Eddie fought an ill-handling racecar and a late race flat tire to finish 15th in the Camping World Series East Full Fender Frenzy 100 at Thompson International. After the huge win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Eddie and the team had high hopes for another solid finish but things did not turn out as planned.

Eddie had issues with the NEMO/Grimm Construction Chevy from the start of the race saying, “The car was tight in the turns and loose getting off so it was a handful. We made a bunch of changes after practice with springs, shocks, sway bar, pretty much everything, and luckily we ended up qualifying third. That was a good sign since we haven’t qualified too good this year. It was a little too loose but we thought it would get better when the track tightened up during the race. Obviously, that didn’t happen but I want to thank Rollie and the crew for all their hard work There is just no quit in any of these guys”

When the green flag waved, Eddie started in the third position and immediately lost three spots when the pole-sitter did not have a good start. By lap 15, the No. 71 was running in seventh place despite the tight condition. The Rowley, Mass. driver was able to maintain that position and after two caution flags on laps 33 and 38 moved into fifth place. However, the handling of the car worsened and Eddie dropped back to eighth on the lap 57 restart.

“The car was just washing up in the turns so all I could do was just drive it in deep and hope for it to turn but when I got on the gas the rear tires were breaking loose. I was just trying to hang on for a top ten finish but then the other shoe dropped. It simply wasn’t our day. It is really lousy for everyone because we improved so much from practice to qualify well and felt confident we had a top five car.”

While running eighth a caution flag flew on lap 84 and on the next lap Eddie was forced to the pits with a flat tire. “I don’t know if I ran over anything but we decided to come in again after changing the tire to loosen the car up and boy did we. It was way to loose so at that point we just wanted to finish the race and bring the car home in one piece. That was about the only bright spot of the race. I really feel bad for Rob Grimm, NEMO, and the crew. After qualifying third we really thought we had something. But this is racing so we will just go on from here and get ready for Nashville next week.”

The 15th place finish drops Eddie one position to seventh in the point’s race. With the win at NHMS, the team is guaranteed a spot in the Toyota All-Star Showdown to be held at Irwindale Speedway in California scheduled in January 2009.

Eddie and the crew will perform double duty next weekend. On July 19th they will race in the Camping World Series East event at the Music City Motorplex in Nashville, Tenn., then fly that night to Portland, Maine to race the next day in the famed Oxford 250 at the Oxford Plains Speedway.