Farmer City Raceway
Notes: B-Shepp, Rocket1 finding consistent flow
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Brandon Sheppard celebrates at Farmer City. (brendonbauman.com)
FARMER CITY, Ill. (April 10) — Leading all 40 laps of Friday’s Illini 100 opener at Farmer City Raceway on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., notched his first victory since Georgia-Florida Speedweeks for the Rocket Chassis house car team.
With Friday’s triumph following a pair of top-five runs on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series the last weekend in March at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway and Atomic Speedway near Chillicothe, Ohio, Sheppard hopes it’s an indication of consistency for the Rocket1 team fielded by Mark Richards. | RaceWire
“The car was good. Can't say enough about Mark and (Steve) Baker and everybody at Rocket and everybody that's got their hands on these XR2s,” Sheppard said. “They've just been phenomenal this year, honestly. Mark and the guys have been working their tails off. We've been super consistent. We've had a few bad runs, a bunch of flat tires, which, I feel like our car balance is gonna help that out now. We really got this thing rolling pretty good, it seems like.
“It's all about the consistency. We just gotta keep that part of it going. You’re gonna win some and you're gonna lose some, but if you're not in contention up there, you're never gonna win. So we just gotta keep putting ourselves there and just hope that we can grab a few more.”
The 33-year-old Sheppard’s track record at Farmer City is solid, including winning four Illini 100 finales, but he said the team’s success was more than his experience at the track where he’s competed since he was a teenager.
“I know that I get around here good, but our car’s been really good all year, and Mark's been working his butt off and Dan (White), Austin (Hargrove) and Joel (Rogers) have been working their butts off and just trying to massage it into place and get everything the way we need it to be consistent everywhere we go night in and night out,” Sheppard said, also crediting Durham Racing Engines, Fox Shox and Precision Suspension. “We just got to keep building on our program and all of our heads are in the game and we want to do better, every night, so we're just gonna concentrate on that. Hopefully we can keep this thing up front all year.”
Tense moment
En route to his third-place finish in a Friday heat at Farmer City, Jason Feger of Bloomington, Ill., had a tense moment when he slipped over the banking entering the backstretch. It’s often a precarious spot because drivers must quickly get back onto the racing surface proper before facing the prospect of the turn-three wall.
The 47-year-old Feger, a Farmer City veteran, quickly edged his car back onto the track, but it’s never easy.
“They got the track kinda graded out pretty weird off the backstretch off of (turn) two), and it's really easy to do,” Feger said. “And that’s just the way it is right there. It's so fast. It's kind of crummy out there and it's really dirt, dark and kind of just hard to see the transition.”
Feger said “nothing good can come out of” slipping over the berm, but he managed it without issue.
“It's just never good because you feel like you throw a parachute and you're just waiting for everybody to just drive right by you or get some slide jobs,” he said. “It's hard, because once you get over there, you're obviously in the crumbs. So you kind of lose traction, but then it's also that reverse banking. It starts really falling on the right-rear and lifting the left-front, so it's really hard to get it to kind of turn back and cut back. And then yeah, obviously you don't want to crank it so hard that somebody comes in and sideswipes you, either.
“You're trying to stay in the fuel and turn the wheel just enough to not lose enough speed but still get on the track, so it definitely isn't a good feeling.”
Feger said it’s not as dangerous as it once was for drivers who sometimes smashed the turn-three wall.
“Now you get off of it a little quicker, and it’s just a little slower off there, so it's almost a little easier to get back on,” he said. “It's definitely not like the old Farmer City or back in the day when we had a lot of them bad wrecks.”
Wilson’s solid stretch
After an up-and-down Georgia-Florida Speedweeks, Daulton Wilson of Fayetteville, N.C., and his Florida-based Big Frog Motorsports team has been mostly steady over his last seven WoO starts.
He was no worse than eighth from March 13-27, including a runner-up finish at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City. He had a clunker with an 18th-place finish at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway after EAMS, but Farmer City’s Illini 100 opener got him back on track with a 10th-to-fourth run in the 40-lapper.
It marked his best finish at the quarter-mile oval where he hasn’t been a significant factor in five previous appearances.
“We're getting better and better,” Wilson said in the Farmer City pits on Friday night. “You know this place normally isn't very friendly to me and we got up through there. We had a really good car. We've had a really good car for really the last month or so. We had some bad luck at Senoia, but really other than that we've had a really good car.”
He credits crew members J.C. Crockett and Mike Rey (Zack Clifton was along for the Farmer City trip) along with team owners Augie Burttram of Big Frog and Shawn Martin of Viper Motorsports.
“We're just slowly, steady, plugging away, you know? We're just working hard and the car's really good. My guys, J.C. and Mike, they've been working their butts off, and, you know, Augie and Shawn are giving us everything we need to go compete with, and I'm excited about what the future holds.”
Wilson, who moved up to fourth in WoO points (he’s also the Rookie of the Year leader), says consistency breeds victories.
“I mean, obviously you want to win races, but you don't want to win one and then run 20th 10 nights in a row,” he said. “We’re a top-five car right now, you know, pretty steady, and I always believe that if you run top-five every night you'll get your fair share of wins and the consistency is what pays the bills.”
Odds and ends
Making his 2026 debut, Ryan Unzicker of El Paso, Ill., ran in the top five of Friday’s 40-lapper until right-rear suspension issues that hampered his handling forced him out on the 34th lap. “Maybe we messed something up before we were going out for the feature,” Unzicker said. “We was making a few last-minute changes — a First Night Blues type of deal.” … Timmy Dick of Monticello, Ill., made his first WoO feature lineup, finishing 15th after placing third in the opening heat race. … Neither Caden McWhorter nor Justin Duty made the feature after tangling on the frontstretch in heat race action. … Bob Gardner of Washington, Ill., was back in action at Farmer City for the first time since he was suspended for misbehavior in a MARS Championship Series event; engine problems shortened his night. … Farmer City has added a new concrete pad in the infield near the scales for deck-height “droop” checks. … Mike Winn of Bourbonnais, Ill., made his Super Late Model debut but failed to make the main event (he finished 17th in the modified feature). He previously ran Crate Late Models with a best 2025 finish of seventh (twice).
