After the Checkers
Volusia's surface comes to B-Shepp in DCN finale
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Brandon Sheppard and the winning Rocket1 team. (Josh James)
BARBERVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 14) — Instant reaction and analysis from Saturday’s Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals action at Volusia Speedway Park, a $20,000-to-win World of Outlaws Late Model Series event won by Brandon Sheppard (RaceWire):
RISING UP: Brandon Sheppard and the Rocket1 team came to the DIRTcar Nationals expecting to pick up where they left off at Volusia in last month’s Sunshine Nationals. The track conditions, however, wouldn’t let them. After the 33-year-old star from New Berlin, Ill., tallied finishes of third, fourth and second in the Jan. 22-24 WoO-sanctioned tripleheader, he returned with his Mark Richards-owned team to find the racetrack decidedly different and his best finish over the first five DCN nights was a fourth on Tuesday. “They threw us for a curve because they had the track hard (for the first two nights),” Richards said, “and then they threw another curve at us and made it wet again (for the next three shows).” So the Rocket1 bunch “tweaked on this thing all week trying to give me a little better feel and they hit on it tonight,” Sheppard said. Indeed, with the surface finally back to being almost the same as it was last month, Sheppard’s car was so strong in Saturday’s 50-lapper that he was able to pass the seemingly unbeatable Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., who started on the pole, for the lead on lap 33 and roll on to his first Volusia triumph since 2024 and first at the track with the Rocket1 team since 2020. “The notes we had from January basically worked tonight,” Richards said.
ON THE GAS: All of Bobby Pierce’s immense talent was on display in Saturday’s feature as he made a frenetic charge from deep in the field for the second straight night, advancing from the 19th starting spot to finish second (after going 21st-to-second in Friday’s 35-lapper). Digging hard largely around the top of the half-mile oval, the 29-year-old from Oakwood, Ill., reached second on lap 39 with a breathtaking split of Nick Hoffman and Hudson O’Neal on the backstretch and tore after Sheppard. Pierce’s sweeping maneuver along the inside of turns three and four brought him close to B-Shepp in the final circuits, but several lapped cars and Pierce’s aggressiveness behind combined to stymie his bid and leave him with a runner-up finish. “I was up on the wheel so bad that my grip was kind of going away on the steering wheel and my (helmet) shield was fogging up because I’m breathing so hard,” Pierce said. “It’s just a constant battle on the steering wheel here sometimes, like it was tonight — you barely have time to reach up and grab a (helmet) tear off because you just need both hands on the wheel at all times. There’s just no time to really relax … that is kind of what got me there. And the lapped traffic, I picked up an aero-push on ‘em. If I got a caution to reset, we might have got ‘er done.”
COOLED OFF: Armed with the pole position for the feature and boasting hottest-driver-on-the-property status , Nick Hoffman appeared destined to keep his sublime run going with a event-record tying fourth consecutive victory. Alas, while he led the race’s first 32 laps, he conceded he “wasn’t quite good enough” to extend his streak. The 33-year-old looked like he had a superior car again when he cruised out front in the race’s early stages, but he simply couldn’t maneuver as well this time and found himself unable to beat back Sheppard’s challenges. He ultimately slipped to fourth in the finishing order, a result that admittedly had him “a little bit frustrated” but was still good enough to give him the DCN points title, his first in the Super Late Model division after seven championships in modified action. “Sheppy was way better than I was and Bobby (Pierce) was obviously hammering the top, so I just got myself where I didn’t know where to be,” Hoffman said. “Sheppy comes blazing by me and there wasn’t much I could do.”
STAT OF THE NIGHT: Brandon Sheppard’s victory marked the 23rd time Mark Richards’s Rocket Chassis house car has won a feature during Speedweeks at Volusia. Josh Richards leads the way with 10 triumphs followed by Sheppard (nine), Hudson O’Neal (two), Bart Hartman (one) and Davey Johnson (one). Rocket1’s Volusia checkered flags are spread over a 25-year span since Johnson’s UDTRA-sanctioned win in 2001 and Rocket1 drivers account for six DIRTcar Nationals points championships, including four for Josh Richards (’07, ’10, ’13, ’16) and two for Sheppard (’19, ’20).
