Brandon Sheppard might not have been in the thick of the battle for the lead for much of the race at Fairbury, but at the end he had moved up to second and was in the hunt, but unfortunately just ran out of time and laps to challenge Shannon Babb for the win.
Sheppard had a strong start to the MARS Racing Series race at Fairbury Speedway on Saturday night. He qualified sixth in his Group, which gave him a third starting position in his heat. He went on to win the heat and started third in the feature. He quickly fell back to fifth as both Jason Feger and Mike Spatola were able to get around him on the opening lap.
After an early caution for Dylan Thornton, Sheppard would move back up to fourth on the restart while Ashton Winger and Babb duked it out for the lead. Sheppard would remain patient for the next 10 laps or so as Babb and Winger slugged it out. With about 35 laps left, Sheppard appeared to make his move forward. As he got to the back of Feger and was looking to make a move around him. Unfortunately, Jake Little would spin and draw a caution spoiling that opportunity.
Sheppard would remain in fourth through a number of cautions and even saw that spot threatened as MARS Racing Series points leader Ryan Unzicker had worked his way through the field from his 18th starting position and threw a haymaker on both him and Winger, who had slipped back to third, following a restart with 25 laps to go. Winger would be able to fend off the challenge, but Unzicker took the fourth spot and held it for about 10 or so laps.
With 10 or so laps to go, Sheppard began to move forward again as he took the fourth position from Ryan Unzicker. A few laps later with 7 to go and he was in third past Winger. He then set his sights on Feger for second. It would take him all 7 laps, but he was able to get the position at the finish line.
In his podium interview, Sheppard talked about his run forward in the closing laps and what he needed to get Babb, who had checked out after an epic side-by-side battle with Feger for about 10 or 15 laps following the final restart.
Sheppard told FloRacing’s Mike Norris, “Old Babb, he did a good job. We’ve been back and forth over the years quite a bit so it’s good to see him win, for sure. Congratulations to him.”
“It was a great race,” Sheppard continued. “And the track was really awesome like we knew it was going to be. Typical FALS, it was really good.”
As for his race, Sheppard shared what plagued him at the beginning, “I just started off the race way too free like into the center and I couldn’t carry any speed at all. I knew I was hurting myself on the top so I was trying to run the bottom. And Winger and Unzicker were by me there on the top. I could hear their motors and they were beating everything they had up. I knew if I just needed to move around and try to figure out how to gain some speed and I kinda stopped worrying about parking on the bottom so bad and just ran more of a momentum line late in the race and really got going. And yea, that’s what got me back by them guys and then past Feger too.”
“I felt like my right rear tire was too hard, honestly, because I was so free getting in and I didn’t have any tire to-. My tire wasn’t sticking anyway because it was too hard and I was free. So it just took me way too long to get going.”
“But to end this — it feels like the worst weekend of my life, honestly, we’ve been working our tails off and my guys’ve been working their tails off. We messed everything we had up on Thursday at LaSalle and then yesterday we broke in the heat race and had to come from the back. It’s just been an awful weekend. I’m ready to go home. But to end it with a second on Saturday here at FALS it feels pretty good. My car was pretty good there at the end of the race,” Sheppard concluded.
Sheppard will be back in action at Eldora Speedway for the World 100, which begins with preliminary action on Thursday, September 10th. He will be looking for redemption after a heartbreaking Dream run that was ended early after he had an issue with the right front and slammed hard into the outside wall as he was chasing down Bobby Pierce to challenge him for the lead and very likely the win.
The MARS Racing Series will not be back in action until Friday, September 18th where they will visit Kankakee County Speedway and then Highland Speedway on September 19th.
0 Comments