Using a loaner engine after blowing his during preliminaries for the Textron Off Road World Finals, Mat Williamson held Matt Sheppard at bay to earn the biggest win of his part-time career on Friday at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, NC.

Two cautions slowed the field in the opening laps as Brian Swartzlander spun and Jim Rasey blew an engine — but that simply served as a way for Williamson to go to school on the pole-sitter Sheppard.

When the field finally settled down and got some green flag laps under their belt, Williamson grabbed ahold of “Superman” Sheppard’s cape and followed him into turn one.

Privateer Williamson took the early lead and led the rest of the way, but that does not mean he had an easy go of it.

"I knew Matt [Sheppard] would be right there — he's a hell of a race car driver,” Williamson said. “We had to capitalize on that restart."

But his challenge started on Thursday. Williamson and his team was not even sure he would be able to race when their engine blew during qualification.

Jamie Mills offered to drive a power plant down from Delaware. Justin Haers, Keith Flach, and Mills each offered a complete car with a motor to drive, but uncertainty over how the rules would be impacted by a replacement car caused Williamson to take Larry Wight up on his offer of a loaner engine.

"I gotta thank a lot of people, John, Larry, and Laura Wight," Williamson said. "Without them I wouldn't have a power plant in that thing tonight. I can't think everyone enough for the endless support in the pit area."

While Williamson rattled off a Cinderella win, an even bigger picture played out on the stage. In the points battle, Billy Decker started in a deep hole. Qualifying mid-pack, Decker was well behind the leader Sheppard.

"We [started] 10th, but the car was really good, digging and clawing, certainly not going to fall out of the seat, going to keep the elbows up and keep digging," Decker said. "I think we had as good of a car as anybody the last half of that feature. Some of the lap cars were using a lot of the track, and it was a lot about momentum and once you cleared them we were going ok."

Decker climbed to third — one position and five points behind his rival Sheppard. There is now a 37-point gap between the two.

"It was a good run for us tonight. We just came up a few car lengths short but definitely happy with second," Sheppard said. "Congrats to Mat and his team. I guess we're one race closer to the end here. It will come down to tomorrow night. Hopefully we can keep the wheels on her for 40 more laps and see what happens."

Top-10 Finishers 
1. Mat Williamson
2. Matt Sheppard
3. Billy Decker
4. Keith Flach
5. Mike Mahaney
6. Danny Johnson
7. Tim Fuller
8. Larry Wight
9. Pat Ward
10. Max McLaughlin
Complete Results