Meet the Team - Rob Sawatsky

Rob, who hails from Caistorville, has a long history with Dipper, having lived in the same neighborhood in St. Catherines from the ages of around seven to ten. Randy Williamson also lived in that area, and they were all friends. “We all carried on and had bike races and so forth in the back yard,” he recalls. “We met again later on when this deal got together, and I’ve been here for the last five years.”

 

Rob’s start in racing came at five years old when his father took him to Merrittville Speedway. He got the bug from there. Unlike most of the others, he hasn’t been involved with driving, except for a few hot laps and a mechanics race at Brewerton. “I was always more interested in working on the cars than driving them,” he noted.

 

In that regard, he has substantial experience in the technical area. He explained, “At the age of fifteen, I got involved with a late model car out of Dunnville, that ran at Merrittville weekly. From that point I moved on and went to work for Harley Turner with his late model car, and he progressed to a 320 small block. I was with him for two or three years. In between that, I worked with Randy (Williamson) and Pete (Bicknell) on a couple of occasions.”

 

After that Rob took time off from racing, as he had an impending marriage and a career to think about. He works for a heavy industrial construction company, Bermingham Foundation Solutions, in Hamilton, which builds basements, bridges, and buildings. He’s been with them for thirty-two years.

 

After about seven years away from the sport, he slowly got back into it, helping Tim Lipsett with his sportsman car for about four years. He was partners on the car.  After re-connecting with Dipper and Randy, he brought that car with him. “We had a meeting and decided that if I brought my car over, we’d have a two car team. That’s actually the first year we started running Friday night at Ransomville, Saturday at Merrittville, Sunday at Humberstone, all the Series races, and Syracuse. I think we did seventy races that year. I’ve been with them for five years. It’s been a great experience, working with all of these talented people, and I’m learning everyday.”

 

Rob’s duties include keeping all of the records, a time consuming job, that is vitally important to the team’s effort. He’s also deals with the scaling of the car and is heavily involved in the shock setup, which has become an art form in the last few years with the quantum leap in shock technology and its importance in the handling of the car. He also helps with the initial setup on the car for race day.

 

The record keeping may sound mundane, but it radically affects the performance on the track. Rob described the process, declaring, “We have a computer on hand at all times. We have scale sheets that we do for each track and since we have two cars, we do sheets for each individual car. We pre-scale in midweek and also take it to the track. All the adjustments we make during the race are also recorded on the sheet. All that information goes into a folder for that particular night. We refer to these sheets when we set up for each track, and they are constantly being updated.”

 

In sum, Rob concluded, “We have great experience on this team, and we all share in discussions about what we’re doing to make the car better and improve it every week. It’s a very good mix, and it’s good to be that diverse. Mat’s gained so much experience over the last couple years and with him being able to tell us what’s happening in the seat itself and all of us getting together, it’s absolutely a great way to work. I have fun every day.”

Meet the Team - Wayne Conn Jr.

Wayne Conn Jr. is a more recent addition to the Williamson Racing team and brings a wealth of experience with him. As so many drivers, Wayne, got into racing through his father Wayne Sr., and he did quite well in his tenure behind the wheel. He explained, “My dad was quite involved. He started out in mini stocks through modifieds, so there was always an interest. I got started in sportsman and carried on from there. We won four Merrittville titles, one at Oshweken, and two at Humberstone.

 

His one foray to Syracuse didn’t turn out well. He remembers, “The year we went down, we blew two motors in hot laps.”

 

While many sportsman drivers eventually graduate to the Modifieds, it wasn't in the cards for Wayne's team. He observed, "We never moved to modifieds because our team really didn’t have the experience to run with the big boys, so we only ran once or twice." 

 

After hanging up his helmet he basically hung around the race track before joining the Williamson team. He noted, “There was always a soft spot for Matty. I was quite impressed with the way he handled himself on the track. I went down when I was racing sportsman and beat him a couple of times, and I was explaining what he should be doing and shouldn’t be doing. I was impressed by the way he listened, and took it into consideration that he was listening because you could see the change in him on the track.”

 

S & W Service Center, which is owned by Wayne’s parents and for whom he is the manager, sponsored the car and because he still had an abiding interest in racing volunteered to join the team.

