Williamson Racing Team Bounces Back Big Time on Friday at Volusia

By Dave Sully - (Barberville, Florida) After Thursday night when the team struggled and the learning curve took a dip, Mat declared that they would figure it out and come back strong. You always feel like you’re going to do that, and Mat was indeed prophetic as the team bounced back to record its best performance of the week.

The team put a setup in the car they were familiar with, made the right tire choice, and Mat showed that he was becoming familiar with the nuances of the big half mile.“We scaled the car yesterday and got it back to what we run at Merrittville, and it’s been pretty good since then,” Mat explained. “We basically tried to do what Matt (Sheppard) did with his race car, but it didn’t work. It’s learning curve. We had to try it. We need to work slowly to get better with what we have.”

Mat explained, “We went out for hot laps and the carburetor started bubbling. We got in and changed that and went back out for the heat. We were decent. It’s hard to pass. We went out for the consi started on the outside pole, got out front and won by half a lap. It felt good to just win down here, even if it’s just a consi. Hopefully we can time trial a little better on Saturday. We’re in a tough group. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get it. ”

That finish put him in 21st starting spot for the feature.

“Was the improvement due to the driver or the setup?” I asked.

He replied, “I think it was a little bit of both. We’re coming down here to a new track. It’s definitely hard if you don’t have your own setup. At least I knew the race car, so I could learn the race track instead of learning both at the same time. We’ve run into problem after problem this week.”

In the feature, he drove a solid race, passed some cars, stayed out of trouble and finished a solid eleventh, which was a great morale builder for the team going into the final night on Saturday.