LAKE CITY, Fla. — Matt Sheppard ended Stewart Friesen’s domination of the Sunshine Swing for the Short Track Super Series Friday night at All-Tech Raceway.
Sheppard started the event second and led the entire distance on a hammer-down surface at the Wendell Durrance-owned facility.
The win for Sheppard was the 51st of his career with the series and first since Sept. 28, 2024, at N.Y.’s Utica-Rome Speedway.
“We had different track conditions tonight, that’s for sure,” Sheppard said. “It finally blew off there in (turns) three and four. We finally made the right decisions and had a pretty good racecar all night.
“The car drove really good for me. We tried to get up front and stay out of the wall.”
Sheppard first had to outduel pole-starter Tim Fuller – and later Larry Wight – en route to his fifth series win in the Sunshine State.
Wight earned a week-best second in the F.X. Caprara Car Companies No. 99L.
“After the last year we’ve had, this is about as close to a win as we can get,” Wight said. “To be up on the podium, it’s huge leaps and bounds for this team.”
Fuller completed the podium, followed by Darren Smith and Tanner Van Doren.
Paulie Hartwig III started outside the front row and won the 30-lap sportsman feature.
The finish:
Feature (40 laps): 1. 9S-Matt Sheppard[2]; 2. 99L-Larry Wight[3]; 3. 19-Tim Fuller[1]; 4. 12S-Darren Smith[7]; 5. 27V-Tanner Van Doren[4]; 6. 44-Stewart Friesen[8]; 7. 97-Bobby Hackel IV[25]; 8. 5*-Tyler Siri[15]; 9. 6B-Danny Bouc[16]; 10. 35C-Chris Curtis[13]; 11. 70A-Alex Payne[22]; 12. 16X-Danny Creeden[5]; 13. 02-Jack Lehner[24]; 14. 34-Rusty Smith[18]; 15. 87-Jason Ingalls[23]; 16. 25R-Erick Rudolph[12]; 17. 84Y-Alex Yankowski[11]; 18. 55J-Mario Clair[17]; 19. 21A-Peter Britten[9]; 20. 7Z-Zach Payne[20]; 21. 47-Simon Perreault[10]; 22. 6S-Matt Stangle[6]; 23. 7M-Paul Mancini[19]; 24. 66M-Corbin Millar[14]; 25. 11-Matt Caprara[26]; 26. 20-Rick Laubach[21]
