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Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – MALTA, NY – The theme of Tuesday night’s Super DIRTcar Series race at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, honoring the legendary Motorsports journalist Don Davies, was the “Race Within A Race.”
For victor Mat Williamson, it was truly a tale of two races.
After winning his heat race to make it into the redraw, Williamson pulled the number two and quickly got out to a comfortable lead in the first 46-lap segment.
However, by the time that portion of the race was complete, the Buzz Chew Chevrolet number 88 had fallen off just a tad and Williamson crossed the line in third, getting nipped by pole sitter Matt Sheppard at the line.
“We were questionable on what to do on tires, whether to go with the D300 (soft) or the D400 (hard),” Williamson said. “It seemed the longer we went, the harder I had to drive in lapped traffic. I overheated my right rear tire and sealed it over.”
Sealing a tire can be the death to any driver’s setup, and ultimately, their end result. Luckily for Williamson, there were two races on Tuesday night. The first was to lap 46 while the second was the final 30 laps of the event.
“That long red flag helped me cool the tire back down,” he said. “When we went back green, I just went up and beat the cushion for a couple laps and got some instant heat in the tire. That’ll usually make them fire right off.”
At the break, with Williamson sitting in the third spot, leader Alex Yankowski had the possibility to draw either a 4, a 6 or an 8 for the invert. That meant that Mat could have restarted either second, fourth or sixth.
Yankowski drew six and when the green flag dropped, you could see the urgency in “Money Mat” to get back to the lead.
“I honestly didn’t know how long the race was,” he said. “I thought it was 71 laps so I thought we were going back green and only doing like a 20-something lap spurt. I knew I had to get there (to the lead) and I fired off really well.”
It only took a handful of laps for the 88 to get back headed in the right direction. At one point, Williamson went the extreme outside and drove around both Friesen and Johnson in one corner, grabbing the runner-up spot by lap 49.
Then, he chased down leader Tim Sears Jr. and made the move to the inside of the 83x for good on lap 52.
“I just tried to go where they weren’t,” he said. “I tried to make the ‘right’ moves through traffic. Obviously, we had three good cars in front of us with Stewart (Friesen), Ronnie (Johnson) and Timmer (Tim Sears Jr.) so it was tough.”
Williamson has had a love / hate relationship with “The Great Race Place” in the past. However, on this night, he was all smiles.
“These Super DIRTcar Series races aren’t easy to win,” he said. “To come here and win was big for us. We’ve run well here in the past but sometimes we struggle here. Tonight, things just fell our way.”
Ironically, it was a fellow competitor that gave Williamson and his team some words of advice on Tuesday.
“I have to thank Marc Johnson for helping me with a tire choice tonight,” he said. “We were indecisive on which to choose so I have to thank him for that.”
Over the last year or so, Williamson has become a master at hard, slick tracks, and that’s been on full display with his domination at the Weedsport Speedway. Tuesday’s surface at Albany-Saratoga was reminiscent of that as well. Did that play into Mat’s driving style or the team’s setup?
“Honestly, we did the same things with the car that we have done at Weedsport and even Canandaigua (Land of Legends) last weekend,” he said. “We did what we’ve done in those two races and it seems like we’ve hit on something that really works for us. Hopefully, it means some good things to come.”
Ironically, the next track on the Super DIRTcar Series is the Stars & Stripes Spectacular at the Land of Legends Raceway on Thursday, July 4th.
“I know we’re going to Canandaigua next,” he said. “Man, we’ve put a lot of effort into our performance at that race track and have tried to be really good there. Hopefully, we can back this showing up with a win and get three in-a-row on the Series. That would be pretty cool.”
Another thing that was cool for Williamson on this night, winning the race honoring Don Davies. You could tell Mat had sincere respect for the legendary journalist who passed away last year.
“Honoring a great man like Don and to win makes this night so much more special to me,” he said. “To be the team in victory lane on his night means the world to all of us on this team.”