By BILL FOLEY
The second total domination race of the season occurred on Sunday night at the Weedsport Speedway and it was simply one of those races that will long be remembered by the winner and quickly forgotten by everyone else.
Back in February, David Schilling tore apart the All Tech Short Track Super Series event as he had everyone buzzing with his total domination.
Sunday night Mat Williamson gave one of those races to the Super DIRTcar Series as he passed every competitor up to fourth place and he could see up to second place (just two seconds ahead) as the checkered flag flew.
Mat is off to a quick start in the race for the crown and he admitted this was just one of those races.
No one imagined going 100 caution-free laps.
Early race leader Peter Britten came up on side-by-side-by-side soon to be lapped cars. However, he simply couldn’t find a way past them and Williamson jumped down low after Peter went high and Mat was in the lead for good on the 18th lap.
Eyes were on defending SDS champ Matt Sheppard who, from his sixth starting position, made quick work to get to third. On the 30th lap the 9s went outside of Britten going into third for position number two.
That is the way the two ran until Jimmy Phelps passed Matt for second on the final lap.
Britten and Chris Hile rounded out the top five as Hile went from seventh to fifth. Chris had gotten to that spot with 55 laps to go and as you can see there wasn’t a ton of movement up front.
Anthony Perrego appears to be getting the handle on Weedsport and went from ninth to sixth.
Seventh place Tim Sears Jr. made the biggest move from 15th.
Dave Marcuccilli has committed to small-block racing this year and finished third in his heat to make the draw. He brought home the M1 to eighth.
Another driver who put on a solid run was Zach Payne. He finished fourth in his heat. Started 17th and came home ninth. At the halfway point he was 14th so those extra five spots were earned in the closing laps of the race.
Mike Mahaney started fifth and remained in that area until after the halfway point as it appeared the 35 started to falter a bit off the pace around the 62nd circuit.
There were some interesting things to watch it you were willing to look further back than the front of the field.
Larry Wight started 12th, worked his way to eighth at the halfway point, but settled for where he started.
Fifth, sixth and seventh were in contention many times with Sheppard, Hile and Perrego vying early, Mahaney, Hile and Perrego later one and Hile, Sears and Perrego near the end.
Fast timer Darren Smith is starting to turn some heads. He was also his heat winner, but come feature time he settled for a disappointing 17th, after starting fourth. In heat action Mahaney and Britten followed.
Jack Lehner won heat two and the battle for the fifth and final spot was between Pierson and Marcuccilli with the M1 getting the advancement to the main event.
Perrego outdistanced Wight and Hile in the third.
Sheppard and Williamson were one-two in the final heat as they really outdistanced third place Ronnie Davis III.
Last Chance Showdowns were won by Tanner VanDoren and Matt Caprara. In his heat Caprara was more than willing to run the outside and did so lap after lap only to have to settle for sixth behind Chad Phelps.
DNQ for the night were Danny Johnson, Pat Ward, Justin Stone, Max Hill, J.F. Corriveau, Jackson Gill, C.J. Morey, Marshall Hurd, Daniel Johnson, Dylan Zacharias, Luke Carelton and Marcus Dinkins.
Dinkins was second in the consi, but was DQ’d. Earlier in the night there was a confrontation at the pit exit as Dinkins and Danny Creeden didn’t see eye to eye. Only caught Creeden (who was in front of Dinkins) stopping his car, turning it around and then aiming it at the side door of the 17D. Apparently something occurred after the consi thus the DQ of Dinkins.
Two support divisions for a night like this aren’t exactly necessary and no matter how hard they tried the CRSA drivers had a tough time getting things consistent.
The first heat took a loooonnnnggg time as heat action started at 7:14 p.m. and four heats ended at 7:47. A flip here, spin there or a car just hitting the wall.
The four Mod heats took 20 minutes.
Sportsman saw Zach Sobotka, Cody Manitta, Nick Root and Mike Fowler win.
The best heat was Fowler and eventual feature winner Matt Janczuk doing battle lap after lap.
There were 39 big-blocks, 33 CRSA 305 Sprint Cars and 32 Sportsman.
Billy VanInwegen put on a clinic in the CRSA main which was halted for 18 minutes due to a two flip, multi-car first turn pile-up.
However, the field then did the next 22 laps before two late race yellows.
Billy V, in a Mike Van Dusen Racing machine, finished.625 of a second ahead of Dillon Paddock and Jordan Hutton was third followed by Bobby Parrow and Darryl Ruggles.
Janczuk led the entire distance over Sobotka, Fowler, Brett Senek and Nick Root.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but wouldn’t the big-blocks and Sportsman been enough?
I know that many classes would like to run at the showplace on the East and this year with a limited schedule there really aren’t as many opportunities. Thus, I would think, the addition of CSRA.
Unfortunately, due to writing commitments I don’t get to watch the final feature after the Mods, but I know that it had to be around 11:30 p.m. by the time the show ended. If it had been a two division show it might have been before 10:30 p.m.
Show only started 14 minutes later so all in all it was fine.
However, it was just a long night.
Long, but memorable for Mat Williamson, Matt Janzcuk and Billy VanInwegen.
