Super Dirt Week Produces Good Performances, But No Luck

By DAVE SULLY - SYRACUSE, NY- The Williamson Racing Team was a prepared as it could be when it set out for Syracuse for Super Dirt Week, and the car came back to St Catharines relatively unscathed from a hectic period of hot laps, qualifying, and racing when it was over. In between, there were a number of good things, some learning experience, and general satisfaction, but not a lot of luck.

The week started on Wednesday, October 9th, at the newly re-opened Cayuga County Speedway, affectionately referred to as Weedsport by most racers. The race, which was a seventy-five lap 358 Series event, proved to be a struggle. Mat finished 5th in his heat (behind Brett Hearn, Matt Sheppard, Pat Ward, and Ryan Susice), one spot out of qualifying, and then barely made it into the feature by finishing third in the second consolation race (behind Carey Terrance and Larry Wight), the last qualifying spot.

The race didn’t go as well as the team would have wanted. Starting toward the rear, Mat struggled to a nineteenth place finish. The only good thing about the night was that Erick Rudolph, who led Mat by 34 points going into the race, finished twentieth, which kept Mat in the hunt for the 358 title.

Talking about the night, Mat explained, “We were stuck in a tough group, didn’t time trial as well as we wanted to, and racing-wise we just made the wrong calls in setup and tires. I personally made the wrong call on tires. We just struggled for seventy-five laps. We’ve only raced Weedsport three or four times. It’s tough when you don’t go to a race track every week. You certainly know more when you do. Nobody has that advantage when you come to Super Dirt Week. It’s one of those things. You can’t look back on it.”

Moving onto Brewerton on Thursday, things improved somewhat. Running in the fifth heat, he finished in a qualifying position, third, behind two pretty good runners, Matt Sheppard and Tim McCreadie.

Mat explained, “It wasn’t too bad. We were back in a tough group again. You never get an easy group when you come to DIRT Week. We ended up third in the heat race. We weren’t very good then. We did what we usually do at Merrittville. It just didn’t pay off. We weren’t as good as we thought we would be. I thought we’d be a top five car for sure. It’s just disappointing that we weren’t.”

There was no time to fret, because the team had to get ready for the Twin Twenties on Friday, the qualifying events for the Salute to the Troops 150 on Saturday. Time trials went well earlier in the day, with Mat ultimately timing eighth after being on the pole for quite a while before the sun came out and the track got faster, allowing several of the later drivers to time quicker.

Mat observed at the time, “I think we’re faster than an eighth place car. That’s the disappointing part. The worst part about it is that eighth is the worst place you can be because you can only go backwards from there. You can’t gain spots. You can only lose them. I think we’ve got a fast enough car to do well in the Twins.”

“We’ll be all right. We’ve got a fast enough car to not get passed. The guys who timed faster start ahead of us. We’re not worrying about anybody coming up from behind us.
We’re hopefully not going to lose any spots. We’re starting ahead in the twin twenties and hopefully we can get a win. That would be great. I think we’re faster than the cars ahead of us. We’ve just got to keep plugging.”

Mat was prophetic about the Twins, as he finished in the runner-up spot in race number two. After a nifty move at the start got him into third, it appeared he would end up there, but on lap 18, Chris Raabe, who had led the entire distance, suddenly slowed on lap eighteen, advancing Mat to second, while giving the win to Marc Johnson.

In the 150 on Saturday, Mat had a good starting spot and seemed poised for a good finish. He ended up starting seventh, but was never able to improve, ultimately sliding back to a thirteenth place finish, not bad, but not what they expected after his finish last year. The condition of the track didn’t help, as passing was very difficult.

There were other factors that entered into it, as well. Mat noted, “We were better through the week than we were on race day. That’s for sure. I think we had a loose race car come race day, and you have to be almost perfect to pass on the outside at Syracuse. We weren’t one of those people. Racing for points hurts us when we go to a race like that. Guys can take chances pitting on earlier laps than we can, because we know we have to finish. We didn’t lose any spots in the pits. We didn’t gain any. I was happy with it. It went off without a problem. Like last year, it proved we could pit late and still finish up front. This year we had the car to finish up front, but the race track didn’t allow us to. It was one lane on the bottom, and if you got out of line, you’d lose two, three spots. It wasn’t a race track we’re used to seeing at Syracuse.”

Mat summed up SDW this way. “It was a good week. We didn’t have any problems mechanically. We didn’t have any problems physically with the race track. We finished every race we started. It was a good week that way, but we didn’t get the results that we wanted. Of course, we wanted to win. We put a lot of effort into that week. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t win.”