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Armed with two
track championships and a trophy room full of hardware from the 2008
racing season, Eddie has his sights set on adding the trophy for the
“ Daytona 500” of short track racing to open the 2009 season this
Saturday night in the Grimm Construction Chevy.
Eddie and the Grimm Racing Team will compete in the field of the
best forty drivers from NASCAR’s top divisions, the Camping World
East and West Series, and regional champions in the
Toyota All-Star Showdown in
Irwindale, California on January 23-24.
The Showdown has attracted such names as Joey Logano, Ron Hornaday,
David Gilliland, Matt Crafton, and New England legend Ted
Christopher. Sixty-two teams have entered with hopes to make the
starting grid in the popular event that will be televised live on
Speed Channel on both nights starting at 10:00 pm.
The Rowley, Mass. racer is guaranteed a
starting position in the field by virtue of his June win at New
Hampshire Motor Speedway. Eddie completed the sweep of both
Loudon races with a win in September earning the NHMS Lincoln
Electric Airgas Track Championship. That very afternoon, “Eddie
Mac”, as he is known in the racing circles, won the Oxford Plains
Late Model Challenge Championship. This one-day accomplishment
earned Eddie the Quarter Master Performance of the Year Award. The
acknowledgements continued at The Camping World banquet with the
veteran driver receiving the POWERade Move of the Race Award and the
Featherlite Most Improved Driver Award.
“We had a very good year and now our goal is to build on that with a
strong showing at the Showdown,” said Eddie while making final
adjustments on the car at his Newbury, Mass. garage.
“We are going there to win. We finished fifth
last year and know we can do better especially with the team and
equipment we have now. We just have to be in position at the end to
have a chance and I am very confident we can do it. ”
With seven years in the series, formerly known as the Busch North
Series, Eddie had the reputation as doing the best with a limited
budget against much better financed teams. A year and a half ago,
the team’s fortunes improved significantly when Rob Grimm of
Waymart, Pennsylvania became team owner. In its first full season
Grimm Racing stunned the racing world with the prestigious wins
while finishing seventh in the points. This was no small task since
NASCAR’s top developmental series boasts the names of DEI, Gibbs,
and Schrader among the teams competing in the highly competitive
division.
Eddie is appreciative for everything the new team owner has done
saying, “It is fantastic to be part of Grimm Racing. Rob’s given us
all the equipment we need to compete every week. The equipment is so
much better than what we’ve had in the last few years. He lets us
make all the decisions on set-ups and how we race. He supports
everything we do and is our biggest fan.”
With crew chief Rollie LaChance and the team
in sync after a full season and with Grimm’s commitment to race the
full 2009 season, Eddie believes everything is in place for a
successful campaign beginning with the Showdown saying,
“We’ve had a whole year now on our equipment. We had some new cars
last year and learned a great deal about them. So now we can
fine-tune them instead of trying a lot of different things at each
track to get the right set-up, so we expect to improve on everything
we did last year. It just feels great to know everything is set for
the upcoming season.”
Optimism and expectations begin on the fast, high-banked half-mile
oval on Friday with practice and qualifying with Eddie saying, “Even
though we are guaranteed a spot we want to start up front to avoid
wrecks and not have to use the car up too quickly. We want to be
able to run for two hundred laps then really push it the last fifty
to be in contention for the win at the end. We have a lot of
practice time Friday so we should get a good handle on the track. We
give up a little in qualifying set-up so we can be there at the end.
Rollie does a great job preparing the car and making adjustments we
need during the race. This is a fun track because of all the grooves
you can run. For most of the race you run the high groove but near
the end all the guys are going three and four wide. It gets crazy
but it is a lot of fun.”
Asked what winning the Showdown would mean to him, the twenty-eight
year old stated, “A win at Irwindale would be just as cool as
winning at NHMS. I’ve wanted to win at Loudon for a long time and
just going out there with just the prestige, with no points
involved, and going for the win would rank right up there with the
Loudon victories. We feel confident because Rob has given us the
stability and ability to set higher goals. The guys are ready and I
want to thank our other sponsors: NEMO, New
England Mechanical Overlay, HMS Motorsports of Danvers, A&B Vending,
and Waymart Building Supply. I want to thank all our fans and
hope they’ll all be watching this weekend.” |
