By Dave Sully - (Thorold, Ontario) It looked like Saturday, August 25th was the night that the drought would be over, as the No. 6 was poised to take the lead late in the race at Merrittville on Saturday, August 25th. However, the racing gods in general and Ricky Richner in particular had other ideas, as a lap 26 restart turned into a nightmare. It was all Mat could do to keep the car out of the moat and going in the right direction.
After winning his heat in workmanlike fashion, Mat lined up seventh on the grid for the feature. After a lap nine caution took out the three top running cars of Fred Carleton, Scott Wood, and Larry Lampman, Mat found himself third on lap 12 and then worked his way past Todd Gordon into second on lap 19.
On lap 26, Travis Braun and Pete Bicknell met under unfriendly circumstances in turn one, setting up the pivotal restart. When the green flag flew with Mat on the outside and Richner on the bottom, the 26 of Richner veered to the outside, with Mat almost going over the edge as the cars roared out of turn four. Mat was able to gather it in, but not before he lost momentum and second place to Chad Chevalier.
Richner ran away from the field over the remaining laps, while Mat struggled to regain his rhythm. With the car definitely off, Mat barely held off a fast closing Tim Jones by the razer-thin margin of .001 seconds. Mat explained that the car seemed to lose side bite after the adventure on the restart, which certainly affected the handling.
With that third place finish and Bicknell’s eleventh, courtesy of his jingle with Braun, the almost insurmountable point lead that Bicknell enjoyed over Mat, is a more manageable 26 points. It still looks good for Bicknell to win the title, but now fate can play a role in the final point night next Saturday.
As good as that was, the team feels that this was one win that got away, Mat expressed his dismay at Richner’s move on the restart, declaring, “We were good. We tried some different things tonight, and it benefited us. We got up to second there, a couple of times actually. Cautions kept coming out and we ended up restarting third because of the rule where they go back a lap to line up the cars. We had lots of laps to get back there. I knew we did, so we never got frustrated over it.”
“I knew my car was good enough that I could judge where I was gaining, and where I was losing. I knew I was better in one and two on the bottom. It was weird tonight. I would go through two, and if I drove it in harder and slid up the race track, which is everything you learn not to do, I felt fast, and I would gain ground. Up until that deal with Richner, we were real good.”
“Then the restart came out with nine laps to go. Richner wanted the bottom, so I gave him the bottom on the restart. All of a sudden, when the green flag flew he wanted the top. He screwed us really good tonight. He has all year, really. We had a real good race at Ransomville and when I finally got by him, he door-slammed me because he didn’t like getting passed. It’s frustrating, but we’re getting back up there where we’re getting seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths. We’ve run good the last couple weeks, so I’m happy with that. August has been good. We haven’t been out of the top five at all.”
“Hopefully, next week we can get a good break in the points again. Pete’s horseshoe finally fell out tonight. That’s fortunate for us, especially with the points down to 26. Hopefully, the same thing will happen again next week. We’re still in it. We’re not sixty out or anything like that. I think we’ve got to win and he’s got to finish sixth or seventh. We’ll be doing our homework this week to make sure our car is in top notch shape.”
So, it all comes down to next week. Whatever happens, it won’t be for a lack of preparation and determination. It’s an uphill battle, but the Williamson Racing Team will be ready.
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