MALTA – Mat Williamson went from good to bad and then to good again in Tuesday night’s Super DIRTcar Series Don Davies Memorial NY Modifieds 76 at Albany-Saratoga Speedway.

The innovative invert after 46 laps. and the 76-lap distance enabled him to search around for a productive line, and he held off a last-ditch effort from Stewart Friesen to walk off with the top prize of $7,600.

Williamson started on the outside pole in the tribute race for Hall of Fame journalist Don Davies, who passed away following a courageous battle with cancer last September, next to pole-sitter Matt
Sheppard, and many of the fans in the packed grandstands were figuring the race was over before it even started.

How wrong they were.

Yes, Sheppard set the pace for the first two laps, before Williamson charged into the lead on the third lap. But everyone should have been paying attention to SDS rookie Alex Yankowski, who had started fifth.

Yankowski was never far behind the lead group, and got around Ronnie Johnson, who had started third, for the No. 3 position on lap 18.

Ten laps later, with the fifth caution flag of the night being a factor, Yankowski worked his way under Sheppard and took over the No. 2 spot on lap 28.

Then came the move of the night. As Williamson caught the tail end of the field of lap 34, Yankowski pulled right up, and the leaders had to contend with the slower car of Ryan McCartney on lap 36.

When Williamson opted for the high line around McCartney, Yankowski dove to the inside, easily cleared McCartney, and hit the start-finish line with the lead.

Ten laps later, Yankowski still had the lead when the yellow flag came out for the lap 46 inversion, another unique aspect of the “Race Within a Race” of the Don Davies Memorial. Yankowski, who earned a $2,000 bonus from Bart Contracting for leading the 46^th lap (Davies was born in 1946), pulled up in the middle of the front straightaway and pulled the No. 6 out of a bucket, meaning the top six runners would be inverted for the restart.

That put Johnson and Tim Sears Jr. in the front row, with Friesen, who has been on a roll on dirt in the last two weeks, and Williamson in row 2.

Sears went right into the lead, while Wiliamson and Johnson opted for the top, with Friesen on the bottom.

Then, like magic, Williamson found some bite against the cushion. He put his nose in front of Sears coming out of the fourth turn on 51 to take the lead for good, and had an easy time with lapped traffic, which stuck to the bottom while he ran the top.

Friesen made a big run of the final lap but had to settle for second, with Yankowski third, Sheppard fourth and Sears Jr. fifth.

“In the first half of the race, I don’t know if I sealed a tire or what,” said Williamson, who scored his first career win at Malta on June 26, 2020, during the COVID-10 shortened season. “I was just hanging on. After the restart (for the inversion), I started banging the cushion and really got going again.”

“I was going really good,” said Friesen, who was looking for his second straight Super DIRTcar Series win at Albany-Saratoga. “I got to Mat at the end, but that was the best I could do. This is a great event for a great guy. I’m glad I could be a part of it.”

“When I first looked at the format, I thought, ‘Someone is really going to be upset,” and it turned out to be me,” lamented Yankowski after the race.

Albany-Saratoga Speedway regulars are usually able to defend their home turf during Super DIRTcar Series events, but that wasn’t the case Tuesday, as invaders occupied the top five positions.

The sportsman and the pro stocks were competing for sponsored-inflated purses during the Don Davies Memorial NY Modified 76 Tuesday night.

A total of 56 sportsman signed into the pits, necessitating two features, while the pro stocks had a solid field of 20 cars.

Tim Hartman Jr. and Chris Crane Jr. won the 26-lap sportsman features, which each paid $1,046 to win through sponsorship from Cordova Plumbing, and Beau Ballard drove to his second win of the season in the 23-lap pro stock feature, which also paid $1,046 to win, through sponsorship from Greenacres Landscaping.

All three divisions also had a whale of bonus money put up by Albany-Saratoga’s loyal family of corporate sponsors, making the Don Davies Memorial 76 one of the most lucrative events in the history of the speedway.

Hartman Jr. started third in the first sportsman feature, but it took him a total of 19 laps to get the lead away from Craig Wholey, who had to settle for second,

“It was an advantage to be running third, because I could experiment a bit, and I found the top before anyone else did,” Hartman Jr. said.

Crane Jr., who won the limited sportsman championship at Malta in 2022 before moving up the open sportsman division, started on the pole and led all 23 laps to record the first sportsman win of his career.

Dylan Madsen, who started fourth, finally took the No. 2 spot on lap 17, but was only a spectator as Crane Jr. crossed the finish line with room to spare. Invader Richard Murtagh finished third, after running in the lead pack all night.

Ballard started on the pole, lost the lead to Rob Yetman early in the race, and then regained the lead for good on a restart on lap 15. Devon Camenga, who started on the outside pole, crossed the finish line second, with Luke Horning grabbing the final podium position.

SUPER DIRTCAR SERIES DON DAVIES MEMORIAL: MAT WILLIAMSON, Stewart Friesen, Alex Yankowski, Matt Sheppard, Tim Sears Jr., Ronnie Johnson, Jimmy Phelps, Anthony Perrego, Matt DeLorenzo, Alex Payne, Jack Lehner, Demetrios Drellos, Marc Johnson, Rich Scagliotta, Mike Mahaney, Peter Britten, Kolby Schroder, Larry Wight, Michael Trautschold, Darren Smith, Felix Roy, Justin Stone, David Schilling, James Meehan, Danny Johnson, Tim Fuller, Ryan McCartney, Adam Pierson.

SPORTSMAN FEATURE NO. 1: TIM HARTMAN JR., Craig Wholey, Taylor Wason, Travis Witbeck, Peyton Talbot, Cody Ochs, Drew Cormie, Bryce Breault, Dom Roselli Jr., Brendon Gibbons, Elliot Lussier, Dave Baranowski Jr., Scott Duell, Jeff Washburn, Brian Chaffee, Tavien Blowers, Tanner Coon, Mike Arnold, Dylan Grogan, Michael Wagner Fitzgerald, Mike Ballestero, Tyler Bobar, Jim Nagle, Dan Grignon, Joey Bruning, Ron Delease Jr., Tyler Rapp.

SPORTSMAN FEATURE NO. 2: CHRIS CRANE JR., Dylan Madsen, Richard Murtagh, Max Doliver, Joey Scarborough, Mike Coffey Jr., Cody Bleau, Connor Crane, Travis Green, Jon Miller, Chris Jakubiak, Tanner Warner, Derrick McGrew Jr., Tyler Stevenson, Mike Benson, Chad Gregory, Kadon Hohensheldt, Ashton Pierson, Zach Buff, Josh Coonradt, Dan Jalbert, Alex Palmer-Sawyer, Mike Engwer, John Dumond, Dakota Green, Matt Perry, Pat Jones, Nick Brundige.

PRO STOCKS: BEAU BALLARD, Devon Camenga, Luke Horning, Caden Dumblewski, Slater Baker, Brandon Emigh, Jason Casey, Chucky Dumblewski, Shane Henderson, Shawn Perez Jr., Dean Charbonneau, Kyle Hoard, Chuck McSpirit, Kim Duell, Denis Gavreau, Mike Baker, Phil Defiglio, Rob Yetman, Johnny Rivers, Doug Sheely.