RPW Exclusive: Battles Between Super DIRTcar’s Best Had Fans On Edge Of Their Seats At Malta Saturday

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – MALTA, NY – Before a caution late in the going Saturday night at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, Demetrios Drellos was gone.

Nobody was touching him.

That led to many focusing on the best battle on the track being for second between Super DIRTcar Series regulars Tim Sears Jr., Matt Sheppard and Mat Williamson.

Slide jobs, haymakers and just good, back-and-forth racing was going on between the three heavy hitters in what looked like a battle for the final two spots on the podium.

Ultimately, the caution for Larry Wight’s deflated right rear Hoosier tire negated Drellos’ huge lead set up Williamson’s charge to the top of the scoring pylon in the 100-lap Malta Massive Weekend event, which in turn locked him into the Big Block Championship at Super DIRT Week.

However, it’s the battles between the top three in Series points and then involving the defending Albany-Saratoga Speedway Modified champion that many will be talking about.

“That was one of the best races I’ve ever been a part of,” Williamson said.  “Lyle (DeVore, Albany-Saratoga’s promoter) gave us a surface that was really racy tonight with a Big Block.”

The win on Saturday night gives the St. Catherines, ONT driver a sweep of Super DIRTcar Series events at the track in 2024.

“It’s awesome coming to Malta,” he said.  “This is a hell of a race track.  I hope they never close this place down.  It should be a historic landmark with how good this race track is.  Man, that was awesome and a lot of fun.”

At one point, the two king pins of the tour in 2024, Williamson and Sheppard, were battling tooth and nail for position, going back and forth, lap after lap, each trying to one up the other.

“Early on, Matt was diamonding the corner in one and two,” he said.  “I was running the bottom, he’d come across my right front.  I started throwing sliders at him and he’d cross me back up.  That was a hell of a race for sure.”

Then came Williamson’s opportunity to make his move and try to win the race.  He capitalized.

“I think the two of them got real close coming off of turn two, and it gave me the opening I needed,” he said.  “I was able to slide Demetrios (Drellos) getting into three.  Then, I was worried at that point because I actually didn’t want to be out front.  The track was so good that it gave people chasing a chance to snooker guys but we were able to get away.”

Even with his seventh Super DIRTcar Series points-paying victory on the season, Williamson was only able to cut four points out of Matt Sheppard’s lead in the season-long standings because the driver of car no. 9s fought valiantly to come home in the runner-up spot.

“I think we had a chance tonight,” Sheppard said.  “I think I had a little too much gear to carry enough momentum to run the top.  Those guys could really carry some speed up there and I just couldn’t.”

Even with that issue, Sheppard was pleased with his car on this night.

“I had a really good race car,” he said.  “This was probably the best we’ve been on a slippery race track on the Super DIRTcar Series all year.  At least we could see the 88 tonight and kind of battle with him a little bit.  We’re definitely getting better here at the end of the year.”

Third at the completion of the 100-lap event Saturday was Tim Sears Jr. who worked hard to grab the podium finish, doing so with a flat left front tire for a good portion of the event.

“Having that flat tire was like driving a dump truck getting into the corners,” Sears said.  “Once I figured out how to drive it a little bit differently it wasn’t as bad.  We would have been better tonight with four tires.  That’s for sure.”

From the moment the 83x team rolled their Troyer Dirt Car out of the trailer at Malta, they were fast.  They were quickest in hot laps, quickest in time trials, won their heat race and were in contention for the feature event win.

All around, it was a good night for Sears.

“We unloaded a really good car and were good all night,” he said.  “To be on the podium against these guys is a really good evening for us.”