Eldora Speedway
Sheppard poised for World breakthrough
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Brandon Sheppard and the Rocket1 crew. (Zach Yost)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (Sept. 11) — Brandon Sheppard faced two burning questions as he stood in the Rocket1 team’s trailer after winning Friday night’s first 25-lap World 100 semifeature at Eldora Speedway.
The first: Did he know how many preliminary races he had captured during crown jewel events at the famed half-mile oval prior to Friday’s $12,000 score? | RaceWire
“I think two each,” Sheppard responded, referring to the World 100 and June’s Dream.
The 33-year-old superstar from New Berlin, Ill., was correct — in a manner of speaking, of course. He did sweep two semifeatures during the 2015 World 100 (driving a family-owned No. B5) and pulled off an identical double at the 2016 Dream (piloting a Best Performance Motorsports entry), but only the first two count in the history books because he was stripped of the Dream victories due to a failed tire test.
“Well, yeah, but that was horse----,” Sheppard said, still smarting from the controversial tire scandal that infamously struck down five competitors in the 2016 Dream with disqualifications, fines and suspensions.
The two World 100 prelim victories in 2015 didn’t translate to Saturday success either, though.
“We won both prelim nights at the World and then started sixth in the first heat on Saturday and missed the show because there was no provisional (for the top points earner),” Sheppard said, noting that the provisionals in ’15 went to the non-qualifiers who turned the fastest qualifying laps. “The next year there was a points provisional.
“So I made the points provisional,” he added with a laugh. “I take credit for that.”
The second, more personal question: Why has he never registered a top-five finish in 12 career World 100 finale starts?
“I don’t know, honestly,” Sheppard said, shrugging his shoulders. “I feel like we've had a lot of misfortune here over the years, and I really feel like, you know, now, as a team, we’re just figuring out what we need to be able to race good here when the track gets to that (slick) condition. Some of that’s experience too, me figuring out what I need to do.”
Sheppard offered one more telling comment: “I don’t remember being that good here at the World very many times.”
Indeed, Sheppard has enjoyed Eldora success at the highest level, including winning the 2019 Dream with the Rocket Chassis house car team and the 2023 Dirt Track World Championship in Kevin Rumley’s developmental Longhorn Chassis. But World 100 glory has been much harder to come by, which makes his superb performance in this year’s preliminary shows — a 13th-to-third run in Thursday’s first semifeature preceded his $12,000 triumph — so notable.
As the top points earner among over 100 entries in the two prelim programs, Sheppard seems primed for a World 100 breakthrough in Saturday’s 56th edition that carries a race-record $100,000 top prize. Just cracking the top-five would obviously be an accomplishment for a driver whose career-best finish in the event is a modest sixth (second 2021 race and last year), but he has the look of a racer capable of much more.
Sheppard emerged victorious in Friday’s 25-lapper after swapping the lead a couple times at mid-race with Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz. He maintained firm control down the stretch to defeat Thornton by 1.304 seconds despite apparently not really being at optimum strength.
“Tonight we tried something a little bit different that had been working for us a lot of places, and I don’t think it works for here,” said Rocket1 owner Mark Richards. “I mean, we won, but we didn’t feel like we were as good as we were at the Dream (in June).”
Sheppard agreed with his boss.
“I felt like we could have been a lot better there than what we were,” Sheppard said. “It was good enough, but for a hundred laps we need to be a little bit more maneuverable — and I think we know what we need to do to get that way.”
More than likely, that adjustment for Saturday’s century grind will entail recreating the setup that worked so well for Sheppard and the Rocket gang three months ago in the Dream. He was stalking eventual winner Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., for the lead on lap 79 when a blown right-front tire sent him into the turn-three wall.
“We’re gonna probably get right back where we were at the Dream,” Richards said of setup plans for the 100-lapper. “Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain a little bit (potentially through the morning hours if not longer), but I would hope that (the surface) stays slick like tonight. I think it makes it easier to plan what you're going to do for setup. Whenever it’s kind of wet, you don’t know when it’s going to make that transition to slick. Eventually it’s going to in a hundred laps, unless it’s really rained hard.”
And a slick Eldora is a good Eldora for Sheppard and Co.
“That’s been the trend with this thing,” Richards said. “The slicker it gets, the better it gets, so we’ll see.”
The improvement Sheppard has shown in Eldora’s shiny conditions since returning for another tour of duty with Rocket1 last year — following a two-season run with Longhorn Chassis after his wildly successful 2017-22 stint in the iconic blue Rocket machine — is the biggest factor in raising his hopes for better World 100 fortunes. Plus, he’s running the same car that was so stout in this year’s Dream.
“You got to be able to keep your speed up when the track gets super slick late in the race here,” said Sheppard, who owns four top-five finishes in 12 career Dream finale starts. “But we've got a really good car and I think, like between the experience, for me and as a team, getting better in these conditions across the country, that all helps.”
Sheppard asserted that he’s “back to loving Eldora,” which hasn’t always been a thing for him. He’s preferred leaving the track quite often due to his struggles to tame it.
“That’s part of the growing pains of trying to figure out what you need to do here,” Sheppard said. “And over the years, we haven't been known for being good in the slick. We’ve been cushion-banging all the time — if there’s a cushion, these Rocket cars will be good. Well, I feel like we’ve turned a corner on that and our cars are better in the slick now, and we can still run the cushion if we need to.
“I think Mark and this whole team have been just resilient and been able to just work really hard and get these cars back to being really good. We’re a lot better in the slick now. Some of that’s me gaining experience over the years, and being able to give better feedback helps a lot. I think that’s all gonna add up to more consistent runs here for the next five, 10 years.”
Sheppard is guaranteed a starting spot in Saturday’s World 100 if he fails to qualify because he’s atop the event points. He hopes he doesn’t have to rely on the insurance policy, but he realizes that’s a nice fallback to have after he failed to give Eldora’s Wheel of Misfortune — the numbered wheel that determines the inversion for Saturday’s six heats — a spin that was to his liking.
Yes, Sheppard spun a 6, so he has to start from the sixth spot in Saturday’s first heat with the top-three finishers transferring.
“I knew I was going to spin the 6,” Sheppard said in frustration, though he noted that the ‘0’ — representing a straight-up start start for the heats — was just one click away from the 6.
“About the time I got my hopes up (for the wheel to stop at the ‘0’), I thought, No, it’s carrying too much speed,” Sheppard mourned. “Oh well, it is what it is.”
