Sheppard rides high side to MLRA win at Lee County Speedway

DONNELLSON — For the first half of the Lucas Oil MLRA Late Model main event on Thursday night at Lee County Speedway, it looked like Muscatine native Brian Birkhofer was headed back to Victory Lane after more than a year away from dirt racing.

But Springfield, Ill. driver Brandon Sheppard had a streak to break too, and he didn't much care who it was out front. Sheppard found a groove up top on a slicked-off racing surface and found his way past the veteran Birkhofer around halfway.

From there, all Sheppard had to do was avoid lapped traffic on his way to his first MLRA win of the season ahead of Earl Pearson Jr. in second and Oxford's Chris Simpson in third.

'I just was really maneuvering all over. I put a hard right front tire on, and it took forever to come in, but once it did, I could do some stuff,' Sheppard said. 'Luckily it came to us and worked out for us.'

Sheppard's win was impressive, given he started fifth and passed Pearson, Birkhofer and Cosgrove's Dave Eckrich to get the lead and the win.

Especially in passing Birkhofer for the lead, the victory was gratifying for Sheppard in several ways.

'That's a cool feeling, and it's good to see (Birkhofer) back in a car,' Sheppard said, 'But man, it's been tough coming to our first win of the year, and we're just super excited about it. The first one is tough to get off your back, and they say the rest of them come easy. I doubt that's the case, but we're going to keep working hard and get us a couple more.'

But Sheppard's wasn't the farthest drive through the field.

That belonged to Simpson, who started 14th and worked his way through the field by utilizing the bottom lane. Simpson was nearly a half-second faster than the rest of the field for the majority of the race, but couldn't get a needed caution at the end to see if he could challenge Sheppard and Pearson for the win.

Instead, he had to settle for being the best of the seven Iowa drivers who made the main event — a point of pride, he said.

'It took us a little while, but I knew we had a pretty good car right off the start. Anytime you can run up through there and pass guys like that, you've got a pretty good car,' Simpson said. 'I would've liked to have been in the clear, with no traffic. The track cleaned up in the middle. Anytime you start up front and run third, you feel OK. But when you start 14th, you go home feeling good.

'Anytime you race in your home state, to be able to have a good run in front of your fans — there's not very many of us from Iowa anymore that run this. Me and my brother (Chad), Justin Kay; Birkhofer. It feels pretty good to be on top of all those guys and run third.'

As for Birkhofer, led the first 22 laps of the 50-lap main event, but faded to third behind Sheppard and Pierson. He ran there for the next 25 laps, but was forced to pull off with just three to go and settled for a 20th-place finish.

Birkhofer said he said the oil pressure light flicker and then come on, and in an effort to save his (very expensive) engine, he called it quits. The dirt legend said he and the Kay crew would have to take the engine apart to see if there was any substantial damage before a decision would be made on going to Davenport Speedway for Friday night's MLRA show.

Ultimately, even though Birkhofer was disappointed in not being able to finish, he was very happy with the progress he made in his Gheer'd Up Racecar after struggling his first two nights out.

'I just saved it. It's kind of a mystery if it's an oil pump issue or what, but it's not blown up, I don't think,' Birkhofer said. 'I was looking for a top three or four finish for some confidence. We're definitely better than what we've been. I knew pretty much on Lap 1 we didn't tune enough, but when we came here tonight, we did enough different things that as the night progressed, we did what we could.

'The arrow is pointing back up more than it's sideways or down, so I'm happy about that.'

Iowans were well-represented in the main event, and certainly so in the top 10. In addition to Chris Simpson, Eckrich finished sixth, Mount Vernon's Chad Simpson was seventh, Wheatland's Justin Kay was ninth and Griswold's JC Wyman was 10th.

LUCAS OIL MLRA LATE MODELS

LEE COUNTY SPEEDWAY RESULTS

1) #B5 BRANDON SHEPPARD; 2) #1P EARL PEARSON; 3) #32S CHRIS SIMPSON; 4) #56JR TONY JACKSON; 5) #00 JESSE STOVALL; 6) #58E DAVE ECKRICH; 7) #25S CHAD SIMPSON; 8) #91P JASON PAPICH; 9) #15K JUSTIN KAY; 10) #4W JC WYMAN; 11) #75P TERRY PHILLIPS; 12) #33F RICKEY FRANKEL; 13) #77 JORDAN YAGGY; 14) #31U JASON UTTER; 15) #11G GORDY GUNDAKER; 16) #4G BRANTLEE GOTSCHALL; 17) #45DW DENNY WOODWORTH; 18) #14M REID MILLARD; 19) #98R JASON RAUEN; 20) #15B BRIAN BIRKHOFER; 21) #04 TAD POSPISIL; 22) #58G RAY GUSS; 23) #29D SPENCER DIERCKS; 24) #27P JASON PERRY; 25) #19R RYAN GUSTIN; 26) #16A AUSTIN SIEBERT

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