Eddie MacDonald Notches Third Top Ten Finish

by Dick Casey - HRM Motorsports

Eddie MacDonald fought a loose handling racecar and the tough 1/3^rd of a mile Seekonk Speedway to notch his third top ten Busch North Series finish this season in the Budweiser 150 with a tenth place run

During practice, the HRM Motorsports Ford was extremely loose and despite a number of changes the crew could not get the car tightened up enough to satisfy Eddie who said, “ I just couldn’t get the car in position to get going the way we wanted. It was so loose I just couldn’t get on the gas. This is such a tough track that even the slightest problem will sent you to the back.

The crew knew what it needed to do and made adjustments before qualifying in hopes to give Eddie a chance to post a good time. Despite their efforts, Eddie’s run was only good for fifteenth place on the starting grid. With his work cut out for him, Eddie said, “ We just wanted to run where we could, stay out of trouble, and make a move when the opportunity presented itself.

Eddie was content to run in the 12^th spot for most of the early going and not take any unnecessary chances. He felt, “ The car wasn’t good enough to pass anyone so I just wanted to hang on to where I could and wait for someone to slip up so I could have a chance to get by them.”

By lap 53, Eddie was racing hard with Salisbury’s Mike Johnson for the 11^th spot and the two staged a great door to door battle for many laps with Eddie saying,” That was a lot of fun racing Mike like that. We did a lot of banging on each other but that was just great short track racing. This is what you expect when you come to Seekonk.”

Eddie was hoping for a much better finish but it was not to be. Eddie was quick to say, “ We love coming here and we were hoping for a top five finish, to help us rebound after our 24^th finish at Lime Rock when we broke an axle. But all in all, it was not a bad day from what we had in the early going.”

The # 17 Ford managed to run in the 10^th and 11^th position for the first one hundred laps when Eddie hit the wall but amazingly did little damage to the handling of the car. Recalled Eddie, “ I hit the wall hard but I was lucky and it looked a lot worse than it was. The car handled just the same, which was not that great to begin with, but we didn’t loose any ground.”

With ten laps to go, Eddie was again battling Mike Johnson for the eighth spot when a lapped car blocked him and allowed Ryan Moore to pass Eddie for the ninth position. When the checkers flew, Eddie had secured his third top ten of the season that kept him in place eighth in the point’s race. Although the finish was not what was expected, it was acceptable considering how the team fought the handling all day.

Eddie stated that he was pleased but also disappointed that the HRM Motorsports Ford did not run in the top five saying, “ We got out of it as much as we could so we have to be satisfied with that but we were looking for more. The crew did everything they could but it just was not what we wanted. We were lucky to get out of here in one piece and will directs our efforts to having a super run at Stafford next Friday.”