RPW Column: Great Runs For Matt Sheppard, Tim Sears Jr. To Kick Off DIRTcar SummerFAST

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – BREWERTON, NY – Now that’s not something you see every day.

Matt Sheppard getting passed for the lead in the closing laps of a Super DIRTcar Series race.

Even though he was surely disappointed, the defending Super DIRTcar Series champion was happy with a solid second place finish at Brewerton Speedway Monday night in the first DIRTcar SummerFAST event of 2023.

“I was just a sitting duck there at the end,” Sheppard said. “I never thought this place would get this slick tonight.”

Sheppard also understands he was beat by someone who loves when any race track gets as slick as it was on Monday evening.

“This type of track has obviously been Mat’s forte,” he said. “He’s amazing at Weedsport and this place was Weedsport slick tonight.”

The current Series point leader spent most of the 60-lap race searching for grip, but once he got around Danny Johnson for the lead on a lap 21 restart, he began to run lines he felt comfortable with. That is, however, until they went away.

“I was kind of living and dying by that brown ring on the top of the backstretch,” he said. “Once that disappeared, I started searching around a little bit. I thought maybe the groove changed but it really didn’t. I was where I needed to be.”

Did the track change too much or did the car’s setup go away?

“I just didn’t tighten up the car enough tonight,” he said. “I held on for a long time. I thought maybe we’d sneak out another win here but this place is tough. We don’t run here a lot anymore so to come out of this place the last couple of years with a first and a second, we’re still happy with that.”

Third place on the evening was current Brewerton Speedway Modified point leader Tim Sears Jr. The driver of the #83X Troyer Dirt Car was solid all night long but just didn’t have enough late to challenge Williamson and Sheppard.

“I can’t complain about a third here tonight,” Sears said. “These guys do it for a living and we do it as a hobby. We spend all our time after work prepping the cars while these guys do it as a day job so that definitely helps them out a lot.”

Sears was happy to finish on the podium and give the home track crowd something to cheer about.

“It was a great run tonight,” he said. “To finish third to these two, they are the cream of the crop right now.”
Did racing every Friday night at the D-Shaped Dirt Demon help Sears on Monday night?

“Tonight was probably the slipperiest this place has been all year,” he said. “It was definitely tough to get a hold of but we had a good Troyer Dirt Car with a Kevlar engine. Everyone that helps us out gives me great equipment so we can come out here and run well like this.”