Brownstown Speedway
Racing isn't forever, but Shirley savors major win
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Brian Shirley in victory lane. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. (Sept. 26) — Brian Shirley is one of the sport’s deepest thinkers. And this year, amid one of his rockiest seasons in Dirt Late Model racing, he’s thought harder than ever about the many aspects of racing.
From the simplest to the most sophisticated setup decisions to life’s deeper matters — like how much longer he would continue on a national tour — the 45-year-old has contemplated it all. | RaceWire
Saturday’s feel-good victory in the 47th annual Jackson 100 at Brownstown Speedway gave Shirley plenty to consider, particularly with his daughter at her homecoming back in Chatham, Ill.
“Tonight was my daughter’s homecoming, and missing things like that is tough,” Shirley said. “That’s the biggest thing for my future. We’ve got a couple of years left on the tour, but it won’t be long.”
The $56,000 victory was his first national touring triumph since last July’s Prairie Dirt Classic and his first ever in more than 200 starts on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. But as Shirley reflected afterward, his thoughts went to the people who make his national touring pursuit possible — and the young crew that’s stuck beside him through a difficult season.
“Everybody at Longhorn — (Kevin) Rumley, Joe, (Steve) Arpin, Matt (Langston), all the guys — they’ve been trying hard to get us better,” Shirley said. “And everybody, really: my guys, (car owner) Bob (Cullen), Anthony (Martin), Brady (Muzney), my wife, my kids, my dad, everybody back home who gives up a lot for me to be on the road. This is more for them than anything.”
On Saturday, Shirley made the most of a crisp autumn night that favored him. The cooler conditions prompted his team to gamble on a softer tire compound and let him put his bottom-groove prowess to work, helping fuel his charge from ninth to the lead by lap 24 and a four-second advantage by lap 52. But he wasn’t about to treat one sterling performance as proof that he and his team had solved everything that’s troubled them this season.
With just one prior podium finish this national touring season — third in May’s Lucas Oil event at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway — and a 14.1 average finish on the Lucas Oil tour since August, including a 17th-place run Friday at Brownstown, Shirley knew one win hadn’t answered every question.
“Nothing really changed. At the end of the day, tonight was more suited to my style and my program,” Shirley said. “I’ve always had the confidence that when the track suits my style and the conditions suit us, I can win the race. We just don’t know how to set a car to win in certain track conditions, and that’s just, unfortunately, life.”
Points-wise, Shirley is about where he finished last year on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series: eighth on the Lucas Oil tour with one victory, compared with seventh on the WoO tour last year, also with a single victory.
The difference is what a good night has looked like. He had 19 top-five finishes in 43 WoO features last year. This season, he has five top-fives in 42 Lucas Oil features.
Much of that, Shirley said, has to do with racing at tracks he hadn’t visited in at least a few years. He didn’t race at 16 of the 27 tracks on this year’s Lucas Oil schedule in either 2024 or ’25. Only eight — All-Tech, Ocala, Golden Isles, Atomic, Farmer City, Fairbury, Knoxville and Eldora — appeared on his schedule in both years.
“I knew it was going to be tough. We were going to a bunch of places where we weren’t really good and weren’t familiar with, and that’s always tough when you don’t have a notebook,” Shirley said. “Over the last few years, we were starting to build a notebook. You’ll see, the racetracks we run good at, we’ve built notebooks for it. We go to places where we don’t have the greatest idea how things are going to work, and we’ve struggled. You have to get that night or two in before you see.
“It’s no different than tonight. Everybody will remember what happened. If the circumstances like this show for next year, they’ll know what to do.”
Shirley’s also getting it done with a young crew: Anthony Martin, 22, and Brady Muzney, 21.
In an era when “one shock or one bump shim” can affect a driver’s fate on a given night — “there are so many different things that play a part in your race car being good or bad,” he added — a crew’s experience can show in the results.
