EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. – In a hard fought run towards the front by Packard in her Northstar Fireworks/Packard Fuels car, it was rain that finally won out on Saturday night. Her 15th place finish was not the results that she had hoped for and not a reflection of just how well she ran the race. “I am pretty happy with my finish,” Packard said. “I wish we could have ended in 9th place and not had the rain delay and that restart after the rain fell. I believe that the car was good enough that had the race gone to the scheduled 151 laps, I could have picked off a few more cars and maybe had a top-5 finish.”
With 5 practices on Saturday to get the car dialed in, Packard and the team took advantage and used each practice to make the car faster each time she went out on the track. “We had a decent car in practice,” said Packard, “and we knew that we would have a good car for the race.” Drawing the 8th starting position in the 3rd heat, Packard knew that she had her work cut out for her to finish in the top-3 and qualify to the feature. “We went out for our heat race and just got stuck in the wrong line and was not able to make any progress forward,” Packard said. With a large turnout of cars for this race, Packard started in 8th position in the second of three consolation races, where they were taking the top-2 to qualify and 2 to fill out the back half of the field. With only 15 laps to make her way forward, Packard tried the inside and the outside, but was only able to make her way to 5th as the checkers fell. Now it was on to the “B” feature. Starting 5th in the “B” feature race, Packard had to finish in 3rd or better to transfer into the Generation Next 151 race. “I knew I had to get to 3rd in order to make the race, and I went out and set my sights on moving forward,” Packard said. As the race ended, Packard was in the 3rd and final transfer position into the feature race.
With the rain threatening, Packard started the race from the 27th position and knew that she would have her work cut out for her. With the help from her spotter, Steve Tapley preaching little bites, Packard started to slowly pick her way through the field. By lap 50 she had moved up to the 23rd position, and by keeping the car clean, while missing a few wrecks in front of her, she continued to pick up spots. On lap 75 she had moved to the 20th position, and continued to show her patience as she set up cars and move passed them. By lap 85 she was up to 11th, and with a wreck in front of her, she inherited the 9th spot. With the caution out for the wreck, the rain started, which kept the yellow out for a little longer. After checking the track and with the drivers, ACT officials determined that the track was good to go, and threw the green flag. On this restart, Packard was stuck in the outside groove and cars just lined up inside to get by. When the caution was thrown for the last time, on lap 91, Packard had slid back to 15th finishing position. “In the quick little run that we had for the 6 laps before the rain came again, we fell back to 15th,” said Packard. “I wish we could have finished the race, the fan turnout was great and it would have been great to give them 151 laps, but the rain got the best of us. I am super impressed with the Laquerre’s; they have done a great job with the track. You can see the progress already and there is so much more that they are planning on doing to the track. It is really exciting to see a track like this develop and start a new era.”
“A huge thank you goes out to my mom and dad, my crew: Neal, Sammy, Steve and Randy, and especially all of my sponsors who make it possible for me to race each week: Northstar Fireworks, Packard Fuels, Rutland Regional Medical Center, Be The Match, Yipes! of Barre, Fecteau Homes, Berlin Optical Expressions, Creative Visions and GossCars.com.”
Next up is the American Canadian Tour race at Devil’s Bowl Speedway on June 6th.