Shelby County Speedway
Shelby County banger eclipses ho-hum heats
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Brandon Sheppard (1) heads for the lead. (mikerueferphotos.photoreflect.com)
HARLAN, Iowa (July 16) — Sometimes everyone just needs to relax and refrain from jumping to a hasty conclusion.
Case in point was Thursday’s opener of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Silver Dollar Nationals weekend at Shelby County Speedway. An uneventful set of six heat races contested on a sun-baked track surface prompted critics to immediately proclaim that the Joe Kosiski-founded crown jewel event shouldn’t have been moved to the 3/8-mile fairgrounds oval for its 2026 edition. | RaceWire
But where were all those naysayers a couple hours later after Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., was victorious in a Malvern Bank Go 50 feature that was a downright frenetic barnburner? The dramatic turnaround from the mundane qualifiers seemed to silence all the disparagers.
The slow, bottom-feeding racing of the heats was replaced by on-the-gas action around the top from the start of the A-main. Ryan Gustin of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, engaged in a late-race slugfest for the lead that left both drivers angry after settling for third- and fourth-place finishes. And Sheppard and Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., snuck by on the low side in the closing circuits to grab the top two finishing positions.
It was a redeeming race, one that stamped Shelby County as a worthy host of Saturday’s $52,000-to-win Silver Dollar Nationals following its three-year run at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D., a sprint car haven that’s an incredible facility but proved narrow for Dirt Late Models and wasn’t able to maintain the momentum the event built from 2011-22 at the shuttered I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Neb.
“If fans didn’t like that, they don’t like racing,” Gustin said. “Because that was a hell of a race.”
Hoffman offered a similar take.
“At the end of the day, it could be s----- for qualifying and the heat race, but as long as the feature is good, the race fans don’t care, you know?” Hoffman said. “Huset’s could never do that. I would have never came to the Silver Dollar Nationals if it stayed at Huset’s.
“I needed to come here and make laps anyway to get my stuff ready for the (World of) Outlaw race here (on Aug. 29), but man, that was one of the funnest races I ran this year. I mean, I’ll say it — we’ve raced a lot of s---holes, like, terrible racetracks, and every once in a while we've been getting a good one. And tonight, this place was real good. It was fun. I enjoyed it.”
The change in track conditions from the heats to the feature was unmistakable. Shelby County’s track-prep team hit the clay after the Lucas Oil heats with the water truck and their enormous 24-foot disc and brought it back to life for the feature.
Sheppard’s Rocket1 team owner, Mark Richards, noticed that the technique the track crew employed — leaving the center of the speedway largely untouched — played an integral role in the feature’s competitiveness.
“Whenever they work the whole track, you wind up with a curb about halfway up that you chase to the top and you don’t have any passing,” Richards said. “So if you work the bottom and you work the top and you don’t work the middle, you have like a slick middle ground that’s kind of no man’s land.
“You’re never going to get it to where the two (lanes) are going to keep up equally because the distance is too far (on the wide Shelby County oval). The bottom is never going to be where it’s going to be the same speed as the top, or the top’s never going to be at the same speed as the bottom.
“And in that feature the top was fast right off the bat, and then the top side started slowing down and the bottom started coming. Right before (Sheppard) caught them lapped cars (late in the race), I think that (Tad Pospisil), he was in the bottom … and, well, (Sheppard) was trying to pass them on the outside but they were keeping up with him, so once he finally went to the bottom and cleared that 04, I knew that he was in the right lane at that point.
“But that makes good racing when you have a track that changes lanes, you know?” he added. “It’s a come-and-go (groove) deal and we caught it in the right way.”
Indeed, Sheppard, 33, realized the inside line was becoming quicker as he was running third behind the battling duo of Gustin and Moran. Gustin had led from the start, but Moran rose up to nose ahead on lap 40 only to cede it immediately back to Gustin as they traded sliders and crossover maneuvers at each end of the track. After Moran led lap 43 and Gustin paced the ensuing circuit, Sheppard shot by both drivers to assume command for good on lap 45.
“It was a hell of a show from where I was sitting,” Sheppard said of the Gustin-Moran back-and-forth. “I just know the top was getting way up there and you would slide so bad if you would enter high getting into three, so I was just trying to keep my tires underneath me and hope that they slowed down enough where I could get close to them and that’s pretty much what happened.
“It seems like typical Shelby County. You get up there and you run the top until it’s completely gone, and luckily tonight, it really got up there and was gone, so we had to start moving around at some point. Right before I took the lead, the lapped cars were as fast as I was going around the top but around the bottom. I knew my car was good wherever I put it, so I knew I had to try getting down there, and once I finally got down there and got in a rhythm, it was really good.”
Hoffman, 34, thought Moran might drive off to win once he pulled ahead of Gustin, “but Ryan put up such a good fight I think that they ended up both hurting their tires enough that they brought me and Sheppy back in it,” he said. “Then whatever happened with the sliders and stuff and elbows getting thrown (between the leaders) to get Sheppy to the lead, I followed him to third. And then when I got to Gustin I just moved out about a half a lane higher and was able to roll by him too.”
