RPW Exclusive: Matt Sheppard Wasn’t To Be Denied; Wins Eastern States Small Block Championship At OCFS

Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – In time trials for Saturday’s Eastern States Small Block Modified Championship Race, it wasn’t the kind of performance you would normally see from Matt Sheppard.

He placed 21st in the rundown then finished third in his heat race afterwards.

But when it was feature time, it was the vintage Sheppard that the fans at the Orange County Fair Speedway witnessed Saturday as he captured the win in the race that was shortened to 73 laps due to rain.

“We did struggle all night. But around heat race time, I felt the track was getting close to what we had last year here.” Sheppard said. “We went back to what we had here last year, we’ll be pretty good, and it was.”

Pole sitter Mat Williamson was cruising through the early portion of the race pulling out to a big lead and easily maneuvering through the traffic. However, Sheppard was moving up through traffic from his 16th starting spot and eventually raced his way into 2nd.

A lap 42 restart saw Sheppard move to the lead. Williamson started losing positions as Peter Britten moved into 2nd. Williamson retired to the pits on lap 55 while running 5th. It was diagnosed as a loose plug wire.

Through several restarts, Britten was able to put some pressure on Sheppard, but the driver of the 9S never wavered and he would pull out to a consistent lead.

Drizzle started to fall around lap 65. At first, it wasn’t hard enough to stop racing. But as it intensified, the caution waved on lap 73 and the cars were directed to the pit area. Shortly after, the decision was made to checker the race.

Following Sheppard and Britten at the finish were Anthony Perrego 3rd, Mike Mahaney 4th and Dillon Steuer 5th. Rounding out the top 10 were LJ Lombardo 6th, Billy VanInwegen 7th, David Schilling 8th, Tanner VanDoren 9th and Bob Hentschel 10th.

“We started 16th and charged through to take the lead. Peter was very good,” Sheppard said. “This is unexpected, we were so slow all night. Right before the feature, my crew chief said he didn’t care if we ever ran another Small Block race again, and here we are in Victory Lane.”

As the cars sat on the pit area just before the race was checkered, it was noticed that Britten’s right rear tire was going flat. So the race not restarting was a big break for Peter.

“Definitely mixed emotions, starting 11th and to get to 2nd to Sheppard isn’t a bad thing,” Britten said. “I think if we had a longer run of green flag laps, we might have had a shot. I tried all I could on restarts, I just couldn’t quite get there. it was fun, congrats to Matt.

“Peter came out of nowhere, he was ripping that outside,” said 3rd place finisher Perrego. “We got by Mahaney and we made it to the podium and beat the rain.”

Earlier time trial action saw Williams win the pole with Mike Mahaney 2nd. Joe Bonetti was 3rd, Rick Laubach 4th, Jim Spellmon 5th and Corey Cormier 6th.

Heat race wins went to Danny Creeden, Gary Edwards Jr., Brett Hearn, Hentschel, Tyler Boniface and Britten.