Eddie MacDonald wanted a fourth victory in the six events held at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the Bond ACT Invitational but a skipping engine throughout the race produced a third place finish in the 43 car field that was halted at lap 44 due to darkness. The problem is nothing new to the team and despite their best efforts to solve the problem at the shop and on the dyno, the gremlin persisted.
“We really thought we had the problem solved when we found bent throttle plates in the carburetor but it showed up again during the morning practice,” said Eddie Mac. We changed carburetors twice during the practice but nothing worked. We have been through the engine, wiring, fuel, and anything else you could think of since last season but couldn’t solve it. It is very frustrating to run out there like that knowing if we didn’t have this glitch, we would have competed for the win. We were very lucky to run third with the problem we had. I feel bad for car owner Freddie Peterson who has done everything he could to fix the problem. With the process of elimination, we think we could have a solution. We’ll see.”
“The Outlaw” started 17th on the grid as the result of a blind draw with the top cars drawn from a different bag. When the green flag waved the Hancock Electric Motor Chevy drove to the seventh position by lap ten in the fifty lap event with Eddie Mac saying, “The car was a little tight but not bad and I had great bite off the corners. The motor was skipping a bit but we were doing ok. I thought if it stayed like this, we had a shot at the win.”
Eddie Mac won the inaugural ACT event at NHMS along with two others, all coming in the odd numbered years. He also has three wins in the K&N Pro Series East at the Magic Mile while posting a second place finish during the July Sprint Cup weekend. The team was looking to add an even numbered year to the ACT win column but hopes faded when Eddie Mac radioed to crew chief Rollie LaChance during the lap 26 caution while running fifth that the engine was skipping badly.
The #17Ma. moved to fourth then staged a door to door battle with the #27 before taking sole position of third place then had to hold off the #97 of Joey Pole when a huge wreck brought out the red flag on lap 44 as darkness loomed with Eddie Mac saying, “This is unbelievable. We are so good in the corners but I have no power off. The car is way down on horsepower. Hopefully if we restart this thing I can hold on to third. There is no way I can keep up with Helliwell and Laperle.”
With a massive clean-up on the backstretch and darkness covering the racing surface, officials called the race at lap 44 giving the “Outlaw” a third place finish. The race did not take the green flag until six o’clock instead of the scheduled five o’clock start due to a red flag in the Modified race.
“I know we would have competed for the win if the car was right, “said the Rowley, Mass. veteran. It is frustrating but hopefully we learned something from this race to solve the problem. We plan to race a couple of ACT events to close out the season after we complete the K&N series this Friday at Dover (International Speedway). Rollie and the crew did a great job getting the car ready, even showing up at six o’clock this morning to get ready for our practice at eight. Sheila and Freddie Peterson have been great and I want to give special thanks to Scott and Ken Thompson from Hancock Electric who have supported our efforts for years.