Sheppard Dominated The Big Show X, But It Was Friesen Taking The Top Prize

Column By: LAURIE FALLIS / RPW – MALTA, NY – There was a lot of excitement going on around the grounds of the Albany-Saratoga Speedway throughout the day on Tuesday, but the real action took place on the track during Brett Hearn’s Big Show X and for Stewart Friesen, it resulted in $10,000 payday.

After a dominating performance from “Super” Matt Shepard for 95 of the 100-lap distance from the pole, tangled with the lapped car of Willy Decker and spun out between turns one and two bringing out the caution flag. This gave the lead to Friesen who went on to win the event all the money that went along with it.

Before the feature, the top drivers had fans draw for their starting positions. Sheppard’s fan drew the pole and you could hear the crowd gasp as they knew he would be hard to beat. Friesen, on the other had, started ninth and had to come a long way in the main event.

Sheppard led the stellar field of 31 mighty Modifieds to the green flag and it was the #9s showing the way around. Matt DeLorenzo challenged the leader and would take the lead from the highside at one point, but Sheppard settled in and regain in back.

There would be an early caution in the event, but after that, the race would stay green until lap 95. With the green flag conditions, Sheppard had lapped all the way up to the 14th position. In the meantime, Friesen had made his way up into the runner up spot, getting by the evening’s fastest time qualifier, Tim Fuller.

With a handful of circuits to go is when the complexion of the race changed. Sheppard went to the outside of the lapped car of Willy Decker coming through turns three and four. As the two headed into turn one, Decker made contact with the rear bumper of the 9s sending him around and out of the lead.

The crowed was brought to their feet in disbelief as the Waterloo, NY driver had run a flawless race to that point and certainly was expecting something of this nature to happen so late in the race.

With one drivers misfortune comes another good luck as Friesen was in the right place at the right time to capitalize on Matt’s issue as he lead the final five laps to take home his second career Big Show win and second Super DIRTcar Series win of 2018.

“I’ll take a victory anyway I can get it,” Friesen stated after the race. “We could not roll off the bottom as well as Sheppard, but with this DKM Chassis, the guys will work on that.”

When asked if he feels a victory is coming soon in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, he laughed and told me he uses all his luck in the Modified and that there is none left for the Truck Series.

“I would like to thank everybody that supports me in the Truck Series,” he said. “It’s a pretty cool deal and I love the idea of being able to represent our area.”

Eric Mack, Friesen’s crew chief, was not happy with his driver in the beginning of the night, but it’s amazing how good runs can fix that.

“I hope this win will put a smile on his face,” Friesen said with a chuckle. “There seems to be plenty of them going around victory lane tonight.”

Max McLaughlin was happy to bring his car home in second, especially to Stewart and took home the guaranteed starting spot for the Big Block main event during Super DIRT Week in October.

“They are tough to beat,” McLaughlin said of Sheppard & Friesen. “We will keep doing our homework but second tonight is great.”

Bringing his #98h HBR machine home third was McLaughlin’s teammate, former two-time winner of the event, Jimmy Phelps. In an interesting fact, the top three finished the exact same way they did in the Super DIRTcar Series opener at Weedsport Speedway back on May 28th.

The night’s fast timer in qualifying, Tim Fuller, was fourth followed by former Super DIRT Week Champion Billy Dunn who finished fifth. Event promoter, Brett Hearn, drove from 16th on the starting grid to come home sixth.

In the companion Sportsman events, it was Chris Johnson and Jeremy Pitts who took home top honors.

Johnson in his #33j was unchallenged in the first 20 lap main event, with the second feature showing a bit more excitement. Pitts made a pass coming out of four to beat Adam McCuliffe to the checkered as they encountered heavy lap traffic which came into play.

Well, the Big Show X proved to be a fun-filled day of entertainment and I’ll have more on my days activities also along with some really good interviews in the days to come. Stay tuned, but until then, stay safe.

1. 44F-Stewart Friesen [9]; 2. 6h-Max McLaughlin [8]; 3. 98h-Jimmy Phelps [11]; 4. 19-Tim Fuller [3]; 5. 3RS-Billy Dunn [17]; 6. 20-Brett Hearn [16]; 7. 21a-Peter Britten [7]; 8. 39-Tim McCreadie [21]; 9. 43-Keith Flach [13]; 10. 3d-Matt DeLorenzo [4]; 11. 25-Erick Rudolph [22]; 12. 9s-Matt Sheppard [1]; 13. 44-Anthony Perrego [2]; 14. 42p-Pat Ward [15]; 15. 93-Danny Varin [18]; 16. OO-Bobby Varin [26]; 17. 6jh-Josh Hohenforst [24]; 18. 2-Jack Lehner [19]; 19. 19m-Jessey Mueller [10]; 20. 8-Rich Scagliotta [27]; 21. 96-Jean-Francis Corriveau [30]; 22. 63-Adam Roberts [28]; 23. 1x-Willy Decker [5]; 24. 48t-Dave Rauscher [29]; 25. 18-Bodie Bellinger [20]; 26. 36-Kenny Wallace [31]; 27. 91-Billy Decker [23]; 28. 2RJ-Ronnie Johnson [25]; 29. 111-Demetrios Drellos [12]; 30. 115-Kenny Tremont [14]; 31. 27j-Danny Johnson [6]