 

Wayne described his role, observing, “You just lend a hand where it’s needed. I try to guide Matty a little bit, if I can, in terms of him doing something wrong, or if he can do something a little better, we’ll talk about it. I’m very impressed with the year so far. It’s also a lot of hard work by the guys. We put him in a pretty good car, and we have a lot of experience here, so you have a lot of background and a lot of stuff to pull from. That always helps.”

 

With S & W as a main sponsor and Wayne a former sportsman champion, he has been an important ingredient in the success of the Williamson Racing Team.

Mat Rebounds at Ransomville

By Dave Sully - (Ransomville, NY)After a disappointing night at Mohawk, where Mat saw a good chance to score his first 358 Series win scuttled by an ailing motor, he came back strong on Friday night, June 22nd at Ransomville. Returning from the journey to Hogansburg, Dipper and the crew rolled out the second car and made it ready for battle.

 

Things didn’t start very well, as Mat lost the final qualifying spot in his heat on the front straightaway on the final lap, forcing him to run the consi.  Mat scored a third place finish in the consi, which saw him placed 21^st on the grid of 28 cars. After considerable discussion, with plenty of give and take, the team agreed on what changes were needed on the car, and they seemed to work.

 

The car was hooked up for the feature, and Mat used the bottom of the track to perfection. With the 30 lap race slowed by only one caution, it was up to the driver to provide a good finish, and Mat didn’t disappoint, as he kept digging the entire way. He ended up with a hard earned seventh place finish. The solid performance somewhat dulled the pain of the Mohawk disappointment and renewed the optimism in the No. 6 camp.

 

Commenting on the night, Mat declared, “It was there. We’re still better than where we finished tonight, but we came from the back tonight. I wish it could have been a hundred laps. The car was good. We were definitely set up for the track to get slicker than it was, so it was good. The guys hustled their butts off today and got it out there. It’s definitely a comeback”.

 

With Chad Brachmann dominating the event, Mat realizes that improvement is necessary.  He noted, “We have to keep experimenting until we find something good. Brachmann is definitely the car to beat here. I want to be better than him, so we’re going to have to lose some races to find out how to win some races. It’s a gamble every night. Tonight we changed the shocks and the wedge a little bit. It was good.”

 

With little time to contemplate, it’s on to Merrittville on Saturday to do it all over again. 

Clock Strikes Twelve on Great Effort at Mohawk

By Dave Sully - (Hogansburg, NY) After the six hour drive in intense heat to the outpost known as Mohawk International Speedway, formerly known as Frogtown, for the 75 lap 358 Modified Series event on Thursday, June 21st, things were definitely looking good for the Williamson Racing Team.

 

Following hot laps, Mat went out for his heat, and ran a solid third behind winner Dale Planck, and that got him into the redraw. After a rather disappointing draw of eleventh, the crew, which on this trip included, Dipper, Randy Williamson, and Rob Sawatsky, set the car up for a hot, dusty track.

 

The start of the race saw Mat get shuffled back to around sixteenth before things settled down. From there he began a steady march to the front, using the low groove. The race turned into a high attrition affair, signified by ten cautions and two reds. Through it all, Mat made his way forward, passing the likes of Brett Hearn, and Dale Planck before eventually finding himself in second place following a lap 49 restart, which saw him claim the position from Planck.

 

As he tried to reel in the lightning fast Billy Dunn, who had inherited the lead when leader Carey Terrence suffered a steering problem, the caution flew on lap 53, giving Mat a shot at Dunn from close in. Dunn, as he had numerous times earlier in the race got a good jump, while Mat came under siege from Erick Rudolph.

 

On lap 56, the clock struck 12:00 and the Cinderella ride ended, when Mat suddenly felt a vibration in the front end and wisely shut the engine off. The No. 6 carriage turned into the proverbial pumpkin, leaving Mat and the team wondering what might have happened over the final nineteen laps if it had stayed together. Because of the high attrition, Mat ended up 14^th in the final accounting, which, under the circumstances, wasn’t bad.

 

A thoroughly disappointed Mat, who suffered motor problem at Mohawk the previous year, bemoaned his fate, noting, “I felt it vibrating going into turn 3 and just shut it down right away. I didn’t know if it popped out of gear or what it was. We checked over the tranny and it was okay. We saw some oil in the valve cover, so we think it was the motor. It was our race to lose, and we lost it. I was putting around the bottom while everybody was in the rough stuff on top, just trying to save the car and be there at the end. It’s disheartening. We could have taken over the point lead.”

