{"id":12993,"date":"2013-06-06T15:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=12993"},"modified":"2013-06-06T07:47:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T11:47:37","slug":"emily-packard-late-model-tripleheader-on-the-bill-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/emily-packard-late-model-tripleheader-on-the-bill-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"EMILY PACKARD: Late Model Tripleheader On The Bill This Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Emily<\/a><\/p>\n

Tripleheader Weekend On Tap For Emily Packard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Late Model Racing At Devil’s Bowl, Canaan, Thunder Road On The Bill<\/p>\n

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Emily Packard of East Montpelier, Vt., carries the momentum of an historic win into a Late Model tripleheader this weekend, June 7-9.
\n
\nPackard returns to the Vermont State Championship Series with the Bond Auto 100 at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in West Haven, Vt., on Friday, June 7. After that, she returns to NASCAR Whelen All-American Series at Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, N.H., on Saturday, June 8, before making the short trip to Thunder Road International Speedbowl in Barre, Vt., for the kick-off to the track’s weekly racing series on Sunday, June 9.<\/p>\n

Packard, 16, won the most recent NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model event at Canaan, winning the Twin 25s last Saturday night to become the first woman in track history to win a Late Model race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I’m still thinking about it, still letting it all sink in,\u201d Packard said. \u201cI was going through all my pictures the other day in school, and I saw the one of the car with the checkered flag, and I was, like, ‘I won! I won a race! I won a Late Model race!’ I’ve probably been annoying to some of the kids in my school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a really cool fact that I was the first woman to win a race there. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I’m glad that I was able to make that history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Packard will debut a brand new No. 9x Northstar Fireworks\/Berlin Optical Expressions Ford Fusion this weekend at Canaan. She tested the new ride earlier this week at the track and immediately diagnosed both the pros and cons with switching over to a new car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s definitely different, so I was getting used to that,\u201d said Packard, who jumped to fourth in the Canaan Late Model standings with her win. \u201cIt was really smooth and comfortable. It feels like it suits my driving my style better. I think the biggest thing was that I was excited to be able to get into another car and be comfortable with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Packard last competed at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in May, finishing 10th in the ACT Late Model Tour Spring Green 113. It was her first career Top-10 finish in ACT competition on a track that she’s particularly fond of.<\/p>\n

When she gets to Thunder Road on Sunday, it will mark another facility where Packard reached a career milestone. She won her first ACT qualifying race in the Merchants Bank 150 one week before finishing 10th at Devil’s Bowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of the tracks this weekend, they all have their good things about them,\u201d Packard said. \u201cCanaan is my home track, and I want to go there and back up what we did last week. Devil’s Bowl is a great track \u2013 a big track, fast track, a place where we really run well. Thunder Road is the hardest track of the three, I’d really like to apply all that stuff that we’ve learned there over the last couple of years and continue to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest challenge for Packard this weekend will be adapting to three completely different tracks in a span of 48 hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw last year when we did two cars in one night (with a Street Stock and a Late Model at Thunder Road), I didn’t struggle that much with it,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you get to the next track, you have to forget about everything that’s happened before. If you had a bad finish in the last race, you just forget it. Same with a good finish. When you get one the track, you have to worry about hitting your marks, your braking points, its unique characteristics.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to focus in on the here and now and not the past.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tripleheader Weekend On Tap For Emily Packard Late Model Racing At Devil’s Bowl, Canaan, Thunder Road On The Bill EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Emily Packard of East Montpelier, Vt., carries the momentum of an historic win into a Late Model tripleheader this weekend, June 7-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"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":[4139,201,26],"tags":[15135],"class_list":["post-12993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canaan","category-devils-bowl","category-thunder-road","tag-emily-packard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}