Dick Casey photo
Eddie MacDonald fought his way through the field from a 22nd starting position to score a third place finish in the American Canadian Tour’s Beech Ridge 150 in Scarborough, Maine on Saturday, August 8. Eddie Mac had to qualify for the race in a consi after getting dumped in the heat race.
Eddie Mac bounced back from the set back and put on an impressive display of driving from the rear of the starting grid of 27 cars. Before that could happen, things took a turn for the worse with the Exit Realty/Hancock Electric Chevy in third place in the heat race when the #17 RI decided to dump the #17Ma with two laps remaining in the 12 lap heat. The top four cars from the three heat races gained starting positions for the 150 lap feature. This forced Eddie Mac into the 12 lap consi starting ninth with the top five making the feature. Eddie Mac finished fifth.
“We had a good car right through practice and we were headed for a good starting position for the feature when I got taken out,” said an angry Eddie Mac. “I don’t know why he was mad at me since I didn’t have anything to do with him sliding up the track. It was uncalled for and I thought I was going to hit the wall. It put us in a tough spot to make the race since we had to start in the back of the consi. Fortunately we made it but it put more laps and wear on our tires that would hurt us at the end of the feature.”
When the green flag waved Eddie Mac moved to the outside groove and began picking off cars early saying, ”The car was really good on the outside and a lot of cars stayed on the bottom so I was able to pick up a number of spots. I got to 11th (lap 26) and decided to run for a while to cool the tires. The guys gave me such a good car; I knew I would be able to get some more spots. Passing at Beech Ridge is always tough especially with all the lapped cars. We had the car for it but I was hoping we had the tires for it.”
By lap 50 the Rowley, Mass. veteran ran eighth but had to deal with some side by side action in front for nearly 20 laps before passing two lead lap cars and into the sixth position on lap 91. With lapped cars an issue Eddie Mac had to be patient to get by thus creating a gap to catch the #9 car for fifth place. Running fifth with 20 laps to go, Eddie Mac moved to fourth when Joey Pole wrecked in front and passed the #16 car on lap 141 for the third spot. Eddie mac tried to catch Babb and Helliwell on the lap 142 restart but to no avail.
“I used up the tires coming up through the field and they were skating on the last two restarts,” said Eddie Mac. “We had a great run to finish third and I have to thank Rollie (LaChance) for the set up and to the crew of Rob, Tom, Ryan, and Andy Santeere for all the hard work. Thanks also to Laura LaChance who is always there to spot, cook or anything else the team needs. Of course, none of this would be possible without car owners Freddie and Sheila Peterson from Peterson’s Auto Body in Peabody. Thanks to Derek Beatrice from Exit Realty, Scott and Ken Thompson from Hancock Electric, and our K&N team owner Rob Grimm for his continued support. Congratulations to Brad Babb for the win. He ran a great race. We are looking forward to the ACT race at NHMS in September. We hope to have a lot of our fans there.”