weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway as they will participate in three of
the scheduled five events at “The Magic Mile.” MacDonald will take the green
flag in the K&N Pro Series East” New Hampshire 125 on Friday, then compete
in the Craftsman Truck Series and the American-Canadian Tour Invitational
races scheduled for Saturday.
The team has been preparing for the weekend for some time and MacDonald
realizes the pressure saying, “This is something we have planned on since
the beginning of the season but we have been out straight preparing both
cars and the truck. I can honestly say that all the preparation is worth it
because we feel really good about our chances, at least in the East and ACT
races. We decided to race our truck, we bought two Roush trucks earlier this
year, and it’s really an experiment, so our goal is to qualify for the race
and hope for a good finish. We are definitely excited to be in three events.
We will be dragging afterward but it should be a lot of fun.”
The experiment MacDonald spoke of will be in running a “spec” engine for the
first time in the Truck Series. Running a “spec” engine has been talked
about for a while and has been tested at some tracks but no team has decided
to use one in a race. Questions about horsepower have generally kept its use
on the back burner. NASCAR claims the engine produces only 20 less
horsepower than the conventional power plants but independent tests claim
the difference to be between 80 and 100. The engines are lighter in weight
but NASCAR has decided that anyone running the “spec” engine will have to
add 100 pounds to the car in order to level the playing field. Probably the
reason the spec engine has not been used is the horsepower disadvantage and
the added weight to the car. The experiment will begin with qualifying for
the New Hampshire 175 on Saturday at 10:05 a.m. followed by the race at 3:00
p.m.
With three wins in the last five races in the K&N Pre Series East races at
NHMS, MacDonald knows what it takes to get to victory lane saying, “We have
had great success there in the past and we definitely learned a what not to
do after our June race. We made some changes that we thought would help the
car but they went the other way. The car is always fast there so we are just
going to go with what got us there before. Of course we would like to win
there again since all our fans are from the area and will be there, so every
win there is special. After our run at Gresham we need to get back on track
and there is nothing like being at home to do that.”
After the Craftsman Truck race on Saturday, MacDonald will climb into the
#17 Late Model to defend his title in the ACT Invitational. Last year was
the inaugural race for the ACT Tour and it was so successful both NHMS and
ACT officials decided to stage the event again. MacDonald has won races
running the ACT Tour this season when his schedule permitted and won the
prestigious TD Bank 250 at Oxford Plains earlier this year. MacDonald is the
early favorite to repeat as champion at NHMS but is quick to point out, “It
would be awesome to win it again and that is what we are going there to do
but there are a lot of strong cars entered this year with a year of racing
at NHMS under their belts so I expect a tough race.”
MacDonald and crew chief Rollie LaChance were not pleased with the car
during the test session held in August at Loudon with MacDonald saying, “It
just didn’t go as we expected it to go. It just wasn’t fast as it usually is
so we made some changes since then and we just tested at Lee and it was
fast. It handled great so it is where we want it to be.”
LaChance was pleased with the car saying of the chance to repeat, “I am now.
The car was great. I am really happy with it and I am looking forward to
racing it at Loudon. Hopefully we can win another one.” On the truck test
LaChance said,” It was okay until we developed a leak in the master
cylinder, which I didn’t need with everything going on but better to find it
here that at Loudon. We pretty much got rained out at Oxford Plains testing
this week so it was good to get out on the track. I think we will be
alright.”
Practice for the K&N Pro Series East race begins at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday
with qualifying at 3:15 p.m. The New Hampshire 125 will take the green flag
at 5:00 p.m. on Friday following the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series qualifying for
Sunday’s Sylvania 300. The Grimm Race Team will have only a few hours of
rest until the 8:00 a.m. start of ACT practice on Saturday morning.
“I hope we get a lot of people to come out to support us in all three races,
said MacDonald. “Hopefully we can post two wins and a top twenty finish.
That’s the goal. We are really looking forward to the weekend.”