Fairbury Speedway
Struggling Shirley finally scores a worthy result
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Brian Shirley (3s) leads early at Fairbury. (B.A Racing Photos by Branden Aeling)
FAIRBURY, Ill. (May 9) — More than 50 races removed from his last victory and without a single top-five finish entering Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event at Fairbury Speedway, Brian Shirley’s first four months of the racing season had left him crestfallen. | RaceWire
“Oh, it's been killing me,” the 45-year-old Shirley said Saturday. “I feel like I've been a disappointment to all the people … my sponsors, and my car owner, and everybody that believes in me. And it's not like they truly believe I'm a disappointment, but it is a disappointment, you know? You feel like you're letting them down.”
On Saturday at the quarter-mile Fairbury oval he can so often count on to put him back in the right frame of mind — where he celebrated his last victory in last July’s highly emotional Prairie Dirt Classic that didn’t conclude until nearly 3 a.m. — he at last shoved those feelings of inadequacy aside.
Although the pole-starting Shirley couldn’t keep Brandon Sheppard behind him after leading the opening 12 circuits of the 60-lap Illinois Speedweek feature, he stayed near the front long enough from the pole to secure his best finish of the season, a third-place effort behind Sheppard and runner-up Nick Hoffman.
His first podium finish in seven months — since last Oct. 4’s runner-up finish at 81 Speedway with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series — brought much-needed respite.
“My guys, like, they work as hard as anybody here. Tonight is a shot in the arm for them to realize, ‘Hey, man, if you keep pumping, we'll be all right, you know?’ ” Shirley said. “We're just trying to race with the best teams in the business. We have the best equipment that money can buy.
“It's not my race car. It's not our motors. It's just putting the right balance in the race car to understand to compete with these guys at the end of 60- to 100-lap races.”
Part of Shirley’s process this season has been learning the tendencies of his two relatively new Longhorn Chassis his team unveiled during Georgia-Florida Speedweeks. Months later, he still hasn’t landed on a favorite between the cars as he continues discovering what each one needs to find the balance and feel he’s searching for.
“We’ve just not had enough track time to get the feel and the balance of the car where we need it to be,” Shirley said. "It was nice to have a real solid finish and give my sponsors and everybody what they deserve. We just have to start finishing good before we start worry about winning ‘em. … Things had to fall our way. In this condition, we definitely don’t have probably a car as good as Nick or Sheppy for sure. To be competitive as we was tonight, it’s a good shot in the arm.”
For Shirley, running wheel-to-wheel with Sheppard — statistically the sport’s hottest driver since Georgia-Florida Speedweeks with four victories, seven podium finishes and a 2.9 average finish over his last 11 races — and Hoffman, the consistent World of Outlaws Late Model Series points leader riding a 37-race top-10 streak, served as validation that Shirley and the Bob Cullen Racing team are pointed in the right direction.
“Obviously, Sheppy’s been on his game. To be able to at least see him, see Nick. Nick’s won a s--- ton of races this year already,” Shirley said. “Listen, did I think we had a shot to win? I mean, in my heart, I wanted to think we could. But at some point in time, you have to be realistic and have realistic goals. And truthfully, my goal was, top-three was gonna be extraordinary, and top-five was gonna be in a good building base to get better for next week.”
Another adjustment Shirley’s team has been navigating is Hoosier Racing Tire’s newer-style right-rear tire, which both the Lucas Oil Series and World of Outlaws fully transitioned to at the beginning of May. Though the tire hit the market last April, Hoosier allowed sanctioning bodies and series to determine their own phase-in process, meaning teams could still run the older-style right-rear through the end of last month despite the end of the tire’s production run.
The revised tire features a taller, softer sidewall and a slightly wider construction intended to provide improved sidebite, balance and tire wear. The former tire, by contrast, featured a shorter, more rigid carcass that many teams like Shirley had grown accustomed to since it debuted in 2023 as part of the National Late Model Tire program.
For Shirley, the newer tire has required an extended search for the balance and feel his team previously enjoyed, especially at the end of 2024 with a stretch of seven victories in 18 races. Since the start of 2025, however, he has just three victories in 111 feature starts.
“We just haven't really found what we're looking for that makes us feel the way we felt when we were with that other tire,” Shirley said. “You know, that's, the tire is your grip level, so, you just gotta figure out how to get that back to where you wanted it to be.”
Still, Saturday’s performance gave Shirley confidence that progress doesn’t have to arrive all at once, particularly while his team continues its quest to regain stability and consistency.
“You know, it's just a steppingstone that you can't expect to go from here to that,” Shirley said. “Like, you gotta have common sense, you gotta set some boundaries, set some goals and get some consistency back. And as long as we're competing for some wins at the end of the day, we'll be happy and then we'll get some wins going here soon.
“We don't have their team,” Shirley added, referencing the strength of Sheppard's Mark Richards-led Rocket Chassis house car team. “So it just takes us a little longer, but it is nice to come home and get on a track that you get a little feel. and then you can work to get better.”
Shirley now hopes Fairbury’s respite can carry into this week’s Lucas Oil tripleheader at Eagle (Neb.) Raceway, a high-banked third-mile he’ll visit for the first time Thursday. The Illinois veteran said he’s especially eager for the weekend after hearing positive feedback from good friend Kyle Bronson, who finished third twice and 10th in the three-day event at Eagle last year.
“I think it's going to be, hopefully, maybe one of our style racetracks in the Midwest,” Shirley said. “I've seen Kyle run really well there last year, just seeing the elbows-up style. And that's that style just fits me. We just gotta just hopefully get a shot in our arm here and keep moving forward.”
