FONDA, N.Y. — Matt Sheppard was in the right place at the right time to win Saturday night’s 30-lap modified feature at Fonda Speedway.
The victory was Sheppard’s fourth career win at the track, the last win coming on 8/10/2016. It was also Sheppard’s second opening night victory at Fonda after also accomplishing that feat back in 2014.
“I started the Matt DeLorenzo era here at Fonda with an opening night win back in 2014, and now I started the Brett Deyo era here with a victory tonight,” Sheppard said.
The new era at Fonda was started on Saturday, with the BD Motorsports LLC promotional team of Brett and Heather Deyo, Jamie and Denise Page, Angela Hanson, and the rest of their staff putting on a great racing program despite the cold temperatures.
The top three finishers in each of the qualifying heat race events redrew for starting positions for their feature event starting positions with Matt DeLorenzo and Danny Johnson starting the 30-lap Sunoco Modified event on the front row with DeLorenzo taking the early lead at the drop of Joe Kriss’ green flag.
On lap two the first of a total of eight caution flags during the event was out for Mike Maresca who came to a stop on the backstretch after spinning his car around coming out of turn two while running sixth. The rest of the field was all still at speed but all were able to get by Maresca’s stopped car except for Josh Hohenforst who made contact with Maresca. Both cars were done at that point in the event.
On the restart, Bobby Varin used the outside starting position to take the lead away from DeLorenzo only to have the caution come out again before any laps were completed handing the lead back to DeLorenzo on the next restart. DeLorenzo took advantage of that and was able to maintain the lead while Dave Constantino got by Varin for the second spot.
While all of that was going on, Matt Sheppard made his way up to the fourth position after starting 11th, getting by Danny Johnson for the spot with eighth place starter Stewart Friesen just behind Johnson in the sixth spot. Friesen got by both Johnson and Sheppard for the fourth position on lap seven, and after another caution two laps later Friesen was in the second positon after getting by both Varin and Constantino with Sheppard now just behind in third.
Friesen was looking for the quick way around the track to close in on the leading car of DeLorenzo, trying the inside line around the track before moving to the outside groove to get around DeLorenzo for the lead in turn four on lap 14. Sheppard also got by DeLorenzo for the second position on lap 17 with Friesen in lap traffic four laps later on lap 21 allowing Sheppard to close in.
Sheppard made the low line work for him and when Friesen tried to go around the outside of the lap car of Elmo Reckner, Reckner got loose with both he and Friesen going high in turn three allowing Sheppard to get by both of them for the race lead. Friesen then showed his displeasure with the lap car of Reckner by getting into the rear of Reckner’s car going into turn four to bring out one final caution, setting up a three lap dash to the finish.
Friesen had his car wound up on the outside of the speedway trying to get around Sheppard, but Sheppard stayed in the low groove which had gotten him to this point in the event and took home the victory over Friesen, DeLorenzo, Varin and Constantino.
Other winners on “Allegiance Night” at Fonda were Mark Mortensen who won the 25-lap Crate 602 Sportsman feature; EJ McAuliffe who won the 15-lap limited sportsman feature; defending champion Kenny Gates who won the 20-lap pro stock feature; Dave Horning Sr. who won the 12-lap street stock feature and Ken Hollenbeck who was the winner of the 12-lap, 4-Cylinder/Cruiser feature.