By DAVE SULLY - CHARLOTTE, NC- After running well and having the misfortune to run out of fuel at the Lernerville Stampede, the team ended its season with a good showing at the World Finals on the Dirt Track at Charlotte. Fielding the Big Block in front of a huge audience, Mat was able to time well enough on Thursday, November 7th, in the twin qualifier format to put himself in a position to make good qualifying runs in his heats. The effort put him in both of the 40 lap feature races, which capped off the event.
They didn't get a lot of hot laps on Friday, November 9th, and when they did, they were in the afternoon, with the race running at night. Any racer will tell you that racing in the daylight versus the night on dirt makes predicting track conditions really dicey. They did the best they could, but the car didn't perform in the first feature, although a seventeenth place finish is nothing to sniff at when you consider some of the drivers who didn't even qualify, like Kenny Tremont, Rob Bellinger and Stephane LaFrance, or the drivers who finished behind him, like Danny Johnson, Tim Fuller, Tim McCreadie, Carey Terrence, and Rick Laubach.
The team upped the ante on Saturday, November 10th, starting a distant seventeenth, but finishing a very respectable 12th, again finishing ahead of some top competitors, like Justin Haers, Pete Britten, McCreadie, Tremont, Terrence, Billy Dunn, and Lernerville nemesis Brian Schwartzlander.
Mat talked about the experience, noting, "The trip down there went well. We got in a couple days early, so we were pretty relaxed going into Thursday night. We went out for time trials and timed well for the first session on Friday night, but not so well in the second. In our first heat race, we started second and ended up third. Danny (Johnson) got by me. We were good. We were certainly a contender."
"For the Saturday qualifier, we went out in the heat race and started seventh and finished fourth, the final transfer spot. So we went out of Thursday without having to go to the B Main, and we were in both shows. We were very happy about that. Nothing was wrong with the car. Everything went off without a hitch. It was certainly good that way."
"For the Friday race, we had one set of hot laps and that was at about 4:30, and the race was about 9:30. We couldn't do much adjusting. We did what we could with it. We just struggled. We finished seventeenth, the last car on the lead lap."
"Then we got the car changed around. We talked to Pat (Macaulay) at Fox Shocks on Saturday morning and got it changed around for Saturday. We ended up coming from seventeenth to twelfth. It wasn't the result I wanted to have, but, after Friday, I was pretty happy with it. Everybody's hard to pass."
"The track is a little smaller than Lernerville. It was pretty rough on Thursday, but they did the best they could, and it was racier on Friday."
Mat also reported that the crowd in the grandstand was reportedly sold out at 21,000 and they sold 12,000 pit passes. That represents an absolute gold mine for the World Racing Group.
Mat concluded, "It was a good weekend, and I'll certainly think about going back next year. For now, we start thinking about Florida and go from there."
As for the year as a whole, Mat observed, "I'm happy with it. We did what we could. Obviously, the Merrittville championship was our biggest goal, but we're going to have to wait until next year for that. We just have to look forward. I learned a lot this year. We need to hit our marks and do the same things we did this year, but a little bit better."
I would like to add my congratulations to the team for their efforts in annexing its first championship and for the feature wins at Merrittville and Lernerville. The team also deserves a lot of credit for hanging in there when they ran into the bad stretch and turning things around. The future of the Williamson Racing Team seems bright, and with the continued support from its loyal and generous sponsors and fans, 2014 could be really special.
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