L.P. Dumoulin got off to a rough start in his 2016 NASCAR Pinty’s Series campaign, but after three straight top-five finishes, and two consecutive second-place finishes, the 2014 champion feels like the title hunt isn’t off the table just yet.
Dumoulin’s first four races were full of finishes outside the top-10, but momentum has caught on for the Trois-Rivieres native as he heads to his home track this weekend. He told OnPitRoad.comthat his team has struggled to start the year, but they’re heading in the right direction now.
“It’s our first season as a team preparing the cars, so it’s been a little bit tough at the beginning,” Dumoulin said. “But right now, we feel it coming. We won’t give up on anything. Nobody’s taking anything for granted right now. We’re all working very hard.”
Despite 2016 being the first year where his team has prepped their own cars instead of using a technical alliance from other teams, the early struggle to the season was unexpected.
“Actually, we were expecting to do better than that at the start of the season with the whole team being based now in Three Rivers,” Dumoulin said. “We thought that the cars would be a little bit more comfortable that that, but unfortunately we’ve had a bunch of bad luck. Problems with the brakes, problems with engines. All that material was brand new. Sometimes you get new stuff, and it takes you a little while before you can figure it out – it was rough, and then we get spun around at Mosport in the first race when we were fighting for top-five, even with brake problems. Same thing at ICAR – we got spun around.
“All in all, it was just a rough start,” he explained. “With the team we have, we were expecting to do well at some point, and it started in Toronto. We resolved probably about 70% of my brake problems. Now, I think we just need to get 100% of our results.”
In recent years, Dumoulin has found himself in contention to win both races on the Western swing. This year was no different for him as finished second in both outings and was within two laps of a win at Wyant Group Raceway in Saskatoon. The two ovals suit the Quebec native’s driving style and always have him hounding down on the leaders late in the race.
“Edmonton, we’ve finished second-place three times, and Saskatoon, we’ve won in 2014 and finished second this year,” he said. “The Edmonton track is really tight, but you got to think about the next restart. There’s a lot of strategy behind the wheel – it’s not just all pure speed. You have to be thinking ahead for the next move, and where you need to position yourself.
“Saskatoon is a whole different type of track,” Dumoulin said. “You have a bump in corner one, and it’s got progressive banking in it – that suits me well, too. Sometimes you can move your line, and you have to understand what’s going on in the car, and how you can make it work very well. All in all, I think that those two tracks are very good to me.”
Dumoulin was close to parking his car in victory lane in Saskatoon after a late-race restart, but a spirited charge from 16-year-old Cayden Lapcevich left Dumoulin in second. Lapcevich’s win made him the youngest ever winner on the Pinty’s Series circuit, and Dumoulin was impressed with the youngster’s maturity level.
“So far with Cayden (Lapcevich), it’s been clean racing, and that’s something you can’t say with all the drivers out there, but Cayden brings a lot of maturity for a 16-year-old kid,” Dumoulin said. “He’s been very good, and it’s been fun to dice with him – to fight with him.”
As the Pinty’s Series heads back East, they’ll make a stop at Trois-Rivieres in Dumoulin’s hometown. The Grand Prix of Trois-Rivieres is a crown jewel event on the calendar, but the added pressure of winning in front of the home crowd doesn’t bother him.
“I’ve been racing at the Grand Prix since 1997 or ’98,” Dumoulin said. “I’ve been there very often, and I really like the pressure that the Grand Prix brings up. It’s good pressure – it’s a good intensity. It’s fun to race in front of your fans, your friends, your family – your hometown crowd.”
As for the remainder of the 2016 season, Dumoulin finds himself tied for fourth in points. It appears to be a two-man fight for the championship between Cayden Lapcevich and Andrew Ranger, but Dumoulin doesn’t want to be counted out yet.
“Until the end of the season, the only thing we want to do is win races, and be up at the front fighting for podiums – that’s the main goal,” he explained. “Everyone will tell you that you don’t show up at a racetrack thinking you can’t win. Right now in the championship, we’re fifth but equal to fourth. To win the championship is maybe doable, but we need the other guys to have bad luck. We don’t wish bad luck, though because we don’t want bad luck. We need to focus on being up front. We need to be leading races and fighting for podiums and wins.
“We’ll see what will happen with the championship,” he added. “We’re not points racing. I’m not racing out there trying to calculate points to get the championship. I’m out there trying to win races.”