Eddie MacDonald and the Grimm Racing Team finished third in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series Pork ‘Be Inspired’ 175 at Iowa Speedway. For the fifth year in a row, this race pits the best of the East and West Series drivers against each other for bragging rights. MacDonald’s finish is the team’s best this season on the fast seven-eighths of a mile oval. The run catapulted MacDonald into the eighth position in the points race.
“I am really pleased with our run here. We finished seventh last year and I had a good feeling we were going to contend this year,” said the Rowley, Mass. driver. “The team has worked so hard but we had a tough start to the season, so this is a great boost to us knowing we can race and challenge for wins. It is easy to get down on yourself when things don’t go according to plan, but this team never gives up and today proved that. Now we can carry this momentum through the rest of the season. We are looking forward to Bowman Gray because we usually do well on short flat tracks. Everyone is excited and that is exactly what we need.”
After only posting the 20th fastest time in practice, MacDonald drove the Grimm Construction Chevy to a tenth place qualifying run saying, “We never seem to post real fast times in practice (24.710 sec.-127.479 mph) yet we really step it up in qualifying (24.143 sec-130.473 mph) so we were very pleased to start in tenth. This was such a tough field with the West guys here; it was quite an accomplishment to run so well. Rollie had a great set-up and the guys had the car race ready.”
For the first 65 laps of the 175 lap race, MacDonald ran comfortably in the 10-14 position before moving up through the field as he passed underneath Darrell Wallace Jr. on lap 83 to take over the eighth spot while holding off West series driver and point leader Greg Pursley and into sixth by lap 89. MacDonald restarted 14th after pitting during a lap 91 caution flag but quickly began another march to the front. It did not take long for the #7 Grimm Chevy to break into the top five and by lap 112, Eddie Mac ran fourth and in third by lap 130. Eddie Mac took the second spot on lap 164 from Gresham, but gave it back four laps later. (Because it was a combination race, numbers were assigned according to point standings in each series so
the Grimm Chevy ran the #7 instead of the familiar #71.)
Last year’s winner Max Gresham rode in second place as he and MacDonald raced nose to tail and side by side for the remainder of the race with MacDonald saying, “Max and I had a lot of fun racing each other. If he made a mistake I could get by him, then when I made a mistake he would get by me. We raced each other hard and clean so it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, my car started getting real tight near the end and we had to settle for third but as I said this was the finish we needed to get back on a positive note
for the rest of the season.”
Before the trip even began, the team experienced a problem with the hauler that required the team to borrow Dale Shaw’s rig for the ride to Iowa. “We were really in a bind, but Dale bailed us out by letting us use their hauler and we can’t thank him and D. J. enough for their help. We are competitors on the track, but we are always friends and this is just another example of racing people helping each other.”
Fans can watch the Iowa Speedway replay on Speed on June 2nd, at 6 p.m. The team will have a busy June with three races slated with the first at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston Salem, North Carolina on June 4th. For more information, go to eddiemacdonald.net and grimmracing.com.