Solid Father's Day Weekend Buoys the Spirits

By DAVE SULLY - After a previous week, where the team suffered a couple of uncharacteristic finishes, the team rallied to score two impressive efforts on Father's Day Weekend. After a fifth place finish at Lernerville, which, though solid, was not up expectations, and a tenth place finish the next night at Merrittville, which was definitely not acceptable following a twelfth the previous week, the team needed to have a couple of good runs to restore some confidence. Father's Day weekend provided the needed result.

A third place finish behind winner Dave Murdick and Rex King Jr. on Friday the 13th, kept the team in the hunt, with Mat currently lying fifth in the standings, forty-nine points behind Rex King Jr. With four good drivers in front of him King, King Sr, Murdick, and Jeremiah Shingledecker, it won't be an easy hill to climb, but being fairly evenly matched, it doesn't appear anybody is going to run away and hide like Mat did last year.

On Saturday, after winning his heat handily, Mat started fifth and was able to claw his way to second by lap 21, right behind leader Tommy Flannigan, who found the outside to his liking and had grabbed the lead on a lap 14 restart. A lap 25 caution put Mat right behind Flanniga, setting up an epic struggle for the lead, as Mat tried everything he could to get a run on Flannigan. Once on lap 27 he drew alongside and seemed to have the momentum to take the lead, but a caution killed that chance.

The two man battle continued for several more laps before it became apparent that this was Flannigan's night. However, the night seemed to put an end to the slump for now, and the close second gives the team some impetus for the future.

Of the night, Mat observed, “We made wholesale changes this weekend. The car was good, just not good enough. That's exactly what it came down to. Tommy was a little better driving off the corners than I was. I've just got to make some minor changes this week and get a little better. I'm certainly happy with the S and W car. It was good. Congrats to Tommy. Couldn't ask to finish second to anybody else. I'm happy for those guys, just as happy as we are for second. It's nice to finish second after the couple of weeks we've had. A win certainly would have been a lot nicer, but to finish second to Tommy, I'm not too upset about it. You know you can race him clean, and he's going to race you the same way you race him. That's the kind of racing you want every week. If there were twenty-four guys like Tommy Flannigan out there, we'd have a lot of fun every week.”

So, putting things into perspective, the team has two competitive cars, and should be in the hunt for the win each night. There are a lot of teams that would like to be in that position.