Iowa 200 at Iowa Speedway in the K & N Pro Series third race of the
season. The Grimm Construction Chevy qualified fourth after scoring one of
only five sub 24 second laps around the .875 mile oval. Forty-nine cars
attempted to qualify for 44-car starting grid in the combination event
pitting the East versus the West series’ drivers. MacDonald’s has crashed
out of the two previous races at the track so this finish is well received.
“We have struggled here in the past to finish so we are very pleased with
the results,” said MacDonald after the race. “Both times we came here the
car was fast but something always seemed to happen to ruin our day. Today
the car was fast again and we put down a great qualifying lap and we were
able to have a good finish. Obviously we would have liked to get to the top
five but the car was real tight at the end. I thought I could get a couple
of more positions but with the tight car it took me a lot of laps to pass a
car. It is our best run here so we’ll take it.”
After running in the middle of the pack during Saturday’s and Sunday
morning’s practice session crew chief Rollie LaChance tweaked the set up for
qualifying and the adjustments paid off with the fourth place spot on the
starting grid. MacDonald lap time of 23.946 was nearly a one second
improvement of the best practice time. “The car really felt great and I was
able to drive it in deep in the corners and hug the bottom. As I said, we’ve
had fast cars here before but this time it was super fast. We wanted to
start up front and that happened so it set up a good day for us. Not as good
as it could have been but it was good.”
When the green flag waved, MacDonald ran comfortably in the top six until
the first pit stop when the caution flag flew on lap 75. After taking on gas
and left side tires the #71 returned to the track in the tenth spot but
quickly got shuffled back to 15th when the #39 car did not get up to speed
on the restart causing the cars in the outside lane to lose a number of
spots. “Yes, that restart hurt us because we got shuffled back so far it
took a lot of time and using up the car to get the spots back. We knew we
had another pit stop so we just wanted to be in a good position after our
stop.”
A caution on lap 129 saw all the leaders pit and the Grimm Chevy took on
gas, right side tires and a wedge adjustment. With 60 laps to go MacDonald
rode in thirteenth and in tenth by lap 160. With the laps winding down and
the leaders stretched out on the track MacDonald gained the final two
positions to seventh before the GWC finish. Only one West car finished ahead
of MacDonald but the team moved from tenth in the points and into eighth.
The K&N Pro Series East next race will be at Martinsville Speedway on June
6th.