By DAVE SULLY - Following the ups and downs of Super Dirt Week at Syracuse, the team journeyed to Lernerville for the two day Stampede, which featured numerous divisions competing in heats on Friday and features on Saturday. Knowing that the car was going to be good, with the Big Block back under the hood, everybody was reved up for a positive showing.
Things started out very well, as Mat performed well in time trials and buried the competition in his heat, lapping several cars in the process and winning by half a lap.
For the 30 lap feature on Saturday, Mat was slotted twelfth. He immediately put the pedal down and was to reach seventh, when then the rain began to fall, necessitating numerous laps to run the track in when it subsided. Unfortunately, that proved to be Mat’s undoing, as they had planned their fuel load for a thirty lap race. In the cruelest blow, the No. 6 ran out of gas, with Mat leading, on lap 28. Instead of a well-earned win, the result showed a disappointing 16th place finish.
Mat talked about the Lernerville show, declaring, “We were good. We killed them Friday night. We won the heat by over half a lap and almost lapped half the field. The motor was certainly running, and the car was pretty good. We could have made the car a little bit better. We did for Saturday.”
“On Saturday, we started twelfth. We got up to seventh, and it started to rain. They threw the caution when a couple guys went off the end. They needed us to run the track in. We spent about twenty laps running it in and then probably another twenty in cautions. That just killed us. I didn’t put in enough fuel. It was just my call. We always play it close with weight. We don’t carry enough fuel to run fifty lap races when we’re scheduled for thirty.”
“We got the lead. I don’t know if it was our race. Brian (Schwartzlander) was certainly good. It was just unfortunate we couldn’t finish and race with him. It’s one of those things we’ll look back on all winter and remember why we should put more fuel in the car next time.”
“We were certainly good. We’re looking forward to going to Charlotte because we know the motor runs pretty good. We’ve got a new car. It’s all set up. We’ve got a new trailer (Purchased from Danny O’Brien), and we’ll be taking that to Charlotte. We picked it up yesterday (Monday). I’m pretty happy with it. It’s certainly an upgrade.”
This season has had its share of thrills and disappointments. All things point to a good showing at Charlotte, but as has been the case all year long, nothing is for certain.
On a side note, the bad luck at Lernerville wasn’t the only mishap of the weekend. On Saturday night, Mat’s dad, Randy, went to Eastern States at Orange County and suffered the bad fortune of losing his balance and falling from the pit grandstand, breaking his arm. He underwent surgery the following day and by all accounts he should make a full recovery.
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