After the Checkers
Instant reaction, analysis of B-Shepp's PDC victory
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Brandon Sheppard in Fairbury's victory lane. (joshjamesartwork.com)
FAIRBURY, Ill. (July 25) — Instant reaction and analysis from Saturday’s 100-lap Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury Speedway, a $50,000-to-win World of Outlaws Late Model Series-sanctioned event captured by Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill. (RaceWire):
MR. ILLINOIS: For the Fairbury faithful, seeing Brandon Sheppard win the Prairie Dirt Classic never gets old. It’s amazing how universally well-liked the 33-year-old superstar is at his home-state track. Saturday marked his fourth victory in the event since it became a big-money, midsummer blockbuster on the WoO tour in 2013 and the reaction he received from the the standing-room-only crowd was every bit as positive as it was for his previous three. B-Shepp is just a hard guy for anybody to dislike, and his popularity was on full display when he was serenaded with a thunderous roar as he made a celebratory postrace pass by the backstretch bleachers. It continued later when a throng of admirers formed two lines at the Rocket Chassis house car trailer to await his return from the traditional winner’s visit to the nearby Bank of Pontiac drive-thru and technical inspection.
VINTAGE FORM: When I asked Rocket1 team Mark Richards if the first crown jewel triumph with Sheppard in the house car since the PDC in 2022 — the last season of Sheppard’s six-year stint with the operation before his return to the fold last year — was absolute proof that the driver-team combination is back performing at its peak, he offered a knowing smile. “Everything’s starting to click like old times,” Richards said. Sheppard looked like the dominant force of his previous run with Rocket1 on Saturday, most notably in that everyone considered him the race’s odds-on favorite after he won a semifeature win on Friday and drew the outside front row for the 100-lapper. (His season-long strength that has him leading the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series points standings and already boasting a double-figure win total undoubtedly helped his status as well.) He showed how his race car, and his racecraft, are both at a high level as he calmly paced behind early leader Trey Mills, didn’t overreact when Bobby Pierce grabbed second from him on a lap-33 restart, and then regained second from Pierce on lap 61 and seized the lead for good from Mills on lap 64. Hudson O’Neal and Pierce pushed hard in the final laps in an effort to threaten Sheppard, but you never got the feeling that Sheppard could be upended for the win that brought him $68,500 including lap money.
SUPER KID: You’ll rarely see an 11th-place finisher earn more recognition than Trey Mills did in the PDC. An 18-year-old WoO rookie making his first start in the event, he won a semifeature on Friday and picked the pole position for the weekend’s finale. Would the upstart from St. Augustine, Fla., duplicate his performance in last month’s Dream headliner when he led the first 24 laps off the pole? He did even better, setting the pace for the first 63 laps to roll up $31,500 in lap money. The longer the race went, the more you couldn’t help thinking, This teenager just might pull off an unbelievable upset. A right-rear tire that was deflating from a small cut ultimately forced him to pit on lap 81 after he slipped out of the top three, but he made a huge impression. Mills is rising to the top of everyone’s lists of future stars.
BEST OF THE BEST: The saying “cream rises to the top” was quite appropriate for the PDC. Come the checkered flag, the top four finishers — Sheppard, O’Neal, Pierce and Nick Hoffman — represented four of the top-five drivers in the latest DirtonDirt Top 25 poll, while fifth-place Tim McCreadie sits No. 12 in the rankings. The PDC’s top-five was also notable in that Sheppard was the only driver in it who didn’t have a double-digit starting spot. No one can say starting deep in the field at Fairbury is a death knell considering the come-from-behind runs of O’Neal (started 18th), Pierce (14th), Hoffman (19th) and McCreadie (23rd).
WHAT A SHOW: The Prairie Dirt Classic continues to be a juggernaut in the Dirt Late Model world. There were people seemingly everywhere on Saturday as the event attracted what rivaled, if not surpassed, its record crowd in 2021. The Dirt Late Model field was a record with 86 entries overtaking the previous high of 81 in ’22. And while the 100-lapper was slowed an inordinate number of times by caution flags — 13 in total, all coming after the first 28 laps ran non-stop — the high-speed, quarter-mile oval produced its usual array of jam-dropping moments. There really is no crown jewel race quite like the PDC.
STAT OF THE NIGHT: Sheppard tallied the 13th crown jewel victory of his career. Nine of them have come in two events (five Dirt Track World Championships, four Prairie Dirt Classics); he’s also won the Silver Dollar Nationals twice and has single victories in the Dream and USA Nationals.
