Williamson Makes it Two in Row at Port Royal with STSS Speed Showcase Win & Pit Notes

The Short Track Super Series moved down the road overnight from Selinsgrove to Port Royal for the second leg of the Central PA Takeover weekend.  49 STSS modifieds made the trip to Port Royal for the 3^rd round of the South Region Point Series and another rare afternoon feature.

The 40 lap feature started as an all Friesen and Halmar front row with Jessica Friesen on the pole and her husband Stewart Friesen on the outside pole.  Stewart Friesen took the lead for the first 5 laps while Mat Williamson moved from 8^th to 2^nd in the first 5 laps to set up the battle for first.  Mahaney joined the fray on lap 24 with a pass of Jessica to take 3^rd and as the trio approached lapped traffic on the bottom dominate track then the cat and mouse games began.  On lap 29 Stewart Friesen moved to the middle which opened up the bottom for Williamson who quickly took advantage and the lead on lap 30.  On only the 2^nd caution of the day and the lap 33 restart Mahaney made the pass of Friesen for second place while Williamson asserted his dominate car and sped off to nearly a 3 second margin of victory for his 2^nd Port Royal win in two Port Royal Starts.

From victory lane Mat Williamson stated “He (Stewart Friesen) had the better car but he got into lapped traffic and I ended up with the preferred lane and we got pretty lucky there.  We have been sitting home watching Stewart win a lot of races and he’s certainly one of the best right now but it stinks when we are sitting on the coach and everyone is talking about how good Stew and Matt are and we are just sitting there unappreciated.  I think now that we’ve won a few races we can put our name in with those guys.  It felt like ice out there and I knew I had to stay on the bottom.  We’ll take them any way we can get them.”

2^nd place Mike Mahaney noted “Lapped traffic played to my favor but a caution came out just when I didn’t need it and we finally had a 3 wide run going and was ready to put a show on for the fans or send it into the fence.  It was a good race but locked down in the end.  For 30 laps we had something on top and were making it work.”

3^rd place Stewart Friesen commented “Getting the pole is like the kiss of death for drawing so well.  Williamson rolled the top and snuck by and I just lost my head and got inpatient with the lapped cars.  Congrads to those guys and it was just a tough afternoon track and would like to thank the guys from Port Royal for having us.”   

A strong top ten was rounded out by Mat Williamson, Mike Mahaney, Stewart Friesen, Jessica Friesen, Larry Wight, Tyler Dipple, Matt Stangle, Max McLaughlin, Ryan Godown and Billy Decker in 10^th place.

Short Track Super Series Modified South Region Race No. 3 @ Port Royal Speedway on 3/21/21 Feature Finish (40 laps):

 1.)MAT WILLIAMSON, 2. Mike Mahaney, 3. Stewart Friesen, 4. Jessica Friesen, 5. Larry Wight, 6. Tyler Dippel, 7. Matt Stangle, 8. Max McLaughlin, 9. Ryan Godown, 10. Billy Decker, 11. Craig Von Dohren, 12. Frank Cozze, 13. Erick Rudolph, 14. Billy Pauch Jr., 15. Peter Britten, 16. Michael Maresca, 17. Alex Yankowski, 18. Duane Howard, 19. Dominick Buffalino, 20. Joseph Watson,    21. Matt Sheppard, 22. J.R. Heffner, 23. David Van Horn, 24. Kyle Coffey, 25. John Willman, 26. Ryan Watt, 27. Andy Bachetti, 28. Brandon Grosso, 29. Jimmy Horton, 30. Anthony Perrego, 31. Danny Bouc

Did Not Qualify:

 Dan Creeden, Dillon Groover, Tim Buckwalter, Mike Gular, Joe Judge, Billy Van Pelt, Kailee Dimorier, Marshall Hurd, James Sweeting, Justin Wright, Danny Johnson, Jeff Taylor, Cale Ross, Steve Slater, Jake Dgien, Chad Brachmann, Brandon Hightower, Ryan Riddle.

Modified Pit Notes – Port Royal

After having 50 modifieds at Selinsgrove on Saturday the Short Track Super Series moved down the road to Port Royal on Sunday were 49 modifieds were in attendance for the second leg of the Central PA Takeover weekend.   In the first three races of the 2021 season the Short Track Super Series is yet to have a repeat winner with Matt Sheppard, Andy Bachetti and Matt Williamson winning the first three South Region events.

