October 21, 2016
New Berlin, Illinois driver Brandon Sheppard won his second Dirt Track World Championship last weekend at Portsmouth Raceway Park. The last win came a few years ago when he subbed for Rocket House Card Driver Josh Richards and the win shocked many of us. This year he did it coming from the 11th row on the grid to double what he won the last time. The win was worth $100,000 and is the biggest win of his career thus far. The 23 year old Sheppard was driving the Randall Edwards prepared Best Motorsports XRI Rocket Chassis with Dargie Engines under the hood.
Carl Short is the promoter of the Dirt Track World Championships and the event has been held at Portsmouth the last five years. It will be back again at Portsmouth next year for the 37th Edition and has already been announced next October will pay again $100,000 to win. This was my first trip to Portsmouth and I can’t wait to go back again next year. The track was very fast and multi-grooved the entire weekend. The facility and location is fantastic. The Sciota River runs into the Ohio and you can actually see the entire facility from the bridge which provides an awesome view of the track and pit area. The spectacular view gave my daughter goose bumps from the back seat as I hear her holler out “WOW”! These were my thoughts as well, over 400 motor homes and 90 Modifieds and 80 late models what is there not to love being a dirt racing fan. The crowd was standing room only and again the racing was tremendous.
The event is sanctioned by the Lucas Oil Series and is the last point event of the year and the actual Dirt Track World Championship is sponsored by Rhino Ag and Optima Batteries. Thursday action kicked off with the open wheel modifieds. Heat races and consolation races would take place for the mods, the entire mod portion of the show is run with the exception of the feature on Saturday night paying $4000 to win. It should be noted that several late model drivers were doing double duty which included past track champion and fan favorite Jackie Boggs and Dustin Linville to name a couple. Jared Hawkins of West Virginia dominated the modified feature in his Two Brothers Racing entry taking home the check.
Friday Late Models were on tap and each driver would run two heat races for passing points no qualifying. With 80 late models in the pits and two rounds of heat races we had 16 races on the card. The heats were very exciting and also heartbreaking for a few. Tim McCreadie in round one would race from his tenth starting spot passing Davenport, Owens, Sheppard to name a few to get to third and suffer a flat tire. Tim would win his heat in the second round but did not have enough points to lock his self into the feature. Steve Francis had the worst break of the night he would come from his 9th starting spot in the heat head to the checkers coming out of turn 4 when his car lost power, he went from first to eighth in less than football field. Scott Bloomquist and Dale McDowell on the other hand both looked tremendous. Both of them earned enough points to earn the front row for the big show.
Saturday three consolation races were run followed by the Jim Dunn Memorial race for the non-qualifiers. Devin Moran took advantage of several yellows to outduel Bobby Pierce to get the win and earn the final spot in the DTWC. A huge firework display took shape before the green flag dropped and when the flag dropped it was all Zero in the early going. The newly series crowned champion Bloomquist looked to be the car to beat, he always runs well at Carl Short promoted events and is the defending DTWC champ. Scott was strong early but so was Josh Richards, and this is the race that everybody wanted to see, the two best going at it toe to toe. Josh ran side by side with Scott several laps before eventually taking the lead. Once Josh had the lead I thought it was over but Earl Pearson Jr. and Brandon Sheppard had other plans. Earl was really fast thru the middle while Sheppard kid who is known for rim riding was running unfamiliar territory running the bottom. Brandon found some moisture on the bottom and it was setting up for one heck of a finish. At one time Richards, Bloomquist, Sheppard, and Pearson were almost running four wide at the flagstand on the banked 3/8 mile oval. Bloomquist actually after losing positions to Pearson, Sheppard, and Richards brought out the yellow, he apparently accidently hit the kill switch. With twenty laps to go Sheppard after a battle with Richards would take the lead and roll on to his second DTWC win and his biggest paycheck of his youthful career. Pearson would have a late battle with Richards over the last handful of laps to get second with Richards taking the final podium spot. Gregg Satterllee started near the front and ran near the front the entire race to get fourth and Darrell Lanigan rounded out the top five. Don O’Neal finished sixth, hard charger Devin Moran, Doug Drown, Tim McCreadie, and Rod Conley rounded out the top ten. It also needs to be noted that McCreadie finished second in the points behind Davenport and Bloomquist. It was his first year on the Lucas tour and did not have a full-time crew member on his team and pretty much did this on a limited budget. He took on the teams of Clint Bowyer, Lucas Oil Dunn-Benson, and RW Motorsports to name a few. Great job TMAC and his truck driver FROG !!
In closing Sheppard is for real and can this kid driver a racecar. Also how about our Illinois drivers taking home both races that paid a hundred grand to win this year. First it was Dennis Erb at the Dream and now Brandon Sheppard at the Dirt Track. We can’t forget about little Bobby, the kid did not have the weekend he wanted but he still won the biggest dirt late model race of the year the World 100 and North/South at Florence that paid $50,000 to win and dominated the UMP Summer Nationals. Folks if you get a chance to go to the DTWC – GO !!!