Strong Showing in Small Block Series Race Caps Good Weekend at Cornwall

By Dave Sully - (Cornwall, ON) – Following a gutty performance in the Big Block Tour race on Sunday, the team came back with an even stronger effort on Monday, July 1st in the Small Block event, as part of a two day holiday show at Cornwall. This time, a good qualifying effort put them in the redraw and Mat drew the sixth starting spot.

Mat observed, “We timed third fastest in our group (which determined the starting spot for the heat. The bottom lane was certainly the place to be, timing third was really a better avenue than timing second. The first couple laps (Chris) Raabe got in front of me on the restarts. It was kind of like a battle for the bottom. Then, on another restart, he hit his right rear on a bump kind of shot out, and I squeezed into the hole. He tried to squeeze me down the back straightaway and made me lift. I held my lane and that got us into the redraw.”

In the hundred lap feature, strategy played out. Mat explained, “You certainly have to put yourself in a position to win at the end of the race. We got forked on a couple of restarts. I dropped back to eighth on the original one. After that everybody went to the bottom and I ran the top, got the car square. I think we got by Brett (Hearn), Bowman, and two other guys in two laps, so that put us up to fourth. Then we had another restart and I got up beside MacDonald and kind of waited for him to screw up and then I took advantage of it and that put us in third. Once I got up to third I was kind of paying protection, just running around the bottom because the track was really rough. I didn’t want to break and get a DNF. We were just kind of idling around in third and I caught up to Matt (Sheppard) and Jimmy (Phelps). Then on the last lap, Jimmy kind of blew it in for the win and almost spun out. I got under him and beat him to the line. “

It doesn’t get any easier, as the team prepares for the “Battle of the Border,” at Ransomville on Wednesday and then re-doing the car on Thursday and Friday, changing the frame for the next shot at Merrittville. “We’re going to try something different. I just don’t think we have the right package for the frame right now. We plan on experimenting and put something different. We’re going to go back with what we had from last year.”

It certainly helps the psyche to go into a race coming off of a good performance. Hopefully, that will translate into a good finish at Ransomville on Wednesday. Time will tell.