Williamson Makes Comeback From Adversity at Ransomville

By Dave Sully

(Ransomville, NY)  Mat started at the back of his heat at Ransomville on Friday night, May 12^th, but was able to fight his way to a fifth place finish to qualify for the feature. Starting fifteenth on the grid in the main event, he was battling with Justin Wright on lap ten, when potential disaster struck, and he found himself parked in the moat on the front stretch.  After a quick trip to the pits, he went back out and soldiered to an eighth place finish.

Mat explained, “It was just a racing deal.  We were going down the front straightaway and Justin’s car broke.  I went to go around him.  He was going to the moat and we kind of got crossed up and I wound up with a right front flat that put me in the wall. After that I got out to see if the car was okay. There was just the right front flat.  You can’t win the championship by coming into the pits and sitting there watching the race. We came in, and the crew did a great job getting me back out there on the lead lap. We got up to eighth.  We could have been 24^th, so from 24^th to eighth is pretty good.”

After the mishap, the car was stout, and Mat scratched and clawed his way forward. He noted, “I had the mentality that we’d go to the front once we got into the pits.  I was kind of upset that we ended up in the pits in the first place, but my mentality changed.  I wish it were a hundred lapper.  We were good.”

Just after the restart Mat avoided potential disaster when a three car wreck, involving Todd Burley, Scott Kerwin and Pat Vigneri occurred just in front of him, but he was able to squeeze around it.  At the end, he battled veteran Rich Vinson and fellow Canadian Tom Flannigan before settling for a well-earned eighth.

Two top ten finishes in the first two races definitely keeps Mat in the hunt at the Big R.