By ohnson 
Qualifying didn’t go smoothly for several top drivers, but by the end of the night, things took a turn for the better. Matt Sheppard started from the 22nd position and ended up in second place. Larry Wight, who started from the 21st spot, managed to finish fourth, while Erick Rudolph, who started from 18th, came in fifth. All three were able to salvage respectable finishes despite having a tough qualifying run.
Among the three, Matt Sheppard had the most ground to make up. He worked his way through the field to reach second. He even challenged Justin Haers for the victory before ultimately claiming the second-best spot on the podium. He utilized the bottom of the track to climb to the front and then tried to make a couple of moves for the lead late in the race, but unfortunately, it didn’t pay off.
” I had one shot on the restart,” commented Sheppard. “I thought he (Haers) was going to cut to the bottom getting into one, so I cut across to the top, and he went to the top. I might have had a shot if I had stayed on the bottom there, but it was just a wrong guess on my part. He was extremely good. I think we were as good as him, maybe even better, but in a three-lap run, he was tough to beat.”
Sheppard wasn’t happy earlier in the night with the track preparation. It resulted in a surface that saw limited passing until the later part of the evening. He didn’t time well and didn’t make it out of his heat. As a result, he had to race in the consolation with his Bicknell No. 9s.
“My car is usually good on the bottom,” stated Sheppard. “I just had to wait for it to dry out. It was a swamp down there early. Then it dried out a bit. But that’s not really racing. They were quite aggressive with the water truck after it rained for two days straight. Guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
“WIGHT GOES BACK TO FRONT – TWICE”
Larry Wight has no fear of a tacky track. The driver from Phoenix, New York, is not one to shy away from a fast track where it’s necessary to push hard. Wight demonstrated this as he fought his way through the field to reach as high as third before a right rear Hoosier tire blew out. The team quickly changed the tire, allowing him to return and race his way back to fourth.
“We had a really good car,” said Wight about his Bicknell. “It’s a shame it took us so long to find the speed in it. We brought in a brand new piece, a brand new motor, and we just needed to figure out what it wanted at Volusia. I think if we could have started up front, we wouldn’t have had to drive the car as hard and maybe the tire wouldn’t have gone on us.”
The team changed the torsion bars after qualifying, which they believed was the issue with the setup. The tire problem was caused by a jingle during a restart when he got into contact with Billy VanInwegen.
“RUDOLPH DRIVES SMALL-TRACK CAR TO BIG TRACK FINISH”
Erick Rudolph was able to make his way forward by avoiding a few wrecks and staying in the shadows of Sheppard and Wight. The driver from Ransomville, New York, doesn’t necessarily have the ideal combination for the conditions on Friday night. He did the best he could with his Bicknell to finish fifth in the final race.
“We knew we were up against it with the way the track was,” mentioned Rudolph. “We don’t really have a big speedway engine program. The shorter bullrings are more in our style. We were handling pretty well. We started from 18th with some good company. We came through with Matt (Sheppard). It looked like we were going to get a top three, but then Alan (Johnson) ran out of gas, and we got stuck behind him. Nonetheless, we’ll take a top five.”
Rudolph hopes that Saturday night brings drastically different track conditions that better suit his team.