{"id":10604,"date":"2012-08-22T16:05:45","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T20:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=10604"},"modified":"2012-08-22T23:06:47","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T03:06:47","slug":"emily-packard-shines-in-thunder-road-late-model-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/emily-packard-shines-in-thunder-road-late-model-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily Packard Shines In Thunder Road Late Model Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thunder<\/a>Packard Shines In Thunder Road Debut
\n15-year-old Follows With Strong Runs At Canaan Fair Speedway<\/strong><\/p>\n

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Emily Packard’s storybook season continues to add new chapters.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday night, Packard opened eyes when she made her Late Model debut against one of the deepest weekly fields in the region \u2013 on one of the trickiest tracks anywhere in the northeast \u2013 with a 10th-place finish in a 50-lap Late Model feature at Thunder Road International Speedbowl in Barre, Vt.<\/p>\n

Packard, 15, of East Montpelier, Vt., has competed in a Street Stock on the quirky quarter-mile throughout 2012 while also racing in the Late Model division on Saturday nights at Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, N.H.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so happy with our performance,\u201d said Packard, who finished second Thursday in the Street Stock feature. \u201cI never would have guessed that for my first start at a track, particularly at a place like Thunder Road. Then to not have hardly any practice with the Street Stock and go out and finish second, it was pretty amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we opened up a lot of eyes this week. To hear somebody like (Tom Curley) say that we had impressed him, it really ensures that we’ve done a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two nights later, Packard returned to Canaan for Twin 35-lap Late Model features, finishing eighth and sixth in the two races \u2013 despite being involved in an accident mid-race in the first feature and having to restart at the rear of the field and then making contact with the wall in the second event.
\nOverall, she recorded a seventh-place finish for the night and sits fourth in the track’s Late Model standings as a rookie. Perhaps the biggest sign of Packard’s improvement this season is her reaction to a posting three Top-10 Late Model finishes in a span of 48 hours.<\/p>\n

She wanted more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think we would have had a car to challenge if we could have gotten up there in the mix (at Canaan),\u201d Packard said. \u201cI have learned so much this year. We’ve made a huge step up. My dad and I were talking about it with the team \u2013 we made a huge jump this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s been more than anybody could expect. At the start of the season we just hoped to show up and be in the Top-10, but now as we get to the end of the year, we’re trying to run up front every week and fight to stay in the Top-5 (in points). Things have just been going phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Packard showed up at Thunder Road last Thursday simply hoping to qualify for the feature. After passing a pair of cars in a short heat race, she finished high enough \u2013 and with a high enough plus-minus number toward the handicapped start \u2013 to earn the 11th starting position on the grid and avoid the consolation round entirely.<\/p>\n

She admitted to waiting in the race hauler waiting as the starting lineup for the consolation race was announced and wondering why her name hadn’t been called.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo tell you the truth, I didn’t think I was going to make it through the heat race,\u201d Packard said. \u201cMy plan all along was to maybe pass a few cars, but I never thought I’d get to the handicap. When Tom (Curley) came over and said it was a huge field that was there that night, I was worried.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the heat race, I was listening for my number and they never called our name. I was worried, so we went over to check and make sure something wasn’t wrong. They told us we’d already qualified for the feature. Obviously, we were all really excited.\u201d
\nOnce she was qualified, Packard’s goals for the night changed on the fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to run well,\u201d Packard said. \u201cI was happy to just stay in that area where I qualified. I knew I didn’t want to go backwards. Just racing with the cars around me, I knew there were going to be some guys I could pass and a bunch of guys coming from the back of the field, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to make it into the field was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Packard Shines In Thunder Road Debut 15-year-old Follows With Strong Runs At Canaan Fair Speedway EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Emily Packard’s storybook season continues to add new chapters. Last Thursday night, Packard opened eyes when she made her Late Model debut against one of the deepest weekly fields in the region \u2013 on one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[26,200],"tags":[15135],"class_list":["post-10604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thunder-road","category-vermont","tag-emily-packard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}