photo by RPM 360

photo by RPM 360

By: Dick Casey

On Saturday July 16 Eddie MacDonald will actually participate in three races with the first one taking place at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the K&N Pro Series East’s Granite State 70. The third event of the day is the American Canadian Tour’s second leg of the Southern New England Tripleheader 150 lap feature. Sandwiched between the two events will be the mad dash from Loudon, NH to Seekonk, Mass. in order to make the starting time for the ACT feature later that evening.

“Accomplishing this will be quite the challenge,” laughed Eddie Mac. “Our first priority is to run for the win in the K&N race. We compete in five events in this series and we really want to be competitive at our home track in the Grimm Construction Chevy. We have three wins in this series at Loudon and would like nothing better than to add another title for our owner Rob Grimm. The competition is tremendous in this series but we feel we have the car that can run up front. Last year we fished second at Dover and the year before finished second at NHMS and won at Bristol. Rollie (LaChance) knows the set up for this place so if we can get the car to handle in the turns we should be there at the end. It is only a 70 lap sprint so everyone will be going for it from the drop of the green flag. It should be a lot of fun running on my favorite track in front of all our families and fans.”

Once the checkered flag waves at Loudon, both Eddie Mac and Rollie will be on the clock to get to Seekonk Speedway for a chance to regain the point’s lead in the ACT series.  In the first Southern New England event at Waterford Speedbowl, the EXIT Realty/Hancock Electric Chevy finished second but sustained heavy damage to the front end that was the result of oil spread on the track. While the car was fitted for a new front clip, Eddie Mac was forced to drive the back-up car at Devil’s Bowl to a seventeenth place finish to drop out of the point lead. A win at Speedway 51 moved the Freddie Peterson owned ride into second place just 21 points behind Nick Sweet.

The team decided to go to Seekonk this past Saturday night, July 9 to practice on the track in the Late Model division’s Everett’s Auto Parts fifty lap feature since they will not have any practice time next Saturday. Initially, Eddie Mac and Rollie planned to take it easy and not compete for the win but when the car ran well in practice the duo decided to run competitively for the win. The car dominated from its 17th starting position and took control of the lead by lap thirty to post the win. However, the win was taken away after track officials decided the car was eight pounds to heavy on the left side despite using faulty scales. The scales were not level with the left side scales one inch lower than the right side. Car owner Freddie Peterson used the team’s level to show the difference to track officials who seemed uninterested in the findings only to insist “That’s the way we do it.” The decision stood despite protests from Peterson and LaChance.”

“The track officials said it was the same for everyone when I asked them about the faulty scales,” said the frustrated crew chief. “It may be the same for everyone but it doesn’t make it right. We use the scales in our shop that are on level ground and so does the ACT tour. We didn’t go on the scales before the race because we were working on an engine problem and had the thing apart. I would have picked up the discrepancy immediately. With their scales being off it hurts their own cars because people are setting up their cars to go on their scales. It was a very frustrating experience to go through but we know the car was fast and capable of winning next week. I just hope we use the ACT scales for our race. You just hate to have a win taken away from you when you know the reason was not valid.”

Practice for the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Granite State 70 will begin on Friday, July 15 at 6:00 and end at 7:20 pm. Group qualifying will begin at7:35.

The second leg of the Southern New England Tripleheader 150 is scheduled to begin after 9:00 pm.