OSWEGO, N.Y. — Mat Williamson’s reign over the dirt-covered Oswego Speedway continues to expand following his second-straight win in the Salute to the Troops 150 Friday night as part of Super DIRT Week 52.
Williamson, 34, of St. Catharines, Ontario, took the lead from second starter Stewart Friesen on a Lap-81 restart and never looked back, leading the remaining 69 laps en route to back-to-back wins in the marquee DIRTcar 358 Modified event — one year after scoring the $20,000 grand prize for the first time last October.
While he admits his first 358 Modified main event win at Super DIRT Week last year was memorable, Williamson savors the repeat even more.
“This year is cooler because we can do it all and celebrate it and enjoy it,” said Williamson, who won both the 358 Modified and Big-Block Modified main events at Oswego in a single day in 2023. “My crew works really hard on that car, and I think they deserve to enjoy this race and put it on its own and spend tonight celebrating it. That’s the unique thing about today.”
The win makes Williamson only the eighth driver in Super DIRT Week history to win the 358 Modified Feature more than once. Going back to the 2023 running, he has now won each of his last three main event starts at Oswego — 2023 Salute to the Troops 150, 2023 Billy Whittaker Cars 200 and 2024 Salute to the Troops 150. On Saturday, he aims for Super DIRT Week history, trying to become the first driver to sweep both the 358 Modified and Big Block Modified main events in consecutive years.
While Williamson was the car to beat in the end, Friesen was the driver out front at the start of the race. He took the lead on Lap 1 and held strong out front, building a lead of over eight seconds on his nearest opponent at its largest.
Friesen, 41, held that eight-plus second advantage until Lap 48, when Williamson made the pass on Lance Willix to take the second position. Immediately, Williamson began to cut into Friesen’s advantage. Only eight laps later, he had trimmed the gap down to slightly over a half-second as the two leaders plunged their way through lapped traffic.
“I got a stretch of about 10 laps that I was in really clean air, nobody was in front of me, and it felt like I was leading the race,” Williamson said. “There was like one lapped car getting into (Turn) 1 when I was getting off of (Turn) 4 and there was a lapped car a little bit ahead of him. I ripped about seven laps as fast as I could, and then all of a sudden, I saw [Friesen]. That was interesting.”
When the caution flag was displayed on Lap 77 for a slowing Alex Yankowski, Williamson lined up to Friesen’s outside for the restart. As the green flag dropped, Williamson shot to the outside of Friesen with great speed through Turns 1–2 and took the lead down the backstretch.
Looking back, Friesen said that his tires were losing grip, which may have affected his restart.
“I maybe just beat my stuff up a little too much,” Friesen said. “Then under that caution, it like scuffed off and it went away, so it was like, ‘Okay, now I’m on wore-out, slick tires.’ We slid around, and [Williamson] was just really, really good.”
Though each of the leaders changed tires during the pit stop session on Lap 93, Friesen and the rest of the field still were unable to keep up with Williamson out front. The field restarted the race once more on Lap 104, but Williamson again began to drive away from the field.
As the leaders dipped into traffic, Williamson had a large enough gap built up to maintain a seven-plus second advantage in the closing stages of the race. Meanwhile, 2017 and 2022 event winner Matt Sheppard was making strides in his run, getting by Friesen for second place on Lap 124.
When Friesen slipped out of the groove in Turn 3, Sheppard — the 42-year-old, seven-time Super DIRT Week main event winner — slipped underneath the Halmar International No. 44 to take second. Though their cars were fast as well, the gap was insurmountable for Sheppard and Friesen, leaving them with second and third-place finishes, respectively.
“I don’t feel like we were great in that first 100; we were back as 10th or 11th at one point,” Sheppard said. “Kinda made a late charge, got up to fifth, and made some improvements to the car at the break. We were a lot better, just one spot short.”
Anthony Perrego crossed the start/finish line in fourth, while Tim Sears Jr. rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (150 Laps): 1. 6-Mat Williamson[6]; 2. 9S-Matt Sheppard[9]; 3. 44-Stewart Friesen[2]; 4. 4*-Anthony Perrego[5]; 5. 83X-Tim Sears Jr[13]; 6. 26G-Ryan Godown[10]; 7. 25-Erick Rudolph[19]; 8. 91-Felix Roy[15]; 9. 3J-Marc Johnson[25]; 10. 21A-Peter Britten[34]; 11. 91D-Billy Decker[20]; 12. 49-Billy Dunn[14]; 13. 12-Darren Smith[33]; 14. 98-Rocky Warner[17]; 15. 31-Lance Willix[8]; 16. 98H-Jimmy Phelps[31]; 17. 77Z-Zachary Payne[29]; 18. M1-David Marcuccilli[24]; 19. 35-Mike Mahaney[21]; 20. 5H-Amy Holland[32]; 21. 7S-Shaun Shaw[37]; 22. 9M-Tyler Meeks[22]; 23. 39-Ryan Bartlett[38]; 24. 92-Andrew Buff[36]; 25. 28T-Michael Trautschold[27]; 26. 35X-Nelson Mason[35]; 27. 19C-Brandon Carvey[39]; 28. 23-David Dickey[3]; 29. (DNF) 19-Tim Fuller[16]; 30. (DNF) 37S-Gary Lindberg[4]; 31. (DNF) 21C-Brian Calabrese[23]; 32. (DNF) 70A-Alex Payne[11]; 33. (DNF) 99L-Larry Wight[7]; 34. (DNF) 84Y-Alex Yankowski[12]; 35. (DNF) 01-Chris Raabe[30]; 36. (DNF) 117JR-CJ Castelletti[40]; 37. (DNF) 57H-Remington Hamm[28]; 38. (DNF) 27J-Danny Johnson[26]; 39. (DNF) 31B-Ryan Dolbear[1]; 40. (DNF) 20S-David Schilling[18]