Chad Pierce Finishes 2017 With Strong Run At Lebanon Valley

Story By: BOBBY CHALMERS / CP RACING – EAGLE BRIDGE, NY – The 2017 season has had many ups and down for Chad Pierce and his race team. They’ve visited victory lane this year but, as of late, have been fighting handling issues. For the final night of racing at Lebanon Valley, they went back to the old notebook and that seemed to work.

After struggling for several weeks to get forward drive in their #83 machine, the CP Racing Team went to work and tried something that was successful in the past on Saturday night.

“The car was much, much better this week,” Pierce said. “We didn’t really do anything dramatic. We just went back to some old setup sheets and it seemed to work. We got to pass cars rather than be passed so it was cool.”

In the 35-lap King of Dirt 358-Modified Series feature event, Pierce kept his nose clean all night and had a real good car. That was, however, until three laps to go. An accident between two other competitors collected the H. Sausville Construction machine and took Pierce out of a solid finish.

“It was on a restart,” he said. “I restarted on the outside. (Brian) Sandstedt and (Brian) Peterson got together in turn one and came back up the hill. I had no where to go and got collected.”

Luckily for Chad, there wasn’t much damage so he was able to continue.

“To be honest, at first, sitting up there, I thought we were done,” he said. “However, there was no major damage. It ended up being just sheet metal damage.”

Pierce rebounded to bring his PMC Race Car home in fourteenth which was a positive way to finish the season.

“This was our last race for this year,” he said. “We’re going to take some time to figure out the next steps for the team and get ready for the swap meet. I’m extremely proud of my crew, especially my dad and Chad Lapine. They’ve worked very hard to give me a good car and we finished 2017 with a win. I’m very proud of that.”