 

Of the race itself, Mat added, “I didn’t change anything in the car. We were good on the bottom. Once the top went away, I was getting better and better. That’s why I think I could have given Billy (Dunn) a run for his money. The worst feeling is to know you could have won, knew you had the car to win, and then sitting in the pits watching the last 19 laps. The track conditions were horrendous (evidenced by the fact that there were only 12 cars running at the end). We’ve lost two motors here when it’s been rough like this. Today I didn’t pound the rough stuff. I just putt-putted around the bottom.”

 

Despite the obvious disappointment, there were some good things to reflect on. Passing legends like Brett Hearn and Dale Planck during the race elevates the confidence level, and having the car perform as well at it did, bodes well for the future. The next step is getting past midnight.

Meet the Team - Charlie King

The next member in our “Meet the Team Series” is Charlie King, the mustachioed former driver from Dunnville. Charlie, who is in his mid-fifties and sells heavy trucks for Archer Truck Services, brings considerable racing knowledge to the organization, having started racing at the age of fifteen. He competed in the bomber class at Merrrittville and also put in one year in a late model at Merrittville and Ransomville in the mid-seventies. After his stint on the dirt, he switched to the pavement.

He explained, “I went pavement racing for quite a while. For about ten years. (I raced) at Flamboro, Delaware, and Cayuga, because I live out that way. We had some wins here and there. We were competitive. At Flamboro we were in the top five in the Street Stock class. If it was our night, we’d win. Then we ended up with a GM Motorsports car, which was a Camaro, for three years. That happened in ’89, ’90, and 91. We raced it at Mossport, Montreal, and Toronto. We did race at Cayuga once a year, with just Camaros and Firebirds. That’s about fifteen minutes from where I live.”

At the time, he preferred the pavement, but since then he has enjoyed the dirt.

After that Charlie took quite a bit of time off and didn’t race much at all. Then, when Mat started with his Sportsman car, his attention shifted. He noted, “I started with him. I was on a Cascar team with Joe Plazek for one year, with the Playstation No. 2 car, and I met Teddy (Renshaw) at that time. It was about two years later he asked me if I wanted to work with the team. I was with him the first night.”

Though there are no specific titles other than crew chief, Charlie does have a routine. He observed, “On Wednesday night, when we get together, I do all the nuts and bolts. We go around the car and check every nut and bolt. We’ve got a pretty good system that we go through. If Mat is going to change shocks, he’ll give me the shock package he wants, and then I help Randy (Williamson) with the setup once it’s up on the scales. At the track, it’s basically wheels and tires.”

Of the cohesiveness of the team, he declared, “We’ve been together for seven years straight now, between Dipper, Teddy, Randy, Mat and me. A couple guys have come and gone. I’ve been here from Day 1. Now, Wayne (Conn) is with the team, and he brings valuable experience. We all get along. We’ve had a routine right from Day 1. Everything gets looked at every week.”

Charlie has seen the progression in Mat’s career, noting, “In the Sportsman, he kind of kept his nose clean, minding his own business. In the first year of the Modifieds, again he kept his nose clean, but last year and this year he’s gotten really aggressive, which is the way it’s got to be. Now that we’re seven years into this, the third year in the Modifieds, we’re as fast as anybody. If we catch the breaks, it’s going to be our night to win. We shouldn’t move over for anybody. I don’t care who it is. I’m the kind of guy who says, ‘If we’re going to race, we’re going to RACE.”

It’s that kind of competitive spirit that fuels Mat, Charlie, and the rest of the team, and is why they are successful.

Second Eighth Place Finish of Weekend at Merrittville

By Dave Sully - (Thorold, Ontario) Following a hard fought eighth place finish at Ransomville the previous night, the Williamson Racing Team was back at it on Saturday at Merrittville and garnered the same result. Starting ninth in the highly competitive field, Mat bolted forward early, getting as high as fourth in the early going, when suddenly the car went backward, and it was all Mat could do to claim his second eighth place finish in two nights. With the race going caution free, the task of making up a lot of ground on the front runners, who were all fast, was extremely difficult. Todd Gordon took the win.