“I have two great young guys who are eager to learn, but they don’t have the experience,” Shirley said. “When you take the depth of teams with guys like Mark Richards, Ricky (Thornton Jr.) and (Anthony) Burroughs, (Jason) Durham and Hudson (O’Neal), it helps to have a guy. Even Max (Blair), I know they’re doing it on their own, but his dad (Rob) gives him feedback.
“I don’t have anybody who can tell you, ‘Your nose is too high,’ or, ‘Your car looks this or your car looks that.’ We’re trying. We’re trying together. Listen, I’m not mad. Those are just the cards I was dealt in racing. We can either choose not to race or choose to, like tonight, shock the world.”
Another part of Shirley’s search has centered on new-version Hoosier NLMT right-rear tire introduced in 2025. Hoosier has since updated its sidewall, and the newer tire’s vented cross-block tread has changed how it responds beneath the car. Designed to improve sidebite and wear, it has also forced teams to adjust their setups to that different response.
Shirley said in May “we just haven’t really found what we’re looking for that makes us feel the way we felt with that other tire,” while adding that “change happens, and you’ve got to learn how to adjust to it.”
After averaging nine victories a season from 2018 through ’24, Shirley has five combined since the start of ’25.
In July, he switched from to Ohlins shocks from Bilsteins, debuting them July 9 at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa. The early returns were encouraging: two top-five finishes and five top-10s in six starts through his fourth-place run in the July 18 Silver Dollar Nationals at Shelby County Speedway.
Disappointing runs followed — 19th in the USA Nationals, a DNQ at the Prairie Dirt Classic and 19th in the Topless 100 — but Shirley said the technical support from Longhorn Dynamics has helped him learn more about his program.
“I feel like our alliance has gotten deeper as far as having people behind us and helping us work to figure out what I need,” he said.
If Saturday showed him and his young team anything, it’s that when he can put his finger on a setup — especially one revolving around tires — there’s hope.
“What it does for them, and for me, is (show why) all the times I’m hard on them — on the days when we might want to do something half-ass or not work as hard because things aren’t going as well as they should,” Shirley said. “Tonight’s the reason why you work and give 100 percent every night.”
Shirley has pondered what life might look like if he stepped away from a national tour to race regionally closer to home, as he did from 2017 through ’22. But even amid a topsy-turvy season, national touring offers opportunities he doesn’t yet see on a regional schedule.
“I’m on a national tour right now for certain reasons. Really, just waiting for a regional tour, like MARS, or somebody like that, can put up a $50,000-to-win points fund or something like that,” Shirley said. “It’s just hard, because Lucas and WoO are doing great things. It’s hard (to not run a national tour), even when you don’t run great. It’s hard to go race for $5,000 anymore.”
At some point over the next few years, though, Shirley expects to step away from national touring, but “we’re not going to just up and quit racing.”
He also wants to help Bob Cullen’s 15-year-old son, Carsin, grow into a full-time role in the family’s Super Late Model operation.
“We’re sticking around long enough for Carsin to get to where he wants to be, taking over,” Shirley said. “When he gets to the point where he’ll start racing full time, I’ll start to wind down. My kids are getting older, and I don’t want to miss as many things like tonight I’m missing.”
For now, Shirley remains devoted wholeheartedly to the grind of Dirt Late Model racing. He knows an effort short of that wouldn’t have produced Saturday’s morale-boosting victory. It’s the commitment he’s tried to model for his young crew while hoping for a night like the ever-sweet Jackson 100 triumph.
“It shows you that you’ve got to be dedicated. Winners win because of dedication and hard work,” Shirley said. “We may not win all the time like Bobby Pierce or (Brandon) Sheppard, but that doesn’t give us the right to give only 80 percent through the week.
“My team gives 110 (percent) whether we run 15th or first. The only way you can do that is by believing that one day it’s all going to be OK, and that working hard and giving 100 percent can pay off.”
