ll take second place because that was still an awesome finish. My car needed six to ten laps to come in before I could really work the top line. It’s so tough to get underneath anyone here, so the car has to work well up high to do well.”

Overall, Lia was very happy with his maiden race at the Massachusetts speed plant.

“I would have never thought that I could come here having never seen the racetrack and performed this well,” said Lia. “It’s because of the work that this team does that we could do that.”

The race was not without any close calls for Lia. Early on, several of the top guys in the

running order got caught up in a turn-three wreck. Point leaders Eddie Flemke and Tony Hirschman were involved and spun around. Lia managed to get through the wreck by a matter of inches without any damage to his car.

“It was really close and I thought that was going to be it,” said Lia. “They were all wrecked in front of me and I got hit from behind. Then all of a sudden, the #48 (Hirschman) slid one way and the #79 (Flemke) slid another and there was a clear racetrack in front of me. I was extremely lucky there.”

Lia now sits only one position out of the top five in the Modified Series point standings. His margin of 253 points to the leader will be tough to make up in the remaining eight events, but considering that his team moved up ten positions in the past three races, anything is possible for the #18 LRI bunch.

“Our goal is still to win the championship,” said Lia. “If we keep running the way that we are, we can win it. It’s going to take a little bit of bad luck for the other guys, but we had our share of bad luck at the beginning of the year when we got behind in points. It will cycle through and if we stay out of trouble, we‘ll be in good shape. We are shooting for the top and if we fall short and end up in the top five of the points, that‘s still awesome.”