{"id":11765,"date":"2013-08-27T23:49:10","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T03:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maineracing.com\/wp\/?p=11765"},"modified":"2013-08-27T23:49:10","modified_gmt":"2013-08-28T03:49:10","slug":"eddie-mac-ninth-road-vir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/2013\/08\/eddie-mac-ninth-road-vir\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Mac Ninth \u201cOn the Road\u201d at VIR"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"DSC_8478\"The K&N Pro Series East\u2019s inaugural visit to Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virginia in the Biscuitville 125 on Saturday marked the first appearance for the series on a road course since Lime Rock Park in 2010. Eddie MacDonald struggled in practice and qualifying on the 2.25 mile, 17 turn track yet posted a satisfying ninth place finish. With his seventh top ten finish this season in ten races, both driver and team owner, Rob Grimm, improved to fourth place in the all-important point\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

The Grimm Racing Team arrived at VIR for a full day of practice on Friday and it became clearly evident the Grimm Construction\/ Multiple Sclerosis Chevy was down in horsepower to deal with the long straightaways and uphill configuration of the track. When the series ran at Lime Rock many teams suffered the loss of the spec engines that were clearly designed to run oval tracks and not designed for the rigors of right and left hand turns. The #71 ran a \u201cbuilt\u201d engine for durability then and ran the same engine at VIR this past weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we would be down in power but we felt if we could stay on the track until the finish, we would have a decent run,\u201d said MacDonald. \u201cEven with the fixes to the spec engines a number of them did blow up over the two days as did a number of transmissions. There were a lot of turns (17) with only three left handers so the track is really hard on equipment. The top guys had it figured out with speed ant handling but we are happy with the run we had. The car was not real fast but it was steady all through the race. We gained a spot in the point\u2019s race (fourth) so overall it was a good day for us.<\/p>\n

The Grimm Construction Multiple Sclerosis Chevy was 18th<\/sup> (133.888sec.) fastest in the 26 car field and slipped to 23rd<\/sup> in qualifying. Road Corse Qualifying is different from oval racing in that cars are sent out in seven second staggered groups depending on practice speed. Eddie Mac ran with the second group for eight minutes with the best lap scored for the starting grid for the 55 lap event.<\/p>\n

Only three caution flags for 13 laps made for long green flag runs with teams employing different pit strategy for fuel. No tire changes were allowed unless a tire went down on the track. Crew chief Rollie LaChance called Eddie Mac to the pits for fuel and minor adjustments on lap 36 while running fifth after most of the leaders pitted laps before the #71. MacDonald returned to the track in the 12th<\/sup> position then taking the 11th<\/sup> spot on the grid as the caution flag flew on lap 50 when the engine on the #6 car of Daniel Suarez erupted on the front straight right in front of Eddie Mac\u2019s pit sending oil everywhere.<\/p>\n

The massive oil loss required a lot of work to clean up forcing the race into the first green\/white\/checker attempt. When the green flag flew the speedy dry on the track made visibility almost impossible with Eddie Mac saying, \u201cIt was pretty wild out there. You couldn\u2019t see anything in front of you and you were just hoping to hold it straight and not run into anyone. By the time we made it to turn one I was in ninth. It was funny but I didn\u2019t even see the two cars I passed because of the sandstorm. The crew did a great job getting the car ready and we ended up with what we wanted: a top ten finish and a good point\u2019s day. We will head to Greenville next and plan to have a good run there. We ran eighth there earlier in the season (April 6) and now we will be returning there with the new car we ran second at Iowa. \u00a0<\/span>We only have four races left so we want to at least maintain our position but hope to move up in the points.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, September 2 the K&N Pro Series East will take the green flag in the Kevin Whitaker Chevrolet 140 at the famed half mile at Greenville Pickens Speedway (SC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The K&N Pro Series East\u2019s inaugural visit to Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virginia in the Biscuitville 125 on Saturday marked the first appearance for the series on a road course since Lime Rock Park in 2010. Eddie MacDonald struggled in practice and qualifying on the 2.25 mile, 17 turn track yet posted a satisfying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,8,6,4],"tags":[727],"class_list":["post-11765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maine-racing-news","category-nascar-kn-pro-series","category-new-england-racing-news","category-latest-touring-news","tag-eddie-macdonald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}