Mat Williamson finished his first weekend of 2021 racing with a dominate win from the 8^th starting position on a single bottom groove race track.  Passing throughout the field was minimal at best but Williamson managed to make 7 of the toughest passes on the track for the win.  Williamson coupled his win with a 4^th place finish on Saturday at Selinsgrove and has his 2021 off to a good start with 2 top 5 finishes in 2 starts.  Williamson continues to be undefeated at Port Royal with 2 wins in 2 visits to the track.   Williamson is hoping to go 3 for 3 as the next race at Port Royal is the $50,000 to win Speed Showcase 200 in October.

Mike Mahaney had another strong outing and his car worked on the high side on a bottom dominate racetrack allowing Mahaney to finish 2^nd from a 6^th starting position on a racetrack where passing was very challenging due to a bottom dominate groove.  Mahaney also made strong forward movement in his heat race moving from a 7^th place starting position to 2^nd and grabbing the final redraw position in his heat.  Mahaney has started the year with a 3^rd, 9^th and 2^nd place finish and is competing with Sheppard, Friesen and Williamson for the South Region point championship.

Stewart Friesen started in the front row and for the second race in a row was unable to hold the lead to the checkered flag.   The one groove track combined with a Friesen misjudgment of lapped traffic allowed both Williamson and Mahaney to get by on lap 30 giving Friesen a 3^rd place finish.  Friesen has a 2^nd and 3^rd in two starts from the pole this season.

It was an all Friesen front row with Jessica on the pole and Stewart on the outside pole all drawn by their lucky charm son Parker.  The day started with Stewart and Jessica running 1^st and 2^nd in their heat race followed by a one two draw and then a 3^rd and 4^th place finish in the feature.  Jessica had a great feature run with a 4^th place finish and her best STSS finish in recent memory.

Matt Stangle has been brewing his 7^th place top ten finish for about the past 8 months and his racing luck finally came around to get him to the checkered flag in one piece.  Stangle dropped from his 5^th starting position to around 10^th but was able to move back to a 7^th place finish.  Stangle is here to stay all season and expect them to be hanging around the top 5 and top 10 this year no matter where they go to race.

Tyler Dipple just continues to rip off top 10 finishes adding a solid 6^th place finish from a 10^th starting position.  Dipple adds his 6^th place finish to a 4^th and 8^th as he continues to stay in the top 10 week in and week out at the STSS events just like he did in 2020 netting him a 4^th place points finish in both the South and North regions in 2020.

Duane Howard had a good weekend qualifying for both shows but still awaiting to break into the top 10 in the feature.

David Van Horn turned a corner by qualifying in the heat race for the first time in 3 races.  Van Horn has had two uncharacteristic DNQ’s in the past weeks but in interest of fair reporting the fields have been 50 plus cars with only 30 positions available and he has been plagued with 10^th place draws in his heat races.  Look for Van Horn to get back into the feature mix later in the season and a return to top 10 and top 5 finishes.

John Willman qualified his spec 358 during the heat race and ran 25^th in the feature to get the highest finishing spec 358 bonus.

Anthony Perrego had one let go with a spectacular on track smoker and infield fire display.  Perrego was OK but the car was done for the day.

Matt Sheppard had an unspectacular day starting with a 10^th place heat race draw in a heat stacked with strong cars.  Sheppard was only able to move forward to 7^th place and had to qualify from the last chance consolation.  Sheppard finished the feature in 21^st position from a 23^rd starting spot and struggled with the one bottom groove track which was a complete opposite from last week at Georgetown when Sheppard finished 1^st from a 19^th starting position.  Different track different day and that’s why they race.

Mike Maresca was in Matt Sheppard’s heat race with the same DNQ results while falling from a 7^th starting position to 9^th.  Maresca started 12^th in the last chance consolation only to finish 8^th and miss the top 4 transfer positions.  Maresca took a provisional and finished 16^th from the 30^th provisional position and passed more cars than anyone during the feature. 

The 5 heat races ran without a caution and the feature ran with only 4 cautions.

Among the missing this weekend at both Selinsgrove and Port Royal were Rick Laubach and Ryan Krachun who both did not have their big blocks ready for the 2021 season yet and opted not to use their small blocks at these particular tracks.

The Short Track Super Series next stop is at Delaware International Raceway in Delmar, DE for the Diamond State 50 on Tuesday April 27^th.