{"id":14608,"date":"2013-09-20T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=14608"},"modified":"2013-09-20T03:38:13","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T07:38:13","slug":"emily-packard-motorsports-packard-ready-act-invitational-nhms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/emily-packard-motorsports-packard-ready-act-invitational-nhms\/","title":{"rendered":"EMILY PACKARD MOTORSPORTS: Packard Ready For ACT Invitational At NHMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Emily<\/a>ACT Late Model Tour: Emily Packard
\nNew Hampshire Motor Speedway Race Preview<\/strong><\/p>\n

THE STORY<\/strong><\/p>\n

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Emily Packard of East Montpelier, Vt., returns to her favorite track on the schedule \u2013 New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H. \u2013 for the 5th annual Bond Auto ACT Invitational on Saturday, September 21. Packard made her debut at the 1.058-mile oval last season as a Late Model rookie, and buoyed by a strong outing in a recent test session at NHMS, she has high hopes for a strong showing this weekend as part of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 weekend. She enters the weekend after a Top-3 run at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in West Haven, Vt., was thwarted by a broken hub in the closing laps.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS<\/strong>
\nWHO<\/strong>: Emily Packard, East Montpelier, Vt.
\nCREW CHIEF<\/strong>: Neal Woodward, Georgia, Vt.
\nTEAM<\/strong>: No. 9x Northstar Fireworks\/Berlin Optical Expressions Ford
\nSPONSORS<\/strong>: Northstar Fireworks, Fecteau Homes, Berlin Optical Expressions, Yipes! of Barre, VT Shifter Karts, GossCars.com, Be The Match, Rutland Regional Medical Center, R.G. Paving
\n
\nBEST CAREER NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY FINISH<\/strong>: 41st (September 2012)
\nLAST RACE AT NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY<\/strong>: 41st (September 2012)
\nWHAT<\/strong>: Bond Auto ACT Invitational 50
\nWHERE<\/strong>: New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, N.H. (1.058-mile)
\nWHEN<\/strong>: Saturday, September 21 \u2013 8 a.m., practice; 4:45 p.m., race
\nACT Late Model Tour<\/strong>
\nLAST RACE<\/strong>: September 2, Labor Day Classic 200, Thunder Road Int’l Speedway, Barre, Vt. (24th)
\nNEXT RACE<\/strong>: September 28, Fall Foliage 200, Airborne Speedway, Plattsburgh, N.Y. (.500-mile oval)<\/p>\n

DID YOU KNOW?<\/strong>
\nEmily Packard became the first woman to win a NASCAR-sanctioned Late Model event at Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, N.H., when she won the Twin 25s event at the track on June 1 of this season.<\/p>\n

Emily Packard will be one of 43 Late Model drivers in the region to participate in the fifth annual Bond Auto ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday, September 21 \u2013 her second consecutive appearance in the event.<\/p>\n

Emily Packard became the first woman in a decade to win a feature event at Thunder Road International Speedbowl when she won a Street Stock feature at the track last summer.<\/p>\n

Emily Packard was voted the 2012 Vermont Motorsports Magazine Rookie of the Year, and she was also named the Vermont Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Athlete of the Month for August 2012.<\/p>\n

Emily Packard Motorsports crew chief Neal Woodward is a five-time ACT Late Model Tour champion crew chief whose cars set track qualifying records at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Beech Ridge Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING<\/strong>
\nEMILY PACKARD, Driver of the No. 9x Northstar Fireworks\/Berlin Optical Expressions Ford, On heading to the ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for a second time: \u201cI’m excited to go this weekend. It’s an honor with all the Sprint Cup guys there. It’s such a big weekend and there’s a lot of people, and I think it’s really cool we can be a part of that. For us, it’s not exactly what it’s like to be that big, but it gives us a little glimpse of how hectic things can be for Cup drivers on weekends like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you go to every race with the expectation that you want to win. But my main goal is to prove that we belonged there last year. I want the chance to prove that. I want to come back in one piece and finish all the laps.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the value of the test at New Hampshire two weeks ago: \u201cWe spent some time dialing the car back in, because it had been wrecked the last time out. We found a couple little things \u2013 we had a hole in a radiator hose, the rear end was moving around on us a little bit \u2013 so we had some time to fix that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd overall, I think the other big thing from it was that I learned how to drive the track with the Distance car a little bit better. The lifting points and the pick-up points are a little bit different, and you can definitely tell the difference with the horsepower.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the disappointing ending to a promising day at Devil’s Bowl Speedway last weekend: \u201cIt was disappointing. At least it was something that wasn’t because of something I did \u2013 it was something that we couldn’t control. It took a couple of minutes to cool down and find a positive, but I found it. Everybody was really upset about it \u2013 even other teams. We were so good all weekend. We had an awesome car. We had just turned it up and started going again when it happened, and that was the hardest part about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ACT Late Model Tour: Emily Packard New Hampshire Motor Speedway Race Preview THE STORY EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Emily Packard of East Montpelier, Vt., returns to her favorite track on the schedule \u2013 New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H. \u2013 for the 5th annual Bond Auto ACT Invitational on Saturday, September 21. Packard made […]<\/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":[55,112,16,14972],"tags":[15266],"class_list":["post-14608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-new-hampshire","category-nhms","category-touring-series-news","tag-emily-packard-motorsports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14608","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=14608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}