 

Mat described his night, noting, “We were really good early. I went out on the track after the street stock feature there, and I thought the track had a lot more bite than it did. It didn’t. We looked at the track and they put a lot of track bite in, and I figured we were golden. Right before we went out, we changed the right rear shock, and it hurt us. It was a last minute decision. We should have left it alone. The first couple laps, I figured we were going to win it. The car was a rocket ship early. Then it just faded. The track went away, and the car got slower. No cautions doesn’t help either. You don’t get a chance to adjust the car at all or anything like that. It was a good night though. You can’t win’em all. We were still top ten. We finished eighth and Pete (Bicknell) was two in front of us, so it’s a tough point battle. Jonesey (Tim, who finished second) will be in the mix now. It’s good for the fans.”  

 

Nobody said it was going to be easy, and you can count on the No. 6 Team to keep digging.

A Hard Earned Eighth at Big R Keeps the 6 Team in the Hunt

By Dave Sully - (Ransomville, NY) With competition tight and cautions at a premium, there wasn’t much room or time to make many moves to the front at Ransomville on Friday, June 15^th. When all was said and done, Mat salvaged a hard earned eighth, after starting toward the rear, in a race won by point leader Chad Brachmann.

 

Mat put it into perspective, noting, “It was good racing. We just missed the setup a little bit. You just have to drive it hard, and it’s tough to pass. There’s no doubt about it. The bottom was there. I think the top was just as fast. It was good tonight. Brachmann was good. There’s no doubt about that. You have to be spot on to come from eighteenth. It’s tough. You can’t miss the setup at all.”

 

Commenting on Danny Johnson bumping him a couple of times during the night, he added, “He raced me hard, as always, but that’s racing. We’ll get ‘em next week.”

Crash on Friday Marks Forgettable Weekend

By Dave Sully - (Ransomville, NY) Friday, June 8^th, marked the low point of the early season for the Williamson Racing Team as the No. 6 didn’t finish the race after being involved in a chain reaction wreck at Ransomville Speedway.  Following a caution, the car of Ron Cartwright, an infrequent visitor to the big R, entered the track on the backstretch and then stopped on the racing surface with the field bearing down on him. Danny Johnson couldn’t avoid him and made heavy contact, while Mat had nowhere to go either. He piled in, with several other cars being collected as well, resulting in a 26^th place finish.

 

He explained the night, noting, “We were pretty good. We made the wrong tire choice. We were good early though. We got to about tenth and then it was just a racing deal. Danny clipped a lap car that pulled over and didn’t get off the race track enough. He couldn’t proceed and I ran into the back of him when he was stopped. It was unfortunate for me and Danny. I didn’t even hit the brakes. I saw him sitting there and it was too late to get away from it. I kind of tried to grab the brakes, but it was too late and I hit him. I didn’t want to hurt his rear end or my rear end, so I hit him as square as I could. It was a hard hit.”

 

Regarding damage to the car, he explained, “We lost a shock tower, front bumper, rear bumper, a lot of body damage, bumper brackets in the back, and that was about it. We had it fixed by Wednesday night.”

 

About the hit in the points, Mat added, “It’s still early. When you can go from third or second to fifth or sixth, that shows how close it is here. You can gain it just as fast.”

 

As for Saturday night, rain put a damper on the proceedings, forcing cancellation of the Merrittville program, giving the team time to regroup.  

Meet The Crew - Ted Renshaw

As a former racer and member of the Merrittville Alumni Wall of Fame, Ted Renshaw brings over a generation of racing experience to the table. Ted, who will be 73 years old this September, draws from a wealth of experience, which started at a very early age.

He explained, “I started in racing when I was fifteen, pitting for Jerry Winger. We won the championship here at Merrittville two times. They started a jalopy division here and we built one. I raced that and in other divisions until about eight years ago, ending up in Modifieds and Vintage cars.  I won the jalopy championship here in 1961 and the Sportsman Championship at Humberstone in 1964. Then I went to the asphalt and raced there most of the time.”

In those years, he raced Late Models as well as Modifieds and experienced success at all levels, racing against other legends like Richie Evans, Merv Treichler, Dutch Hoag, Chuckie Boos, Billy Rafter, and Bill Wimble, whom he raced against at Syracuse. He also raced the Modified at Charlotte and Dover Downs, with drivers like NASCAR Hall of Famer Richie Evans and Jerry Cook. At Charlotte, he raced against future NASCAR stars Harry Gant, Darrell Waltrip, and Lenny Pond. Hary Gant won the race. “We finished eleventh. We were happy,” Ted recalled.

