{"id":17714,"date":"2017-08-29T18:40:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T22:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maineracing.com\/wp\/?p=17714"},"modified":"2017-08-29T18:40:45","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T22:40:45","slug":"eddie-macdonald-posts-determined-fourth-place-finish-oxford-250","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/2017\/08\/eddie-macdonald-posts-determined-fourth-place-finish-oxford-250\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie MacDonald Posts Determined Fourth Place Finish in the Oxford 250"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

photo by Norm Marx<\/p><\/div>\n

By: Dick Casey<\/p>\n

Eddie MacDonald fought his way through a day wrought with obstacles to take fourth place honors in the 44th<\/sup>\u00a0Annual Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway on Sunday. True success in any endeavor is the ability to face and overcome challenges in pursuit of the desired outcome. Eddie Mac may have fallen short of the desire to win his third Oxford 250 title but his finish is nothing short of spectacular.<\/p>\n

With only 13 laps to go, Eddie Mac rode in second place before tires and handling slowed the second place Dave Lemieux owned Chevy for the fourth place run. The roller coaster day began on a high note with Eddie Mac starting second in the second heat then powering to an easy win for a guaranteed outside pole position for the main event. However, the 17Ma entry failed tech negating the win and forced Eddie Mac into the first scheduled consi race. Starting 14th<\/sup>, Eddie Mac ran three wide on the outside hoping to finish in the top two in the 20 lap shootout to gain entry into the feature. Disaster struck again when a flat tire forced him to the pits. Eddie Mac returned but could only muster a sixth place finish.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After two days of establishing fast times in practice, the EXIT Realty\/Grimm Construction Chevy was considered one of the early favorites. Eddie Mac\u2019s only hope to make the field happened when officials gave a Past Champion\u2019s Provisional.\u00a0 The 38th<\/sup>\u00a0staring position in the 44 car field was not great but at least the Rowley, Mass. veteran driver made the starting grid. Two hundred and fifty laps is a long race and anything can and usually does happen, so the team remained optimistic Eddie Mac would provide some magic.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, another shoe dropped when only six laps in, Eddie Mac caught the tail end of a wreck sending him over the turn three banking. The car returned to the track with the right front fender dangling. After the pit crew did an incredible job, Eddie Mac returned to track wounded but not done. Again, more bad news when the wreck apparently dislodged the radio wire from his helmet making it nearly impossible to hear the driver. Hand signals and infrequent audible responses from Eddie Mac were needed for the remaining 244 laps. Just when you thought it couldn\u2019t get any worse, officials put the 17Ma one lap down as they said Eddie Mac passed the pace car on his way to the pits.<\/p>\n

Instead of giving up with the dizzying array of negative circumstances, Eddie Mac began a steady drive to the front, passing many cars on the bottom as the car drove to the front with no right side fender. By lap 100, the veteran driver rode in the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0position. With most of the leaders pitting for tires, Eddie Mac continued to drive to the front telling crew chief Rollie LaChance, \u201cI have a plan\u201d to stay out a long as possible. By lap 162 the strategy paid off with the car in the fifth spot before finally stopping for tires and fuel on lap 172.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tires were absolutely perfect and while others were falling off, mine were not,\u201d said Eddie Mac. \u201cI wish we could have kept going but we needed fuel and fresh tires. The new ones were not quite as good and even though I got up to second place late in the race the car was tight and losing forward grip. It was a frustrating day with everything that happened but we had a shot at the end and that is what counts.\u201d With 50 laps to go Eddie Mac took over third and set his sights on D.J Shaw for second place. A lap 223 caution gave Eddie Mac the inside starting position and when the green flag wave quickly dispatched Shaw for second.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car was really tight by then and I just couldn\u2019t catch the #7,\u201d said Eddie Mac. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any forward drive and couldn\u2019t hold the spot and ended up fourth. You always want to win but with everything we had to overcome, this is a victory for the whole team. No one gave up and that is the true mark of a champion. You have bad luck but when you compile the list of things that happened today, this fourth place finish was a huge success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGreat thanks go to the car owner Dave Lemieux (Lemieux Home Builders) and all Brian Neal (Neal Excavating) does to help this team,\u201d said Eddie Mac. \u201cThanks also to Derek Beatrice from EXIT Realty in Middleton, Mass. and our K&N team owner Rob Grimm for all his support. Special thanks to our Late Model owner Freddie Peterson and Bobby Wood for really helping out this week. Fielding a car for three days is expensive and these guys jumped in to help. Of course, Rollie and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the crew for all the hard work and never say die attitude. I hope I get them all but we owe a lot to David, Jolene, Rob, Craig, Ryan, Rachel, Laura, Hoppy, Tom, Brian, Dick, and Nikko. Many thanks to my girlfriend Kelyn for all the support and it is great fun to share this with my father and mother.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Dick Casey Eddie MacDonald fought his way through a day wrought with obstacles to take fourth place honors in the 44th\u00a0Annual Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway on Sunday. True success in any endeavor is the ability to face and overcome challenges in pursuit of the desired outcome. Eddie Mac may have fallen short […]<\/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":[878,13],"tags":[727,1270],"class_list":["post-17714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maine-race-tracks","category-oxford-plains-speedway","tag-eddie-macdonald","tag-ops-250"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17714","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=17714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17716,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17714\/revisions\/17716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}