SHENANDOAH, VA :: Doug Liberman picked up his second Late Model Stock Car championship in three years when he won the track championship at Shenandoah Speedway.
Unlike his championship season at Old Dominion Speedway in 2012, where he scored three wins, Liberman was dominant at Shenandoah Speedway. He scored six wins in 12 starts in the 2014 season at Shenandoah Speedway.
Liberman, who resides in Delaware, made the decision to run at Shenandoah this season after running a limited schedule in 2013 following the closure of Old Dominion Speedway in Mansassas, Virginia.
“We really were lost last year because we had built a new Creech car in the offseason and really struggled with it,” Liberman said. “We didn’t really have any place close to race. Shenandoah’s five hours away. Old Dominion was the closest place to us. We spent last year without a home. This year we decided to run at Shenandoah.”
Liberman found that the drive to Shenandoah wasn’t terrible and, when he arrives, he was competitive right off the trailer.
“After driving out there, it wasn’t that bad,” Liberman stated. “We split the drive up between my dad and I and decided Shenandoah would be where we run. Things fell in to place. We worked on the car in the offseason, changed stuff in the front and back, the car came alive early in the year. We had two wins right away. Things fell in to place after that. The car was real consistent all year, didn’t have to change stuff on the car, things went as perfect as they could be out there at Shenandoah.”
After winning two races to start the season, Liberman’s dominance continued. He went on to win six races and the track championship – and this time, his track championship isn’t overshadowed by offseason events.
“The championship validated all the work that we did in the offseason,” Liberman explained. “The wins helped but the car was consistent every week. We had a shot to win every race out there. Every race was in the top-five. One race, me and Ray Terczak got tangled up. Another race, we got passed by cars that had just come back there where we were running on two tires and they had four new tires. After that, we were up front the rest of the time.”
Liberman said the long runs many of the races at Shenandoah featured played to his advantage, stating that his car performed better during the long runs. Following his success at Shenandoah, Liberman elected to run at the Ronnie Barnette Memorial at East Carolina Motor Speedway this past weekend with a motor in his car built by Barnette.
“We had a great time just going down to run a race. It was the Ronnie Barnette Memorial and he built the engines that we had. It was important for us to run there since it was a Ronnie Barnette Memorial. I don’t know if we can go to North Carolina to race a lot because it’s a long drive.”
Liberman doesn’t have any plans to compete anymore in 2014, saying that a seventh place finish at East Carolina as well as runner-up finishes to Brian Purdham in the final two races of the season at Shenandoah opened his eyes to the need to make improvements to his racecar. With his season likely finished, he is looking ahead to 2015 and, as of right now, plans to again compete at Shenandoah Speedway as well as at Dominion Raceway, which is under construction in Thornburg, Virginia, when the track opens.
“Right now, we’re planning on running at Shenandoah and, if they ever get the new Dominion Raceway opened up, we’re going to run there also. I’d like to travel more but, at this point, we’re going to concentrate on Shenandoah and Dominion.”
Liberman joins names such as Lee Pulliam, Josh Berry and Chad Finchum in winning championships at two different tracks in the last three seasons. This time, his championship is relished.
