Emily Packard
Becomes First Female and Youngest Driver to win here
EAST MONTPELIER, Vt – History was made on Friday night, as Emily Packard found her way to victory lane at Devil’s Bowl Speedway, becoming the first female and youngest driver to win a NASCAR Whelen All-American Series event in the Late Model division feature race here. Following up her second place finish from the week before, Packard was hungry for her first win of the season, and drove her 9x Northstar Fireworks/Packard Fuels car with determination to accomplish just that.
“The guys had the car set-up perfectly tonight and I was able to drive it to the front,” said Packard. Packard had started third in her heat race and won, giving her the outside pole for the feature race. When the green fell, Packard wasted no time driving to the lead, and never looked back. Packard dominated, leading all 30 laps of the race, and winning by three quarters of a straight away over the runner up.
“This win means a lot to me,” Packard said, “Devil’s Bowl is my favorite track and we finally were able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and win here. It feels amazing.” Packard was greeted in victory lane with a pink checkered flag to commemorate her being the first female to win in the Late Model division. “Alayne (Bruno) has been joking with me that if I won a feature race she would have a pink checkered flag for me in victory lane, and she was true to her word,” Packard said.
“A huge thank you goes out to Neal and the guys for giving me a great car tonight, one that we were capable of putting in victory lane,” Packard said. “Special thanks to all my sponsors, Northstar Fireworks, Packard Fuels, Yipes! of Barre, Fecteau Homes, Berlin Optical Expressions, GossCars.com, Be the Match, Rutland Regional Medical Center, and R.G. Paving.”
On Thursday night, Packard ran the 150 lap Vermont Governor’s Cup race at Thunder Road where she ended up with a 16th place finish. “We struggled with the car in practice, but was able to get a set-up that was good for the heat race,” said Packard. “As the sun went down, we found that we had missed the set-up for the race. We pitted twice during, and the car was starting to come around towards the end.”
Packard and the Northstar Fireworks/Packard Fuels sponsored team head back to Devil’s Bowl on Friday night, and then over to Airborne Speedway for the ACT International 300 race.