Racing through heavy lapped traffic — the race’s lone stoppage was a lap-12 red flag for Tyler Bruening’s rollover in turn three — as Gustin and Moran were so busy sliding each other helped Sheppard and Hoffman, who grabbed second in the final laps.
“Like me and Sheppy were talking, we were able to judge off of a couple lapped cars to figure out like, all right, the lane is changing here, you know?” said Hoffman, who recorded his 12th runner-up finish of the season with his Tye Twarog-owned Longhorn Chassis. “I’d say 12 to 15 (laps) to go, I tried blitzing the top again in one and two, and then (the lapped) Dan Ebert about drove by me on the bottom again and I was like, ‘Oh s---, I gotta get back down.’ So that's when I just married myself to kind of the middle at that point, and me and Sheppy are fighting for the same lane at that point so we’re just kind of following each other.”
Said Richards about Gustin and Moran: “They were worried about each other and didn’t realize that bottom came in.”
There’s no doubt that Gustin, 35, and Moran, 31, had their minds wrapped up in their personal battle. It was an intense war that quickly gained steam when Moran tossed his first bomb to briefly grab the lead on lap 40. It continued from there as they traded sliders — and contact — for several breathtaking laps.
“Devin’s throwing sliders,” Gustin said. “I was returning them.”
Sheppard and Hoffman were watching the confrontation knowing it could benefit them.
“The problem is, usually when you’re racing a guy like that up front and you’re running into each other, it’s never gonna work out in anybody’s favor,” Sheppard said. “They’re getting each other tore up and hurting themselves. They hit on the front straightaway hard one lap.”
“There was one time that Gustin went to slide Devin into one and just basically run right to his door,” Hoffman said. “I don’t know if they made contact at that point or not, but it kind of screwed Devin up at that point. And then there was one slider that Devin run into (Gustin’s) right-rear, so I don’t know. Just a lot of s--- transpired there really fast. A lot of times I didn’t really know where to go either because it was, like, if they were going to crash or a lane would open, I wanted to make a move, too.”
The engagement at the front of the field boiled over to postrace agitation for both combatants. Gustin’s Todd Cooney Motorsports machine was hampered over the final circuits by right-front damage from homestretch contact with Moran that knocked his steering out of whack. Moran’s Double Down Motorsports mount sported tell-tale damage to his left-side door, among other items, from the encounters.
Gustin said Moran was “flipping me off” after the checkered flag, signaling his displeasure with the back-and-forth. But Gustin brushed it off.
“Hoffman and Sheppy there, they was just sitting there watching a boxing match, basically, I guess you could call it,” said Gustin, a World of Outlaws regular making his second career start at his home-state track. “I don’t like to race like that, I really don’t. I don’t even know that you can really consider that dirty racing. It’s hard racing.
“It’s just, he forgets about all the times he’s ran into me. I just don’t say anything about it. I wait till a time, like that, to where it actually matters, to, you know, rough him back up a little bit.
“We were going for broke,” he added. “We’re here to win. We’re not points racing. That’s what we’re gonna do all week.”
Gustin was especially angry to hear that Moran’s crew exchanged words with Gustin’s team members afterwards.
“His crew, guys, they might want to get themselves in check or they will get hurt, I promise you,” Gustin said. “They come down to my guys one time, I will get kicked out of here. I don’t give a s---. That’s about all I gotta say about that.”
Changed into street clothes at this trailer after the race, Moran declined to immediately comment on what transpired with Gustin. He remained upset with the outcome and said he needed “to go watch the video” before he made a public statement.
Around midnight local time, Moran took to his Facebook page to air his view. He maintained that Gustin was the instigator.
“Well we took a minute to rewatch the race and compose ourselves,” Moran wrote. And it’s exactly what we thought. We got run OVER. More than once. I think we had the car to win. I hate it for my guys but we have a fast car. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Hoffman called the Gustin-Moran situation “all fun” and just “aggressive racing.” Perhaps the two drivers involved wouldn’t agree, but it certainly spiced up a night that had begun in rather disappointing fashion on the excitement front.
Will the compelling racing continue during Friday’s dual-heat, passing-points qualifying program and Saturday’s finale? Hoffman believes it will after the track crew learned a lesson with Thursday’s heat races.
“I think they know what to do (now),” Hoffman said. “Obviously we're not qualifying or nothing, but they needed to work the racetrack before the heat races. They let it go tonight and it rubbered right away.
“The biggest thing is it’s so damn hot. We started today in the sunlight and they raced on it (Wednesday) night, so the track’s already pretty hard and they’re trying to get moisture and it’s difficult. I know tonight they’ll probably do quite a bit more knowing I think it’s supposed to be 95.
“At the end of the day, they have such good dirt out here they can do so much with it,” he continued. “They can make the racetrack pretty much do whatever they want. They want to go out there and make this thing top-dominant, they probably can do it pretty quick. There's a lot of racetracks in the country that would die for dirt like this. It’s just fun to go to good racetracks, and I think it’ll be good the rest of the weekend.”
