Brian Shirley looked like he was going to run away and hide at Fairbury last night with the MARS Late Model Championship. However, while navigating traffic he made contact with Mike Spatola and it allowed Ashton Winger to strike and take the lead.

With 23 laps left in the race, Shirley dove to the inside of Spatola through 1 and 2 and ran the middle of the track while Spatola ran the top side. He wasn’t able to clear him as Spatola got a good run off the corner and down the back shoot. On the next lap Shirley threw it in going into 1 and as he slid up the track he had not clear Spatola and made contact with him in the middle of the corner. The contact caused significant damage to the right side of Shirley’s car and allowed Winger to close on his bumper.

For the next couple of laps Shirley and Winger trained around the top behind Spatola. However, Winger saw an opportunity to strike and he threw a slider on Shirley going into three. Shirley was able to cross him over coming out of four and maintained the lead. The battle would intensify when Winger threw a giant haymaker slider in turns 1 and 2 with 18 laps left to go. Shirley again crossed him over and maintained the lead down the back shoot. But Winger would not be denied and he slid Shirley through 3 and 4 and this time prevented Shirley from fully clearing him off of 4 and stayed on his outside going through 1 and 2 and finished the past coming off of 2.

Following a caution with 15 laps to go for Tony Jackson Jr., Shirley came under threat from Ryan Unzicker, but while the two of them battled on the restart, Jason Feger got past both of them to slip into second. Shirley would eventually work his way around Unzicker with 10 to go and he would maintain that third spot the rest of the way.

When asked about the contact with Spatola and whether it cost him the win in his post-race interview with FloRacing, a dejected Shirley said, “I don’t know. Winger was good. We was definitely out there setting pace and then obviously get to a lap car that I thought I showed my nose to him once and then obviously the layover flag was displayed to him. So it is what it is. It’s just racing. I’ve been that guy before too. Listen, this race is over, we’ll get ready for the World.”

While Shirley indicated he was not sure if the contact with Spatola cost him the win, Winger suggested it was what gave him the shot to win, “I really don’t know if I had a shot there. The race track kind of got pretty close to one lane there at the end around the time I got to the lead. I think Squirrel and a lap car got together and I seen it kind of knocked his right door off. Actually, the first time I slid him I really didn’t even mean to, I was just trying to show him my nose to let him know I was there. And he actually backed and turned left and drove back by him. And then he pushed one time over here leaving 3 and 4 and I was like, ‘Man, I know it’s cleaning up. If I’m going to go, I go.’ So I really probably slid way too far and I kind of seen the fence coming and I just made sure whenever I hit it I was wheel left and wheels spinning to go back forward.”

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