WEST LEBANON, N.Y. – Matt Sheppard cleaned house Monday night on an unusually wet and tacky Lebanon Valley Speedway.
He set fast time, won his heat, then ran front row starter Stewart Friesen down after redrawing 10th to claim his second Mr. Dirt Track USA title, worth $13,500.
The 100-lap Super DIRTcar Series event, postponed from last fall due to the COVID-19 restrictions, could easily have fallen to the cold, wet weather that blanketed the Northeast during the Memorial Day weekend, but the track crew pumped out the infield, scraped mud from the pit parking areas and worked the rain soaked half-mile right up to hot lap time, then again twice during the program to save the show.
Mat Williamson, hot off a win Sunday night at Weedsport Speedway, followed Sheppard to the checkers. Marc Johnson came home third ahead of Chris Hile and Brett Haas. Erick Rudolph, Mike Mahaney, Larry Wight, Ronnie Johnson and Jack Lehner rounded out the top-10.
“My car was good and kept getting better,” said Sheppard after collecting his winner’s hardware. “The car liked having heat in the tires, so the longer runs really helped us. My only problem was that I couldn’t see the last 15 laps and had to gauge where I was off the outside wall. With the humidity, everything was steamed up.”
Friesen had looked to have the race in the bag early on, getting the jump on polesitter Kevin Root and running out to a full straightaway lead by lap 10. With no battle for the lead, fans watched ninth-starting Andy Bachetti claw his way forward to show fifth on lap 15 just as Friesen caught the tail of the field. He soon mowed down Marc Johnson and Williamson to stand third when the first yellow waved on lap 25 for Max McLaughlin’s flat tire.
Bachetti disposed of second running Root on the restart but had nothing for Friesen and by halfway Williamson had worked his way by the Lebanon Valley regular to show second with Bachetti, Marc Johnson and Sheppard trailing. Ten laps later Sheppard had run down Johnson and Bachetti to show third and started working on Williamson. He finally dove under him as they hit turn one amidst a gaggle of traffic on lap 66, then surprised everyone present by driving around Friesen two laps later to take command.
Sheppard was strong enough to build up a turn lead over Friesen before a call stalled on lap 74, with the return to action short lived as Peter Britten blasted the turn one wall five laps later and flipped.
With Bachetti and Williamson swapping third back and forth after the restart, Friesen began to smoke on lap 80. The smoke got heavier during the next two laps before the billowing smoke turned to fire and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular coasted to a stop in the pits and bailed out. Bachetti dropped out under the ensuing yellow and the finishing order was set, though Williamson did make a run on the leader to no avail.
“We came here for a few weeks to get used to Lebanon Valley since we’ll run two Mr Dirt races here this year,” said Williamson. “That helped a lot and I was catching Friesen when he blew. We had a good, solid top three car which is hard to do here. All in all, we had a good weekend.”
Williamson admitted to having vision problems like Sheppard, while the third podium finisher, Valley regular Marc Johnson, added “I’m happy with third against these guys but I think I might have done better if my shield hadn’t kept fogging up. I needed yellows to unfog it. You can’t go forward when you can’t see.”
Rob Yetman claimed the companion Pro Stock feature while Williamson, Root, Bachetti, Britten and Sheppard shared heat wins. Rudolph and Kyle Armstrong prevailed in the twin last chance events.
The finish:
1. 9s-Matt Sheppard [10][$13,500]; 2. 88W-Mat Williamson [3][$5,000]; 3. 3J-Marc Johnson [6][$2,500]; 4. 5H-Chris Hile [17][$1,800]; 5. 55B-Brett Haas [13][$1,600]; 6. 25R-Erick Rudolph [21][$1,400]; 7. 35M-Mike Mahaney [15][$1,300]; 8. 99L-Larry Wight [16][$1,200]; 9. 2RJ-Ronnie Johnson [19][$1,100]; 10. 2L-Jack Lehner [14][$1,000]; 11. 98H-Jimmy Phelps [5][$800]; 12. 22F-Mark Flach [20][$700]; 13. 4R-Kevin Root [1][$600]; 14. 28M-Jordan McCreadie [18][$575]; 15. 91D-Billy Decker [12][$550]; 16. 115-Kenny Tremont [24][$525]; 17. 43M-Max Mclaughlin [8][$500]; 18. 44F-Stewart Friesen [2][$500]; 19. 4B-Andy Bachetti [9][$500]; 20. 21A-Peter Britten [4][$500]; 21. 83X-Tim Sears [25][$500]; 22. 99S-Kolby Schroeder [11][$500]; 23. 74H-JR Heffner [7][$500]; 24. 35L-LJ Lombardo [28][$500]; 25. 11A-Kyle Armstrong [22][$500]; 26. 20H-Brett Hearn [23][$500]; 27. 22W-Brandon Walters [26][$500]; 28. 88Jr-Olden Dwyer [27][$500]