Of his competition, he declared, “Dutch Hoag was the best driver I ever raced against, smooth as silk, but Richie Evans could get a car into more problems and get it out than any driver I’ve ever seen in my life. He was absolutely unbelievable.”

Though he had a successful and satisfying career, capped off by being named to the Merrittville Wall of Fame, Ted, who resides in Ridgeway, didn’t walk away from the sport. He noted, “When I retired, Dipper and I got talking about starting up a team. Matty was only fourteen years old, and he had just come out of go karts. Dipper wanted to build a Sportsman for him. He asked me if I’d be interested, and this is the eighth year I’ve been with Matty.” Having someone with Ted’s background, who is ready and willing to share his expertise, has been invaluable.

He continued, “I still have a Vintage car and I’m building another ’37 Ford coupe to race on occasion. I’ve raced the Vintage car at Lancaster and Holland, but I don’t do it much any more. I have more fun with Matty. The best part is seeing him win. That’s why they brought me in. I was kind of his teacher. Now they don’t need me for that. I just enjoy doing what I’m doing.”

While the team members do whatever task is at hand, including Mat, who works as hard on the car as anybody, Ted’s main duties are to take care of the rear end gears and the fuel, among other things.” He added, laughing, “Now that I’m ten years older than  anybody else, they ease up on me a little.”

Ted admits that racing is an addiction, one that he thoroughly enjoys. “We’ve got a great bunch of guys. Everybody gets along. In seven years we’ve never had a major issue on this team. It’s just a good bunch of guys.”

Of Mat’s progress he declared, “I think the world of Matty. He’s a good kid, and he’s got talent too. With Matty this year, I’ve noticed more than anything that he takes a good hand in saying what gear he wants and what tires he wants. He’s really blossomed out this year. There’s more feedback for the guys. He’s really come a long way. He’s making decisions himself, rather than asking, which is super.”

At the tender age of 72, Ted Renshaw is still as enthusiastic about the sport as when he drove and treasures the opportunity to be a member of the Williamson Racing Team.

Williamson Closes in on Point Lead With Strong Finish at Merrittville

By Dave Sully - (Thorold, Ontario)  After last weekend’s somewhat frustrating finishes, not all of his own making, Mat turned in a strong performance on Saturday, June 2^nd, finishing second to Chris Steele in a race he thought he could have won. In so doing, he pulled closer to the point lead, as Tim Jones, who was in second going into the race, suffered a flat tire, which relegated him to a thirteenth place finish, and top point man, Pete Bicknell finished fourth.  Mat now stands in second, two points out of the lead.

Crew Chief “Dipper” Windeatt noted that the team made a number of changes to the setup and practiced on Wednesday at Humberstone to work the bugs out. The strategy seemed to work, as Mat who started ninth, inside last week’s winner, Mike Bowman, was on the gas and passing cars early.

As Steele vaulted to the front from eighth, Mat was replying in kind, and when Steele took the lead on lap 12, Mat was ensconced in third. He diced with second place runner Rob Pietz for three laps before cruising by on the outside to claim second on lap 15.

A caution on lap 18 set up a series of three side by side restarts between Mat and Steele, with Steele able to keep Mat at bay by choosing the tackier bottom, forcing Mat to restart on the slicker part of the track.  Mat did the best he could, but ended up second, just ahead of a hard charging Tom Flannigan, who started sixteenth and may have been the fastest car on the track at the end.

On the overall effort, Mat noted, “We were good enough to win, but Steele was real good. He just kept snookering me on the restarts. I wasn’t quite good enough to get by him. I think if I could have gotten by him, I could have taken his line away. It was tough, but it was a good run and a good points night. I really wanted to win tonight, but second’s good.”

Of his restarts with Steele, he offered, “He kept going into one and sliding up, taking my line away, trying to slide job me. That’s racing. It was a good night for the S and W car.”

As for the points, he concluded, “It’s early. We’ve just got to keep knocking down these seconds, thirds, and wins.”

With Ransomville’s race rained out on Friday, Mat lies in a tie for third there with Pete Bicknell, two points behind Chad Brachmann in second, and ten behind point leader Danny Johnson after four events, one of them that great win on opening night.

The season is still young, and the Williamson racing team is positioned well to this point.