Rain Dampens Packard’s Run at Speedway 51

Jun 1, 2015 | American Canadian Tour, Touring Series News

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 15^th 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 9^th 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 8^th starting position in the 3^rd 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 8^th 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 5^th as the checkers fell.  Now it was on to the “B” feature.  Starting 5^th in the “B” feature race, Packard had to finish in 3^rd or better to transfer into the Generation Next 151 race. “I knew I had to get to 3^rd 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 3^rd and final transfer position into the feature race.

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