07/27/2004

DONNY LIA BREAKING OUT OF MODIFIED CROWD

It has been said that luck is when preparation meets up with opportunity.  Earlier this season, Donny Lia and his #18 NASCAR Featherlite Modified team had no shortage of preparation to make their cars quick.  Lia was a fixture up front in several races.  However, the opportunity part was a bit of a problem.  Lia was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time in several events and did not get the chance to post the results that he and his team were capable of.

All that has changed now, as 25-year-old Donny Lia is currently one of the hottest drivers on the NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series.

“Our luck has been better, but we’ve also stepped up our program a lot,” said Lia.  “We came here (New Hampshire) and tested, we ran the Race of Champions (RoC) at Thompson and that was a test for the other series races there later this year.  We’ve just been running a lot of laps.  Anytime you can do that, you are going to get better.

“We have two racecars that we really have figured out and my crew chief, Kevin Crowley, and I have gelled real well.  He has a good understanding of what I like in a racecar.  We made a lot of changes at the beginning of the year in our program and it took me a while to get comfortable with the new feel of the racecar with the new shocks and completely different rear-suspension.  Everything is different than where we had it last year and it took me a couple races to adjust to that.”

Lia’s hot streak all started with a trip to the Race of Champions Modified race at Thompson Speedway (CT) on an off-weekend for the NASCAR Modified Series.

“We had to put a complete body on the racecar in the first four races of the year because we got trashed,” said Lia.  “We were really down after Riverhead (although he finished in the top-10) because that was a place we thought we could go in and win.  Then we went to Thompson and won.  It was a big relief.  We have had so much bad luck, that when we won at Thompson, it was like a monkey was lifted off our backs.  We let everyone know that we can come out, dominate, run well and win these races.”

Thompson was just the start of a good run.  The following week in the NASCAR Modified Series race at Beech Ridge, Lia won the pole position and finished a strong second.  At New Hampshire International Speedway this past weekend, he qualified and finished in the top-five.  Lia actually led several laps, but fell out of the top-20 after a mid-race pit stop.  After the stop, Lia worked his way back through the field, but ran out of time.  He finished fifth.

“Hind-sight being 20-20, we probably should have come in a little earlier (such as when eventual winner Ted Christopher pitted).  What are you going to do?  You live and you learn and I’m proud of my guys because they made a great pitstop,” said Lia with a smile. 

“The car wasn’t as good as it was before the pitstop.  I think if we had some more green-flag laps, we could have gotten up there a little more.  It was a good run, though.  We ran out of fuel here and broke a motor here last year.  We’ve always run well, but we have never been able to finish, until now.  We’ve had bad luck here before, so I’ll take a 5^th-place run.”

The New Hampshire event was only the third start for Lia at the one-mile oval.  However, he adapted quickly to running with the big dogs around him.

“Anytime you run up front and in the lead draft, it is going to be fun, but to do it with Ted Christopher and John Blewett, it made it even more fun,” stated Lia.  “It was interesting because it’s like a qualifying lap every lap.  There is no cruising around; it’s wide-open.  I was probably over-driving it at times, but it almost takes that here at Loudon.

“It was a definite learning experience.  The draft is real tricky here, especially with these tight corners.  And as long as the straightaway looks, they don’t feel long when you are in the car.  You have to time it just right from the middle of the corner off to get the run on somebody and complete the pass.  It was really a lot of fun, though.

Next up for the #18 team is Saturday night’s event at the Seekonk Speedway (MA).

Donny Lia and his Toyota of New Rochelle Racing Team are competing for the 2004 Championship in the NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series this season.  For more information on the team, please contact Matthew Dillner at (704) 231–7613 and stay tuned for the redesign of DonnyLia.com.

Sources:  Donny Lia PR
Posted:  July 29, 2004