By: Ashley McCubbin

With three finishes inside the top-six including a fifth on Sunday in the Guardian Angels 60 presented by Dermathermes, L.P. Dumoulin is off to a solid start this season in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series.

Prior to this past weekend’s event at Circuit de Trois-Rivieres, the hometown hero spoke with NEWS FROM THE PITS about his thoughts on the season opener at Sunset Speedway, and more.

Writer’s Note – This was originally supposed to be published prior to Sunday, but was delayed due to other circumstances. 

ASHLEY MCCUBBIN: What are your thoughts looking back on Sunset Speedway?

L.P. Dumoulin: Well, I think we had a good solid race, with some beating and banging which you always have on the short tracks. It’s different racing, which you always seem to have with two races in the same day. We got a lot of rain during the day so we had to try and adjust to all of it. The set-up was more for an afternoon set-up on the car for Sunset, and we had a good qualification (third), and we saw the rain coming and knew there’d be a lot of issues at night as the track conditions are so much different then.

We did our best to stay out front with those guys. We finished sixth which is great; we had to rub some fenders here and there, which is usual for short track racing. We did some adjustments during the break before the next race and I think we adjusted the car. But in the first race, we had some vibration, just wanted to finish the race and I think we found the problem during the break.

I think we improved upon the car for the second race. We started very often in the second race on the outside, which was fine, as sometimes you can lose a lot of positions on the outside and sometimes you can gain a lot.

On a couple restarts, we were doing well but ended up losing positions but as the night was going on and the track was changing, the set-up we had and the changes we made between the races were pretty good for us and got third place. Yeah, we took advantage of some guys in front of us fighting really hard at the end.

ASHLEY: Speaking of fighting real hard, we saw a lot of aggressiveness. Where do you draw the line for you?

L.P.: Rubbing fenders and rubbing doors is fine, because it’s a very short track and these cars are big and as the races go on, these tires get very slippery. Rubbing is one thing, but when you put your nose under a bumper and spin someone very easily, everybody could do that and that’s very disappointing for me. It’s just poor racing, for me.

It’s just easy for anybody to spin somebody out. I know tempers play a factor, and everybody is waiting for a long time to get on the track and do well for their sponsors, but I think we saw some stuff that was a little rough. I think we just need to respect each other.

ASHLEY: How do you feel you can build upon your oval program following Sunset?

L.P.: Well, we did some very good things in the winter. We just built a new oval car so we had some time over the winter. As all the other teams, we were waiting for a full certain schedule of championship to do some stuff. I think we have to keep learning stuff about the new car, and we keep learning each time we go out.

At Sunset, we were tight there, but I think we have some ideas and we’re going to keep working on that.

ASHLEY: What are your thoughts going into Trois-Rivieres?

L.P.: Super excited, once again, to be racing in our hometown in front of our fans and friends and partners and sponsors and family. For us, it’s a big blessing every year to have a great Grand Prix like that, not even 10 minutes from my house. We’re super proud of it and want to do well there. It’s kind of weird as normally when we run Trois-Riveres we’re deep into the championship, but this is going to be just the third race of the championship.

We know the road courses are really good, or sometimes can be hard on the championship points if you do not do well. We focus really hard on trying to win and do well.

ASHLEY: What is it going to take to score another series championships this year?

L.P.: Oh, I mean, as usual, a lot of patience, being smart out there, but the same time, we need to perform, win races, and work hard on the cars to make sure they’re reliable. A lot of field right now, they are working hard to be faster so that’s what we need to do. We did our homework in the winter so we just need to keep working on that.