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.