EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. – Emily Packard and her Northstar Fireworks/Packard Fuels team had high hopes as they unloaded her car Saturday afternoon at Devil’s Bowl Speedway, unfortunately, things wouldn’t go as hoped and she would end the night with a 15th place finish. “It was a long day,” said Packard, “I was hoping for a better finish. The car was ok, but it wasn’t really handling that great towards the end of the race; I was just trying to make the best of it that I could.”
Readying for practice, Emily and the team rolled the car out, while Scott Coburn, interim crew chief for the weekend, and Joe Polewarczyk Sr., talked over the car set up. After first practice, Packard found herself 20th fastest on the speed charts, but the team went to work making changes and when final practice was over she had moved to third fastest time on the chart. “Practice was pretty interesting,” Emily said, “everyone seemed to be all over the place out there, so it kind of set the tone for the rest of the day. That last practice the car was really good, and I was confident as we headed into the heat race.”
Lining up outside on the front row in the heat race, the 19-year old set out to try to take the lead racing side by side with the pole sitter lap after lap. While battling with the 54VT for the lead and the laps winding down, Emily would find herself crossed-up sideways coming out of four, making an unbelievable save, righting the car but losing several spots forcing her to run the consi race to make her way into the People’s United Bank 100. “He had me completely sideways,” said the East Montpelier native, “we were like a T; although I was able to save it we lost a bunch of spots because of it.” Emily would start on the outside pole for the consolation race, finishing third and transferring her into the feature race.
As the cars rolled out for the American Canadian Tour race, Emily would start in fifteenth. With the race running caution free until lap 79, she had moved up to thirteenth, however she had lost a lap to the leaders. She would restart the race the first car one lap down, battling to get her lap back, but the cautions continued to fly and she would lose a couple more positions to other lapped cars. As the final laps wound down, she would hold on to finish in fifteenth. “It was a rough race out there tonight, drivers seemed to be a little more aggressive than normal,” said Emily. “We had an ok race, nothing spectacular. It wasn’t the finish we had hoped for, not really the best results, but we will remain positive and rally together and be ready for the next race.”
“This week a huge thank you goes out to Scott (Coburn); he stepped up to be my crew chief and spotter this weekend, and he did a fantastic job. Also a big thanks to Joe Sr., Joey Jr, Mike, Nate, Kasey, Tim and Brodie, for time spent working on the car at the race shop as well as all the help at the track. Lastly, I want to thank all my sponsors; Northstar Fireworks, Packard Fuels, Be The Match, Creative Visions, Vermont Country Campers, Berlin Optical Expressions, Rutland Regional Medical Center, Yipes! of Barre, GossCars.com and Fecteau Homes.”