Matt Sheppard Was Lights Out In Brewerton’s Showdown At Sundown
Column By: JOHN DOUGLAS / RPW – BREWERTON, NY – On the first trip of two to the Brewerton Speedway in 2018, Matt Sheppard put on a dominant performance in front of a packed house at the “D-Shaped Dirt Demon.” After drawing pole position for the 100 lap Super DIRTcar Series event, Sheppard proceeded to show everyone why he is the overwhelming favorite to win this year’s Big Block Modified title.
Willy Decker’s second place starting spot gave him the opportunity to jump to Sheppard’s outside off the start. However the driver of the No. 9S managed to hold off the Vernon N.Y. Native as he charged the corners on the top side.
The race’s first caution flew as Larry Wight came to a halt on the speedway with motor troubles. The restart saw Willy Decker fall through the field a bit as the other Decker, Billy, (no relation) moved up to second place.
Decker then assumed the same high line as his namesake and mounted a charge on Sheppard. Sheppard stuck to his guns on the inside lane through multiple side-by-side laps but never wavered through Decker’s assault.
The field began to string out as laps in the 15 second range were clicked off at a torrid pace. Sheppard began lapping cars and that’s where his prowess shined. Increasing his lead to a margin of over four seconds on Decker’s No. 91 machine.
Behind the leaders, Jimmy Phelps moved his 98H machine into third place with Pat Ward in fourth. Phelps was never challenged for his final podium position through the rest of the event. Ward began a backslid mid-race but managed to minimize the damage only falling to sixth by race’s end.
The real jockeying for position happened from seventh on back as Max McLaughlin, Peter Britten, Erik Rudolph and Ward exchanged position back and forth during the race’s second half. Rudolph finished fifth, with McLaughlin finishing behind Ward in seventh and Britten coming to the checkers in eighth.
Sheppard went uncontested over the race’s final 60 laps to pick his first win on the Super DIRTcar Series tour in 2018, managing not only to open up a seven plus second gap on Decker, but also lapping up to the twelfth place car of Ryan Phelps.
“It’s nice to come back to Brewerton and park it in victory lane.” Sheppard said as the celebration began in the winner’s circle. “I’ve always liked racing here and I enjoy visiting victory lane even more. It was really good on the bottom for most of the race. Towards the end I felt the track change a little bit and I moved up to the middle and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. We a lot of question marks figuring out what we wanted to do before the feature set up wise so we just put it back to exactly the way it was the last time we were here and it was good again.”
With his win on Saturday night, Sheppard moves to fourth all-time on the Super DIRTcar Series win list with 60 career victories.
The Super DIRTcar Series will head to Albany-Saratoga Speedway on Tuesday, June 26th for ‘The Big Show’ which will act as a qualifier for the 47th annual Super DIRT Week from Oswego Speedway.
1. 9s – Matt Sheppard; 2. 91 Billy Decker; 3. 98h Jimmy Phelps; 4. 27j – Danny Johnson; 5. 25R – Erick Rudolph; 6. 42p – Pat Ward; 7. 21a – Peter Britten; 8. 6h – Max McLaughlin; 9. 83x – Tim Sears Jr.; 10. 5H – Chris Hile; 11. 62s – Tom Sears Sr.; 12. X – Chad Phelps; 13. 19 – Tim Fuller; 14. 88 – Mike Mahaney; 15. 84 – Gary Tomkins; 16. 24 – Tim Witko; 17. 20 – Brett Hearn; 18. 8R Rob Bellinger; 19. 1x – Willy Decker; 20. 07 – Tim Kerr; 21. B16 – Alan Barker; 22. 02 – Roy Bresnahan; 23. 8 – Rich Scagliotta; 24. 43 – Keith Flach; 25. 96 – J.F. Corriveau; 26. 63 – Adam Roberts; 27. 48t – Dave Rauscher; 28. R2 – Rusty Smith; 29. 34 – Andrew Ferguson; 30. 93 – Danny Varin; 31. 99L – Larry Wight
