Lia Brings Momentum to Stafford
Donny Lia of Jericho, NY enters the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler at Stafford (CT) Motor Speedway Sunday with a new combination. He is driving the No. 8 car for Mark Sypher. The two-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour (NWMT) champion finished eighth at Thompson, his first Icebreaker top ten in the last three events. It was the best finish for the team since debuting an LFR Chassis at New Hampshire last September.
Lia has the third-best average finish of active drivers (behind Todd Szegedy and Rowan Pennink). Lia has one win, four top fives, and eight top tens in his last nine Stafford races.
“Stafford is just a place that’s always been good to me,” Lia said. “I guess it kind of fits my driving style well. It’s just a track that I always enjoy going to and when you enjoy going somewhere, going to a specific track, you always seem to do better there. … Stafford’s definitely on that list of tracks that I really like racing at.”
The team is sponsored by Ecoraster and Baja Construction, companies that Sypher works with. New sponsor Bardahl was added in the week before Thompson.
Lia credits LFR Chassis owner Rob Fuller for connecting him with Mark Sypher. Crew Chief Danny Laferriere, Lia, and Sypher assembled the “completely new” team in the last 2.5 months. Sypher had his race car, a rolling chassis, and hauler. The team has a Bob Bruneau spec engine with a second one coming. A second car is being built as well.
“I think he’s just trying to get as many more experienced guys in as many of his cars as he possibly can. … I didn’t leave the 4 car to go race for anyone else. I was kind of open to doing a lot of things and this is a challenge that I wanted to take. .. For the most part, he had all the right tools. He just needed a real good group of guys, which we did, and I think the guys have got together now and it could work really well for us and we can run good. If Thompson is any indicator, we should be in a good position for Stafford and the rest of the season going forward.”
“I credit that to my Crew Chief Danny Laferriere, and Scott Law, and Joey Allegro. The three of them really have just been working their butts off and I really got to give them a lot of thanks and credit for getting the first car together and getting to Thompson and running as well as we did. We had a couple of issues at Thompson. We could have run even better than we did, but just some new car bugs and stuff we’ve got to work out and kind of working out in the race because our practice was cut a little short.”
Lia’s practice was abbreviated after getting into fluid off turn two and hitting the wall. He qualified twelfth after NASCAR allowed him to time trial later in the qualifying order. “It was just enough to do plenty of damage. So luckily it wasn’t too bad. It was fixable. … We really weren’t at 100 percent at that point (qualifying).”
Lia has raced in touring series for many years in the NWMT and a few years in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. He won a truck race at Mansfield (OH) Speedway in 2008. Lia raced Modifieds at Riverhead (NY) Raceway and won twice in 2001. Lia won an SK Modified ® race at Stafford in 2005 during his other stint as a weekly racing.
“Any place that you go race at, running weekly is just you get the most seat time possible. Seat time always helps you no matter where you’re racing. … I actually wish I could do more weekly racing. Trying to get back to doing it eventually, it’s just running weekly it gets the most out of it. I’m thinking about putting together an SK together actually at some point this year. I’d run some races at Thompson and Stafford.”
Lia left the Mystic Missile Racing team after last season. It was his first winless full-time season since 2003. He finished 11th in points with three top fives, six top tens, and two poles. The season included five DNFs in six races and the team skipped the second Riverhead race that rained out.
All but five of his 75 starts between 2007-14 came with Bob Garbarino. He won two championships with the NEAR Hall of Famer (2007, 2009) before leaving for opportunities in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series each time. Lia won 12 times and had finishes of third and fourth in the standings. His first and last wins in the famed No. v4 came at Stafford in the 2007 Spring Sizzler and the 2013 Fall Final.
“That team and all the guys that were there have been a huge part of my career and a huge part of my racing, just my racing family in general. Bob and Joan (Garbarino) they never did anything but enhance my career and nurture it. Bob teaching me to be a more responsible driver. There’s so much that they’ve done for me and both ways and I guess I did for them. So that relationship is still a good one and I’m very lucky to still be able to consider them family.
“Leaving that car for me was just a personal decision. … I just needed and it was maybe mutual. I think Bob too after a while too you just needed to maybe to do something different. … When I left that car not really knowing what was going to come along and not really caring what was going to come along either. If something great came along that I wanted to do like this deal I’m driving for now, that’s great. But if something didn’t come along that I felt comfortable with, that would have been alright too.
“I’ve always been interested in maybe having my own team again, maybe racing at Riverhead or some SK stuff like I was talking about. So just getting the fun back into it a little bit. The last few years have really worn on me and pretty much my outlook on racing, what I’m doing and where I’m going.”
Sources: Nicholas Teto/YankeeRacer.com