Eddie MacDonald's late race battle back through the field netted a
sixth place finish in the NASCAR Camping World Series East Heluva Good!
Summer 125 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The goal to win the event for
the third time in a row after sweeping both races last season at The Magic
Mile did not happen but the Grimm Racing Team accomplished one of its goals
to move to second in the point's race.
MacDonald started on the outside pole then powered by Ryan Truex to the
lead in turn two holding on to the top spot for 33 laps. The team earned ten
bonus points for leading a lap and shared the lead for the most laps led in
the race with 39. The #71 and the #00 pulled away from the pack early
leading by as much as 20 cars lengths. No one came close to challenging the
pair over the first 62 laps. MacDonald said after the race, "I probably
should have let him (#00) go. We were running pretty hard and the car was
really good so I could have easily stayed in behind. There was no pressure
from behind and I could have saved a little more of the car. It is tough to
do that because Ryan and I were having a lot of fun out there."
The car then began to change with MacDonald saying, "The car got really
tight and I had to wait so long to get on the throttle I put in more rear
brake but I had trouble getting in the center and off the turn. It was
bouncing especially in turn two and kept washing up the track."
Despite the tight condition, the decision was made not to take tires on
the lap-39 and lap-63 cautions when most of the field pitted for gas and
fresh rubber. The team planned to employed the same strategy as last year
when they pitted late for tires and the plan worked to perfection as the
NEMO-New England Mechanical Overlay sponsored ride was able to blast through
the field for the wins. This year, things did not work as planned.
MacDonald was running third when the caution flag flew on lap-77 giving
the team an opportunity to bolt on right side tires and fill the Grimm Chevy
full of gas. The restart on lap 81 found MacDonald in 19th place and the
struggle was on to move back to the front. MacDonald said of the strategy to
take tires late in the race, "We waited last year to pit and it worked out
but there were some slower cars on the lead lap that made it tough to pass
and we fell further behind the leaders. Last year there were more lapped
cars so it was easier to get around them. I had to race a couple of guys
really hard to get by them."
On the 100th circuit, MacDonald made the move into ninth place but knew
there was not much left saying, "I used up a lot of the car and tires
getting back up through. I was just hoping to get a couple of more positions
before the end of the race." When the checkered flag waved MacDonald had
picked off two more cars to post a hard-earned sixth place finish.
"We had a good points day and hope we can improve on that at Thompson.
We have had success there in the past and really enjoy running there. We
were certainly trying to get three in a row here but it just didn't happen
today. Everyone worked so hard on this car so our finish was not for lack of
effort. That's racing and we'll get them next time."
The Camping World Series East will invade the famed Thompson
International Speedway on Saturday, July 11th.