5/24/2016
This past Saturday at the LaSalle Speedway located in Northern Illinois Brandon Sheppard captured his first Lucas Oil Late Model Series win of the season. The 23 year old New Berlin, Illinois driver was driving his Best Motorsports Rocket Chassis #B5 with Dargie Racing Engine under the hood. The event was promoted by Tony Izzo Jr. who just came off a packed house at Oshkosh Friday and did it again Saturday at LaSalle. Sheppard led all 60 Laps and took home $12,000 for the win, it was a clean sweep for Sheppard as he also set fast time on the 1/3 mile oval with a 12.572 lap time and won his heat race as well. 34 Cars were on hand for the Spring Shootout event. Heats were won by Don O’Neal, Tim McCreadie, Brandon Sheppard, and Dennis Erb Jr. Jimmy Mars and Rich Bell each won a consi.
It should be noted that Sheppard has been very fast over the last month and the team has been getting stronger and stronger. Randall Edwards serves as the crew chief for Sheppard and even he knew it was just a matter of time before they clicked off their first Lucas win.
Tim McCreadie finished second in his Sweetner’s Longhorn after a torrid battle with Don O’Neal. Tim is another one who is putting some consistency in his program with 3 top five’s in his last 4 starts. At one time TMAC looked to be gaining ground on Sheppard in lapped traffic but Sheppard made all the right moves to take the win. O’Neal on the other hand was punishing the cushion even to the point he ripped half the nose off the car midway thru the feature event. The Real Deal came home third in his Peak Performance Clint Bowyer Racing Club 29 Race Car.
Current point leader Jonathan Davenport finished 4th and Shannon Babb rounded out the top five in his Donley Trucking #18. Rounding out the top ten is Chris Simpson, Brian Shirley, Dennis Erb Jr., Nick Anvelink and Jason Feger. The Highside Hustler will have a new weapon at his disposal the team has purchased a Moyer Victory Circle machine. Jason might take this week off and maybe run local to get the car ready altering his plans for the Show Me 100 at Wheatland next weekend.
Both Moyers, Jared Landers, Darrell Lanigan, and Scott Bloomquist finished outside the top ten. Bloomer is hard to figure out right now, after dominating the race last weekend at Atomic and capturing $50,000 he was lapped traffic at both races this past weekend and just when it looked like he was going to cut into Davenport’s point lead he lost more ground to the Rumley Motorsports Championship team. Friday at Oshkosh the team was late and missed qualifying and Saturday did not make the call for his heat race when he was scheduled to start on the front row.
Earl Pearson Jr. and Jimmy Owens continue to struggle finishing 18th and 19th and don’t look to see daylight anytime soon hopefully both can pick it up this weekend at the Show-Me. I don’t know what is going on with Earl’s team. He has Longhorns and has one of the best financed teams out there. A.J. Diemel the winner at Oshkosh Friday finished 21st at LaSalle.
In closing all in all a pretty good show at LaSalle, the Izzo team kept working the track giving the race fans a decent show and yet the feature was wrapped up at 10 pm Saturday night.
Next weekend I am off to Wheatland for all 3 days of the Show-Me 100 hope everyone has a great memorial weekend and keep supporting dirt racing and your local race tracks.