Central Arizona Raceway
Notes: Desert struggles mounting for B-Shepp
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Brandon Sheppard's pit stop in Sunday's race. (mikerueferphotos.photoreflect.com)
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (Jan. 16) — If there’s anyone who’d welcome a reset and the chance to start over at the Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout, it’s Brandon Sheppard.
With finishes of sixth, 11th, 14th and 22nd, it’s not hyperbolic to say that virtually nothing has gone the 32-year-old’s way in the Sonoran Desert this week. Unfavorable pill draws. Engine woes. Flat tires. Neutralized by dirty air while mired in the midpack. | Complete WWS coverage
All the above has compounded into a forgettable week for the Berlin, Ill., driver, who’s even harbored second thoughts about making the cross-country trek to Central Arizona Raceway’s 3/8-mile oval that hasn’t been too kind on the track.
“Yeah, I wish I would have stayed home now honestly,” Sheppard said. “You know, it’s just one of them deals, man. We need to qualify better. That’s what it boils down to. You can’t even adjust your car accordingly when you start back there with them guys. You have to do different stuff to your car to be able to race, you know, and all that bad air and them crumbs rather than if you were starting up front. We’re just trying to make s--- happen. It’s all we can do.”
The two-time miniseries champ's week began with a thud when engine issues sidelined from Saturday’s opener on lap 16. After starting 18th on Sunday, he salvaged an 11th-place finish despite a flat tire that sent him to the rear on lap 24. He finally showed flashes of speed Wednesday, qualifying fifth and finishing third in his heat to set up a 10th-to-sixth run in the 30-lap feature.
But Friday returned him to square one as Sheppard went out second-to-last in Group B time trials, only managing an eighth-place qualifying effort that made for another uphill battle. Starting 16th in the 30-lap feature, he never ran higher than 13th before another flat tire set him back on lap 17.
"I mean, I don't think our car is terrible. I think we’ve just qualified bad all weekend and it's hard to pass here. It’s just one of them deals, we need to start up front in the heat race. We haven't been doing that. We gotta draw better for one. … I felt like that's killed us a lot because I felt like our car's been decent.”
What struck Sheppard on Friday is the razor-thin lap time margins in qualifying.
“Everybody’s stuff's good out here. Like tonight, third (Jonathan Davenport) was a 15.240 and we were a 15.298. So it's like, we're right there. Obviously we're not making the best decision on the car, but at the end of the day, I feel like our qualifying car is decent. We're just not making the speed that we need to make, whether it’d be because we're going out too late or whatever.
“I don't know what it is. We just need a little luck go our way and start off running, race, and really see what we got. You know, we haven't even really been able to show if we got any speed or not.”
Sheppard hasn’t found a viable baseline setup for a virtually brand-new Rocket Chassis XR2 that his father, Steve, debuted at the Kubota Gateway Dirt Nationals inside The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Mo., last December. Even should the five-time World of Outlaws Late Model Series not get anything going Saturday or Sunday, he’s confident the poor results won’t have any bearing on Georgia-Florida Speedweeks with Rocket1 Racing.
“Whether we make the wrong decision on the car, we'll never know because we start back there,” Sheppard said. “It’s hard to come up through there, and then we've had flats. Two top-10 runs we should have had, we’ve had flat tires. Yes, it's been a s----- week. It is what it is, it’s part of racing.
“When you get kicked down, you got to get back up. That's all you can do. So we're gonna finish the week out as strong as we can, and then make something happen come Speedweeks.”
O’Neal makes right moves
Hudson O’Neal had been down on himself following Wednesday’s late-race, lead-battle contact with Bobby Pierce that derailed his shot at the victory in the final laps of the Wild West Shootout feature. The 25-year-old owned up to the mistake of running into Pierce protecting the bottom with eight laps remaining, triggering contact that deflated his left-rear tire.
On Friday, the Martinsville, Ind., superstar made sure to not let the same miscues cost him another golden opportunity to put Kevin Rumley’s ultra-fast No. 6 in victory lane. Pierce again pressured him with a series of sliders down the stretch, but O’Neal stayed a step ahead of the Oakwood, Ill., driver until the checkered flag.
“Whenever he started sliding me, I was like, ‘Oh, man, it’s gonna be a tough one.’ Any time you see Bobby like that around the cushion, it’s hard to beat him,” said O’Neal, who led 18 of the final 19 laps, ceding control to Pierce on lap 23 before taking it back for good. “He kept getting a run on me into three and I was running the bottom in one and two, kind of sliding out. I figured he was getting that run leaving two high and being able to cross me over.
“So, I moved up in one and two. I feel like that helped me. It probably messed him up a little bit, too, because he expected me to run that bottom. Everything just worked out. We happened to be on the right side of the last slider.”
For O’Neal, his late-race duel with Pierce on Friday was the hardest the former Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Seres champion had to drive all week in the desert.
“Had to drive really, really hard there. It was a lot of fun,” he said. “A lot of clean, fun racing, too. It was cool to be able to finally, after the incident we had on Wednesday night, be able to race it out.”
Fortunately for him, Rumley’s provided a race car that can exploit any groove or line on the tricky Central Arizona racing surface. O’Neal has plenty of traction around the bottom and, now, enough oomph to outrun Pierce along the cushion. That’s given him an 18-point miniseries lead over Ryan Gustin with two races remaining.
“It throws something a little different at you every night. Tonight was the first night I had to hit fence, or not hit the fence, but bang the boards in one and two. That was the first time I had to get out there all week. It counties to throw a little something new at you every night.”
Odds and ends
Tucson, Ariz.’s Jake O’Neil accidentally rammed into the back of a sliding Bakersfield, Calif.’s Ethan Dotson on lap 18 when he tried to make something happen battling for the ninth spot along the cushion. The contact ended O’Neil’s night and drew the caution for Dotson on lap 19. … Las Cruces, N.M.’s Garrett Alberson was down on power most of Friday’s feature, limping home to a sixth-place finish with a broken rocker arm. The Roberts Motorsports team are expected to swap engines ahead of Saturday’s program. … Daniel Adam of Peru, Ill., and Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., also made engine swaps Friday, but Marlar’s engine swap had been planned since the start of the week. … Car owner Joe Adam confirmed Friday night that Ricky Thornton Jr. will not return from Tulsa, Okla.’s Chili Bowl Nationals for Sunday’s miniseries finale as the Chandler, Ariz., native could use the benefit of an extra day off ahead of the Jan. 21-24 Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla. … Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., has uncharacteristically finished worse than he started in all four miniseries features: 17th to 25th, pole to fifth, fourth to fifth and sixth to 10th.
