{"id":19867,"date":"2015-09-09T20:36:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T00:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=19867"},"modified":"2015-09-09T20:36:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T00:36:29","slug":"packard-posts-15th-place-finish-in-the-37th-coca-cola-labor-day-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/packard-posts-15th-place-finish-in-the-37th-coca-cola-labor-day-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Packard Posts 15th Place Finish in the 37th Coca Cola Labor Day Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo by RPM 360<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Fighting an ill-handing car throughout the entire race, Emily Packard was able to bring home a 15th<\/sup> place finish in a race that saw 9 caution flags in the 37th<\/sup> Coca Cola Labor Day Classic at Thunder Road International Speedbowl this past weekend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 18-year old East Montpelier native was consistently in the top ten on each of the speed sheets and felt that she would have a decent car for the heat.\u00a0 Packard started her Northstar Fireworks\/Packard Fuels car in the 8th<\/sup> position of the second heat race, but wasn’t able to make much movement forward.\u00a0 “We had a tough heat race,” Packard said.\u00a0 “We weren’t able to get into the preferred line, and the car wasn’t exactly how we wanted it, being a little snug in the center.”\u00a0 She would end up finishing the heat race in 8th<\/sup> place, and found herself running the consi to make the feature.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the heat race, the team worked on loosening up the 9xME car for the consolation race, where Packard would start in 7th<\/sup>.\u00a0 With only 12 laps to work her way towards the front, Packard would finish the consi in 4th<\/sup> position, giving her a 17th<\/sup> place start in the 200 lap feature.\u00a0 “The car wasn’t too bad in the consi,” said Packard.\u00a0 “There was a late spin by two of the cars in front of me, so I was able to move up a couple spots there at the end and finish 4th<\/sup>.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Starting the 200 lap feature race in the 17th<\/sup> position, Packard chose to play it safe and ride in her starting position for the first 25 laps, waiting for the field to shake out a little.\u00a0 As the caution flew on lap 78, Packard and the crew decided to bring her down pit road to tighten up her extremely loose race car.\u00a0 Returning to the track after the team made their changes; Packard continued to stay out of trouble but would go a lap down to the leaders on lap 106.\u00a0 Late in the race Emily made some contact with the 13 car, and not too long after she reported to the team that she believed that she had a tire going down.\u00a0 Calling the shots on the pit box, Neal (Woodward) called her on to pit road for the team to take a look at the car under the final caution of the race.\u00a0 Returning to the track with three laps to go, Packard brought the car home in 15th<\/sup> place, one lap down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“This was not one of my better races, the car just wasn’t handing well throughout the race,” said Packard.\u00a0 “The car was really loose so we took the opportunity to pit under the mid-race caution to tighten it up. Unfortunately we went a little too far and the car was super tight in the center, and I wasn’t able to roll the center and it just killed us.\u00a0 Towards the end of the race I got together with another car and a few laps later I thought I had a tire going down.\u00a0 We came in and the team checked the tires, which were ok, but I think we bent something in the suspension.\u00a0 Other than that we came out in one piece and were able to have some fun, so it was good day.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I want to say thank you to my crew; Neal, Frankie, Sam and Matt, Rob and Don for their help this weekend.\u00a0 I also want to say thanks to my mom and dad for all their support.\u00a0 I would also like to thank my sponsors; Northstar Fireworks, Packard Fuels, Rutland Regional Medical Center, Fecteau Homes, Berlin Optical Expressions, Creative Visions, Be The Match, Yipes! of Barre,\u00a0 and GossCars.com.\u201d<\/p>\n

Packard and the team head north to Vallee-Jct, QC, and the \u00bc mile Autodrome Chaudire for a double header with the PASS series on September 12th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. \u2013 Fighting an ill-handing car throughout the entire race, Emily Packard was able to bring home a 15th place finish in a race that saw 9 caution flags in the 37th Coca Cola Labor Day Classic at Thunder Road International Speedbowl this past weekend.   The 18-year old East Montpelier native was […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-19867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thunder-road","category-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19867","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=19867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19868,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19867\/revisions\/19868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}