After overcoming early mechanical problems, Eddie MacDonald battled
back to make a run but met with more bad luck in the Camping World East\/West
combination race at Iowa Speedway. The Long John Silvers' 200 drew the top
drivers from the East and West series plus eventual winner Kyle Busch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
During Saturday's practice, the crew spotted an oil leak near the oil
pan. Despite efforts to fix it, the crew was forced to change the powerplant
after the Sunday morning practice. A broken bolt proved to be the culprit
and according to crew chief Rollie LaChance it was not easy to spot saying,
"As soon as we took the engine out I could see where it was leaking. With
the oil lines in front of it, it was impossible to find with the engine in
the car."<\/p>\n
The Grimm Racing Chevy had to start tail in the 37-car field due to the
engine change but missed the opportunity to at least shake down the engine
for the two-lap qualifying by one minute. The #71, sponsored by NEMO New
England Mechanical Overlay, were forced to start the race without a single
lap on the engine. A true testament to Rollie and the crew, the car and
engine performed flawlessly.<\/p>\n
Ten laps into the feature, MacDonald had already moved up ten positions
and continued the march to the front with him saying after the race, "The
car was just perfect, I could drive it anywhere but it was really fast on
the outside. I could pass a lot of cars out there because it had a lot of
grip and power coming off the corners. It was great getting into the turns.
It was fun to drive."<\/p>\n
By lap 30 MacDonald was in 17th and after a lap 38-caution, the Rowley,
Mass. veteran had the car in the 11th spot. On the 70th circuit, the car
rode in ninth and was moving to the front when two cars in front wrecked on
lap 72 collecting MacDonald in the process.<\/p>\n
"I was happy the way it was going. The car was running really well but
two cars got into it in front of me and slid down the track. I went high to
miss them but somebody drilled me in the back sending me into the wall
hard." The right front fender was completely destroyed and after multiple
trips to the pits, the car returned to the race in the 19th position and on
the lead lap.<\/p>\n
A caution on lap 117 allowed MacDonald to pit for right side tires and
fuel. At that time the car was pushing very bad and a bent section in the
front end was discovered after the race. Despite the problems, Eddie Mac
drove to 14th by lap 136. As the laps continued to wind down the car became
very tight. A new set of left side tires were put on during a lap
177-caution making it a lot better to maintain the 18th position to the
checkered flag.<\/p>\n
After the race LaChance knew what could have been had it not been for
the wreck saying, " We had such a fast race car it could have easily
finished in the top five. When Eddie stayed up in the outside groove the car
was like a rocket."<\/p>\n
MacDonald was quick to add, "I can't thank Rollie and the crew for all
the hard work they did yesterday and today. The car was fast and I think we
had something for them today but, unfortunately, we didn't get the chance.
We'll now focus on our next race in two weeks at South Boston. I also want
to thank our sponsor NEMO New England Mechanical Overlay and car owner Rob
Grimm for making this all possible."<\/p>\n
The Iowa race will be televised on Speed Channel on May 28th at 3:00
p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After overcoming early mechanical problems, Eddie MacDonald battledback to make a run but met with more bad luck in the Camping World East\/Westcombination race at Iowa Speedway. The Long John Silvers' 200 drew the topdrivers from the East and West series plus eventual winner Kyle Busch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar-kn-pro-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597","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=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}