Williamson Racing Team Notches Top Five Finish in Merrittville Opener

By Dave Sully - With great weather, a large crowd and a slew of cars, the Williamson Racing Team started off the local 2013 season with a fifth place finish in the 35 lap Modified Feature. After finishing second to Erik Rudolph in the third heat, Mat lined up sixth for the feature in his brand new car. After dropping back as far as ninth, Mat was able to stick with the program, dodged the trouble spots and ultimately finished in fifth, losing fourth to Larry Lampman on a late restart. Chad Brachmann made a last second pass of Pete Bicknell to win the race. All in all, it was a good night for the team.

 

Mat explained, “We’re getting it. I think we need minor changes to make the car a little better. Brachmann was definitely good tonight. He passed me in the middle. I was able to get under him a couple of times, but I think track position was a lot tonight. If you could run the top early, you could gain some positions, but you had to be on the bottom late. Todd Gordon got by me early, and it looked like he was going to win the race. He just stayed on the top too long and the bottom came in. The top went away.”

 

“It was good racing because it was side by side. I think we just missed the boat a little bit and hopefully, we’ll get it next week. We’ve just got to make some minor changes and we’ll be up there. It just gets discouraging not winning. It gets in your head, but it is what it is.”

 

I don’t know if a tire didn’t come in, but it took me a while to get going. I think once the track slowed down we got better. It was certainly tight ion the middle. We’ve got to get rid of that. I think we’re going to change two front shocks. That should help.”

 

Though it wasn’t a win, there is plenty to build on. After one race the team is in the thick of what should be a close point battle, with several teams in the mix to finish on top. Time will tell. 

Williamson Racing Team on Top at Lernerville

By Dave Sully  - After an encouraging Big Block foray to Canandaigua a couple of weeks ago, the Williamson Racing Team started its season in earnest at Lernerville Speedway on Friday, April 26th, in fine style by winning the inaugural event of 2013.

Despite a bad draw, which put him at the tail of his heat, Mat wound up winning it. The top three finishers in each heat were placed in the redraw, which, thankfully, was conducted by the track, as Mat, by his own admission, has terrible luck in redraws. The track came through big time, as Mat started on the outside pole, next to Brian Schwartzlander.

Regarding the race, Mat explained, “He got the lead early, and then we got a restart. I
got the lead and built a little bit of an advantage over him, a little bit of a comfort
zone. Then he caught back up to me, and the caution came out. I sealed my right rear
tire over. It was two or three to go. He got by me, and I couldn’t pass him back. . He
went over the scales and was light by a drastic amount. They tried again and he was
still light and they gave the win to us. That’s good because we get a good point lead
this week.”

Unfortunately, as the team was heading home at 11:30, another drama had to be
played out. Mat noted, “Apparently somebody, said that I had a small block and I should have had to weigh more and that I was light going over the scales. That wasn’t the case. I had the big block
I ran in Florida. They made a big stink over it, so they said they had to cube the
engine, and we had to unload the car. They cubed the motor and it turned out we
were well under what we could have been, so there was nothing to worry about.
I’m pretty excited.”

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Schwartzlander runs an open small block,
which isn’t even dirt legal. If the Schwartzlander motor is legal, he might run his small block there as well.

Track conditions for the race were slippery, not ideal for big blocks. Mat observed,
“Schwardzlander was good. No doubt about it. We’ve got some homework to do.
I made the wrong choice on the right rear shock and that hurt us. We’ll get better
for next week. I don’t think the car is what it should be to go down there and win.
I think we were lucky to get a win, but the monkey’s off our back now. I think we’ll
be better as the weeks go on and we figure out the race track. We’re definitely learning.”

Ultimately, a win is a win. Any racer will tell you that you’ll take them any way you
can get them. It really helped to do it at a foreign track, with championship points
at stake. We’ll see what happens next week.

Williamson Racing Team Has Solid Big Block Finish at Canandaigua on April 6th

(Canandaigua, NY) In their first competition north of the Mason-Dixon line after the highly successful Florida excursion during Speed Weeks at Daytona, the No. 6 finished just outside the top ten at Canandaigua's chilly 64 lap season opener on Saturday, April 6th. It was a good early test for the team and an opportunity to get some Big Block laps in on a spacious half mile.

Using the same car and engine that were so successful at Volusia in February, Mat carved out a third place finish in his heat, a race he actually could have won. He explained, "I was leading the heat and blew it off the end of one and two. Sheppard and Homan got by me."

Talking about the effort in the feature, he noted, "We did what we wanted too. We started twelfth and finished eleventh, so we didn't go backwards. We struggled early in the race . It was nice to actually finish a lot better than we thought we were going to early in the race. I never really had lap time at Canandaigua, so it was good to get some lap time there. It would have been nice to get a top ten, that's for sure, but we're going to go back again this week to see how we make out."

Canandaigua is a good starting point, but the plan continues to be to run Lernerville with the Big Block Fridays on a regular basis. The season opener for the central Pennsylvania facility is April 13th, a day the team has circled on its calendar.

Another intriguing development is Humberstone's move back to Sunday after trying unsuccessfully for a while to make a go of it on Friday night. Humberstone has eight modified shows on its schedule, featuring Big Blocks and Small Blocks racing together, with track points being awarded in both divisions. Right now, the team hasn't decided which car to take there.

Regarding track points, Mat offered, "We're going to kind of play it by ear. I'd like to get the Big Block points at Lernerville and the Small Block points at Merrittville. that way we can kind of keep our options open. As of right now, I think we're going to follow the 358 Tour."

The next few weeks will be busy as the team is settling into a new shop that currently doesn't have electricity, so they're currently headquartered at BRP until the new facility is ready to go.

So far, 2013, courtesy of Florida and now Canandaigua, has shown a lot of promise. The 6 team will be hard at work preparing for what promises to be a very busy season.