A Sweet and Sour Day for Mat Williamson at Ransomville (16th Sugust 2025 (BLOG)
This weeks BLOG is another long one , that began on Friday the 8th of August with a nice relaxing drive down to the Can Am Speedway at Lafargeville NY.
My weekend plan was to stay local.
Can Am was a regular show titled ‘Ladies Night’ and featured a ‘Powder Puff’ race to end the night .
Once again my report will be brief , due to lack of time .
I’ll just mention the premier divisions that I went to see, the 358 Modifieds and the Sportsman. (Sprint Crate Cars and Thunder Cars were also in attendance)
The Modifieds had their feature race after the main event for the Limited Sportsman.
This had a female winner on this special Ladies night .
Brianna Murtaugh took the checkers in this one.
Ryan Bartlett charged to victory in the Modified feature , only being challenged by Lance Willix and Tim Fuller
It was nice to see DIRTCAR’s official flagman Dave Farney in attendance , filling in for the regular starter who was taking a week off.
The Sportsman were up next for their feature.
We had another female winner in this one, with Jessica Power ending a long drout without a win..
Victory Lane was all over before , by 9-15 and I was back home in Cornwall at a sensible time.
On Saturday the ‘Dairy Fest’ Car show was taking place in Winchester (Ont) during the day, it was on route to the Brockville Ontario Speedway , so I decided to take the Thunderbird.
I stayed there until around 2-00pm before driving on to Brockville.
There was a full program on the card , with Vintage Modifieds, Street Stocks and Crate Sprints joining the Modifieds and Sportsman.
Again I will keep it brief and concentrate on the latter.
I had no intention of staying to the end , as I had another car show with the T BIRD in the morning .
I first took a few hot lap pics from turn four , before moving to the middle.
Once the racing began , I shot most of the night on the middle by turn three and four.
During the intermission , Jessica Power, the previous nights Sportsman winner at Can Am, was doing a meet and greet session under the grandstand. Mobil , one of her team backers, was sponsoring the nights races.
I got this picture of Randy Revelle and his grandson.
Randy is the father of the late Craig Revelle, my buddy that used to be the web master of Rick @ the Races.
After intermission the Vintage had their feature races.
There were two races on this occasion . One for the 60’s cars and one for the 70’s .
Once the Victory Lane shots were were done for Greg Hale and Brian Comeau respectively the Modified feature got under way
It wasnt long before Kalen Draper got to the front , with only Johnathon Ferguson coming close to challenge.
At the checkers it was Kalen from Ferguson with his brother Tristan Draper taking third
It was then time for me to make my exit .
In my absence Jessica Power made it to winners circle once again, making back to back wins for the weekend .
With another car show on the agenda first thing the next day , I was home in Cornwall before midnight.
I even had time to take the T BIRD to the car wash in town , to save me doing it the next day .
I was up early on Sunday morning and heading off to the Williamstown Fair and was there by 9-30, in good time to get my ‘dash plaque’
Williamstown is only a short drive from my place in Cornwall, and once parked, I found a shady spot to shelter from the sun .
Oh yeah , I failed to mention , we are currently going through a heat wave with extremely high temperatures .
I stayed there until lunch time , before returning home to get ready for the nights races at the Cornwall Motor Speedway
Again there was a full program on the schedule which included Modifieds , Sportsman , Rookie Sportsman, Pro Stocks , Vintage and the Lightening Sprints the night.
As the heat wave continued we all hoped for an early finish.
I had plenty of cold water to keep hydrated.
First of the feature races was for the Rookie Sportsman
Bryan Tarbell was the winner of this one.
The Vintage feature then followed
As usual they had two winners. Ian Gordan won the 1970’s and Pete Stapper the 1960’s
Keven Boucher Carrier was the Lightening Sprint winner .
The Modified feature was up next .
Brian Mc Donald won this one after , passing early leader Brianna Ladouceur.
The Sportsman feature then followed
The Moore brothers started side by side at the front .
