Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – CANANDAIGUA, NY – One sure-fire future Dirt Modified Hall of Famer threw everything he had at a most recent inductee into the Dirt Modified Hall of Fame Wednesday night at the Land of Legends Raceway.
However, Matt Sheppard just couldn’t get around newly-inducted Tim Fuller as the ‘Empire Executioner’ fended off every advance ‘SuperMatt’ put forth in a battle of the titans to score the Super DIRTcar Series Stars & Stripes 70 win at the famed Canandaigua, NY track.
“There’s a reason Tim’s in the Dirt Hall of Fame,” Sheppard said. “That’s it right there.”
Fuller led from his pole starting spot and held the top spot for every lap. However, that wasn’t the story. The story was how the Edwards, NY driver was able to push back every attempt that Sheppard put forth to gain the lead, especially on each restart.
“We had a few shots at Tim,” he said. “I thought if I could beat him to (turn) one, I could beat him to the top and that’s what it would take to win the race.”
Sheppard tried that, and tried that, and tried it again. Each time, though, Fuller was able to keep the #9s behind him.
“I think I beat him to turn one like three times tonight,” he said. “I still couldn’t beat him off the top of turn two.”
It was a tail of two tracks for Sheppard on this night. While he was amazing on one end of the speedway, he thinks he was giving something away on the other.
“I feel like I was maybe a little better than he was in three and four but Tim was a bunch better than I was in one and two,” he said. “Maybe, if we could have restarted off of (turn) two and raced into three I could have won this thing.”
Finishing in the runner-up spot isn’t the most ideal thing for someone like Matt Sheppard who now has over 90 Super DIRTcar Series victories to his credit, but it was a great points night as his closest rival, Mat Williamson, came home in ninth.
“This was another really good night for us,” he said. “It was a solid night. We’ve been knocking on the door every night and we’ve got a few wins. I think this is now three second place finishes in a row. Second sucks but it’s definitely better than third.”
On this night, however, Sheppard knew just who the car to beat was, from the time the qualifying events rolled out on track.
“Tim was the class of the field tonight,” he said. “You could see it in the heat race. He was really good and he just whooped up on us.”
Completing the podium of top finishers Wednesday evening was Peter Britten. Britten fired from the sixth starting spot for the 70-lap main event and used the extreme outside on multiple occasions to drive his way to the front.
When all was said and done, the champion Australian pilot came home with a hard-fought third place showing at his Saturday night home.
This was a great rebound for Britten who felt like he didn’t show just how capable his team was during last year’s Super DIRTcar Series events.
“Last year for the Series races here, we kind of stubbed our toe,” Britten said. “We were our own worst enemy sometimes but we’re definitely thankful for the support from the home fans here at Canandaigua. They’ve always been great to us.”
With two wins and only finishing out of the top ten twice so far for 2023 on the Super DIRTcar Series, matching his runs at the Land of Legends, Britten feels like his 21A team is really hitting their stride.
“It was really good that we were able to get this Pepsi car up front tonight,” he said. “We’ve been pretty consistent on the Series and hopefully we can keep this going. Now, hopefully we can come back on Saturday (for a regular show) and get this car in victory lane again.”
One of the best cars on the night was that of Max McLaughlin, who brought his HBR #8H home in the fourth spot.
For McLaughlin, this was an amazing rebound for his team who labored to qualify through the heat race on Wednesday night.
They were able to finish fifth and secure a spot in the 70-lap feature event, but that put the Mooresville, NC driver deep, 17th to be exact, on the starting grid for the main.
“Hell ya,” McLaughlin said after the race. “That was a great recovery for this team. They worked their butts off to give me a car like that and it was so much fun to drive.”
One has to wonder though. Could it have been a repeat in the event for McLaughlin if he’d been able to finish higher in his heat race, or even, get into the redraw.
“You never know,” he said. “We’re still struggling to qualify well for these races but there’s no quit in this team. We’re working on it and we’re getting better with each race.”
It was a great night for the entire HBR team as McLaughlin’s teammate, Jimmy Phelps, got his Series back on track.
Phelps made it to the redraw after taking second in his heat race and finished a solid fifth in the feature, giving both cars top five finishes on the night.
On the flip side of the Super DIRTcar Series points battle is Mat Williamson. Williamson was the closest challenger to Sheppard in the ’23 title hunt, and was riding a high from Sunday night when he recorded his third Series win of the season at Weedsport.
However, the Buzz Chew team was behind the 8-ball from the first green flag of the night. They timed tenth in their group and, just like McLaughlin, finished fifth in their heat.
That put Williamson 19th for the Stars & Stripes 70 but, also like McLaughlin, he didn’t stay there long.
Williamson was able to move up ten spots from start to finish, coming home in ninth, and minimizing what could have been a disastrous points night for his team.
“Tonight certainly wasn’t the night we wanted to have,” Williamson said. “We aren’t where we want to be but we made the best of it.”
Earlier this week, Williamson told RPW how his cars seem to be on the tighter side when it comes to setup. That means that when the track is heavy and extremely “hammer down,” he struggles.
As the feature went along on Wednesday night, it began to take rubber which really aided Mat’s progression through the field.
“We’ve got to work on being better when the track has more bite in it,” he said. “We’re working hard at it and my team is one of the best in the business. We’ll get there.”
Knowing where he was starting in comparison to Sheppard, did Williamson take any more chances than he normally would to try and get to the front?
“Not really,” he said. “I tried as hard as possible, just like I normally would. I still just didn’t go far enough tonight.”