Eddie MacDonald returned home and came close to achieving his goal to win on
the track that began his racing career when he was sixteen years old on the
family owned Lee USA Speedway facility. While most drivers would be happy to
finish fourth in the K&N Pro Series East 125 at Lee, the run for the Grimm
Construction Chevy was bittersweet.
“Obviously we wanted to win at home in front of family and friends and the
car was certainly fast enough but finishing fourth was our best run this
season so we are happy about that,” said the Rowley, Mass. veteran. “For the
last part of the race, Truex and I had a great battle going and were running
each other real clean but I guess he should have been protecting the bottom
instead of pushing me up the track. Wallace made a real aggressive move on
the bottom and used twelve tires instead of four to hold the bottom.
Unfortunately we were four of those tires.”
MacDonald qualified second with a fast time of 86.6 mph (15.589 sec) on the
three-eighths mile oval, and then took the lead on the green flag lap from
polesitter Kevin Swindell. MacDonald led five times for a race high 65 laps
to earn ten bonus points. The bonus points were enough to move into sixth
place, one ahead of Matt Kobyluck, in the championship point’s race with
three races remaining on the schedule.
MacDonald was running second when contact was made with Swindell in turn two
on lap 54, “I really felt bad for Swindell but I didn’t do on purpose. My
car was tight and when I hit the gas it pushed up the track just as he was
making a diamond turn in the corner. He came down and I went up and we got
together. I know he was upset with me and I don’t blame him. He had a car
capable of winning but as I said, it was not intentional. You can ask anyone
I race with and they will tell you, I don’t race like that.”
MacDonald led until Truex finally made the pass just as the yellow flag flew
on lap 116 and the battle was on when the green flag waved with three laps
to go. “I had to restart on the outside for the earlier restarts because we
were pushing up the track and Truex was really good on the inside so I knew
it be a great race the final three laps. I was surprised when Rollie told me
we were three wide and that worked for about one lap but it was not going to
last the rest of the way. We almost wrecked in turn one and by the time I
got it back we were in fourth. I know Truex was pretty upset with Wallace
but he did what he had to do to win the race. Unfortunately we got caught up
in it and it definitely hurt us. We had a good point’s race and now we will
try to get more at Gresham Motorsports Park at the end of the month.”
Many of the former drivers and officials of the old Busch North Series and
the family of former director Bunk Sampson were on hand for the event with
MacDonald saying, “It was really great to see some of the guys that made all
of this possible, especially Bunk’s family. I knew Bunk when I was just a
kid and he was a great guy. He did a lot for this series but he was the kind
of guy you wanted as a friend. His name is all over this series and always
will be.”
The Grimm Construction Chevy will be in action next in the K&N Pro Series
East at Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia on Saturday, August 28.