Brennan Moore got the victory in this one.
Last race of the night was the Pro Stock feature.
We saw Marc Lalonde adding another win to his resume
That was it for the weekends racing .
Monday was going to be a day of catching up, and I had nothing planned.
That was until lunchtime when I had a message from my friend Sandy McFarlane of the Champion Race Team.
They were having a team fundraiser that night at the Boston Pizza in Cornwall and had a few race cars on display. He asked me if I’d like to bring along my Thunderbird.
So with nothing else planned , I took it a long and joined race track announcer Hugh Primeau who had his Camaro there.
Sandy’s son Gavin had his Modified there as well as Justin Cyr with his.
There were the Sportsman cars of Shaun Lafave and Drake Cartier , The vintage Mod of Chris Wilson and a kart from the Cornwall Kart club.
It was a great night out meeting up with fiends , and the meal was pretty good too.
Long time race car owner Al Dickie was als0 there.
Tuesday , I was out of bed early for a road trip. I was heading down to the Ransomville Speedway NY close to Niagara Falls.
The Super DirtCar Series was taking place .
The tour had been at the Sharon Speedway in Ohio , the night before where Anthony Perego got the win.. ( I went there in 2016 when Jimmy Phelps was the winner, but simply did’nt have the time to get there on this occasion)
Ransomville is about a six hour drive from my place and I was checking into the Red Roof Inn near Buffalo Airport by 2-30.
From there I drove the final leg of the journey to the track . I got there just after 4-00 pm so had plenty of time to chill out and relax.
As well as the SUPER DIRTCAR SERIES for Big Block Modifieds , there was also a DIRTCAR Series for Sportsman taking place.
A few of my local drivers had travelled down for this one. Jessica Power, Tristan Ladouceur , Shane Pecore and Gavin Eisele.
Once things got started I stood on the middle by turn one and two .
The hotlaps for the big blocks began and after about one lap , they came to an abrupt stop.
Mat Williamson had the throttle stick open on his car and hit the wall hard , right in front of me.
The car was wrecked but luckily Mat was OK and taken back to the pits on an ATV by an official.
The hot laps resumed, and while they were taking place the Williamson team were unloading their back up car.
He was back on track for the time trials and went on to the heat races where he got second .
From a bad start, things dramaticly changed for the better, as he went on to win the 75 lap main event.
The Sportsman Series race ended the night.
Tristan Ladouceur had good run in this one, leading for most of the race, but he was eventually passed by Cody McPherson.
Ladouceur stayed behind McPherson to the checkers with Gavin Eisele in hot pursuit .
There’s no disgrace getting beaten by Cody, he’s arguably the best Sportsman driver of present times.
Once the Victory Lane pics were done, I chatted with Tristan and father Joey before heading back to the hotel.
On Wednesday morning , I was homeward bound and got back to my house in Cornwall at 1-00 pm.
I then had some down time, to catch up on things.
On Thursday, I made the familiar trip to the Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh NY with Don Simpson .
It was a regular show with the usual divisions.
The Modified feature (which we’d come to see) was up first, and was won by Mike Mahaney.
There was a slight change to the normal program and the Ministock feature , came before the Sportsman. Both of us had busy agendas and didnt want to be later than neccesary, so decided to leave straight after the Modifieds, and not hang around waiting for the Sportsman.
In our absence Michael Wright fom New Hampshire was the winner.
We were back in Cornwall by 11-00, which was perfect for two tired old guys.
On Friday the 15th there was a regular night at my local Mohawk International Raceway NY .
There was a good car count, much better than expected , with 22 Modifieds in attendance, 27 Sportsman and 19 Pro Stocks , (plus the Mini Stocks and Limited Sportsman)
Chris Raabe was the Modified winner.
Shane Pecore was the Sportsman winner
, and Dakota Sharp won in the Pro Stocks.
The show was all over by 9-45 pm , nice and early , just what I needed.
I was back home and indoors before 10-15 pm.