Sheppard Wins Mid-Atlantic Championship and Friesen Claims STTS South Points Title at Georgetown Speedway

The Short Track Super Series and Georgetown Speedway started the afternoon out with Treat or Treating in the pits and then after darkness set in turned to the business of determining  STSS South Region Champions and Georgetown Point Champions at the same race in the same day at the Mid-Atlantic Championships.

The 44 lap modified feature was led to green by Stewart Friesen and Rick Laubach who led the first 20 laps.  Several cautions bunched the field and Friesen took the led off of a restart on lap 21 but the story wasn’t what the front row starters were doing but more so what was going on in the back of the pack.  Matt Sheppard had a flat on lap 6 and went to the back of the field but a succession of 5 cautions and resulting restarts allowed Sheppard to rip back through the field and on a lap 21 restart Sheppard went from 9^th to 4^th in one lap.  By lap 24 Sheppard was in second place and stalking Friesen until he made the pass for the lead on lap 31.  Despite a rough track that was evident by 13 cautions and cars dropping out of the top 10 on every caution due to attrition; Sheppard proceeded to check out on the field while the remainder of the top 10 battled each other for every position on every lap.  Sheppard took over a two second lead into victory lane for his first ever Georgetown feature win.      

In victory lane Sheppard commented “The car was unreal tonight.  I hated to get the flat tire early but knew we had a really good car. Georgetown has always been a thorn in my side and it was great to get the first win here by coming from the back and also getting the Georgetown monkey off my back.  2020 has been a rough season and not great for us.  Tonight we got win # 20 and now I won’t be grumpy all winter.  This one tonight for Tom Perrego and I will miss him coming in to our trailer.”

The top ten was rounded out with Billy Pauch Jr., Anthony Perrego, Stewart Friesen, Tyler Dipple, Dan Creeden, Rick Laubach, Mike Gular, Ryan Watt and Matt Stangle.

Heat winner were Anthony Perrego, Andy Bachetti, Stewart Friesen and Matt Sheppard.  Consolation winners were Ryan Watt and Tyler Siri.

Matt Sheppard was the winner of the race but this was also two points championships also decide at this event.   Billy Pauch Jr. won the Georgetown Speedway points championship by finishing ahead of Ryan Watt.  Billy Jr. stated “This may be the only thing my dad hasn’t done is to win a championship in Delaware so this is really cool to have one up on dad.  But this year is full of woulda, shoulda, coulda wins and championships that we should have won but didn’t.”

Billy Pauch Jr. was also in the running for winning the STSS South Region point championship but came up just 10 points short.  Stewart Friesen won the STSS South Region Points championship and completed the sweep of both the North and South STSS 2020 championships to be the second STSS grand champion of both regions.  Matt Sheppard won the grand championship last year which was seen as near impossible and now Stewart Friesen does it this year.  By no means was it easy as both championships were won by the margin of 2 points in the North and 10 points in the South.

The 25 lap 602 crate feature was also filled with races within the race as point championships were determined.  The 25 lap feature was lead from green to checkered flag by Justin Grosso who was chased by Joe Toth in second until the final checkered flag.  This was Justin’s 2^nd win of the season at Georgetown.

The top ten was rounded out by Joe Toth in 2^nd, followed by Sammy Martz, Tim Hartman, Anthony Tramontana, Tanner Von Doren, Scott Hitchens, Adam White, Richie Walls and Mike White.

The Georgetown point championship was won by Joe Toth over Mike and Adam White.

Scott Hitchens won the STSS 602 championship by one point over Tim Hartman from New York State.