Fairbury Speedway
Notes: Harris rises but then slips back at FALS
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt.com staff reporter
Clay Harris (6) challenges Brandon Sheppard (1). (Heath Lawson)
FAIRBURY, Ill. (May 9) — Clay Harris had Brandon Sheppard squarely in his crosshairs as the laps clicked away in Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature at Fairbury Speedway.
The Jupiter, Fla., driver charged from 12th to the doorstep of what could’ve been a miraculous $30,000 upset victory, appearing poised to overtake perhaps the hottest team in the country in Rocket1 Racing. But Harris said things weren’t as they seemed. | RaceWire
“I was kind of letting him lead the way because, I mean, I could have passed him and burned my stuff up super fast,” Harris said. “I went out on soft tires and I don’t think anybody else did, so I probably looked like Superman out there. The car was still really good.”
The 25-year-old lost second to Nick Hoffman on lap 50 with 10 circuits remaining, thus beginning his backslide. He eventually finished eighth, a result he’ll still gladly accept given he had four straight races of 16th or worse.
“One-hundred percent,” Harris said when asked if he’s still happy with the result. "I probably could have made (Sheppard) nervous if I showed my nose. No, like I said, I was just kind of taking my time there.”
Lapped traffic is what ultimately triggered Harris’s backslide. Sheppard, able to maneuver all over the racetrack, pulled away for good on lap 43 while Harris spent three consecutive laps bottled up behind Dillon McCowan on the bottom.
The top groove wasn’t much of an option for Harris, either. Running softer tires, he risked blowing one out and jeopardizing what still looked to be a sure top-10 finish.
“I figured at the end, I might be alright, but it took rubber on the high side,” Harris said. “Once I had to hit the rubber one time, it burned, like, the top layer of tires off, and then I was screwed after that. But I probably could have hugged the bottom and held on for fifth there.”
Harris believes he can apply what he learned Saturday at Fairbury to this weekend’s Thursday-Saturday Lucas Oil swing at Eagle (Neb.) Raceway, another black-dirt bullring. He added, however, that Eagle’s surface more closely resembles Ocala (Fla.) Speedway — a track he knows well — than Fairbury’s uniquely demanding black dirt.
Whether that translates into success, though, Harris isn’t quite sure.
“I don’t know. I’ve heard so many times I thought I should be fine and I’ve been terrible,” Harris said with a laugh. “Like Hagerstown (Speedway in Maryland), I thought it was gonna be good. And I broke a motor. … Either way, I’m still excited for Eagle.”
Bruening’s back
Following a two-month layoff to recover from soft tissue damage and slight muscle tears in his neck suffered in a Feb. 26 crash at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway, Tyler Bruening is back behind the wheel.
The Decorah, Iowa, native returned April 28 at Independence (Iowa) Speedway and made his fifth start since his comeback Saturday at Fairbury Speedway. While Bruening admits he still “isn’t quite 100 percent,” he says he’s “definitely well enough to race.”
“It’s been a slow, long road for the neck deal,” the 40-year-old Bruening said. “It’s still a little grindy and crunchy and clicky and cracky, and all that stuff you don’t want.”
Bruening said the wear-and-tear from his football days at Loras College — where he played defensive end and punter — combined with a hard crash last September at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway have also lingered physically.
“For a college player, I was relatively small, but my quickness working the edge playing defense was my specialty, but that just takes a toll on your body,” Bruening said. “You’re going against guys that are 300-plus pounds, and it just takes a toll on you.
“That’s what I meant when I wasn't quite 100 percent to begin with. You tweak something 20 years ago, and as you start to mature and age, those things start to kind of come back to the surface a little bit.”
Bruening and Skyline Motorsports are also still working through lingering problems from their Ocala heat race crash, which heavily damaged their relatively new AK Race Car. After last weekend’s Dairyland Showdown at Mississippi Thunder Speedway, the team discovered the Austin Kirkpatrick-built chassis needed additional repairs, therefore shipping it back to the Charlotte, N.C., builder.
At Fairbury on Saturday, Bruening unloaded the team’s Longhorn Chassis backup car.
“I still think we’re dealing with some nagging stuff with the race cars from Speedweeks from wrecking, getting in the wall and that kind of stuff,” Bruening said. “I think we’ve been battling a car issue a little bit there.”
Bruening isn’t planning to ease back into competition, either. After a five-race stretch that included last weekend’s three-night Dairyland Showdown — where he qualified for one feature and finished 13th Thursday — a demanding stretch awaits.
He plans to compete in all three Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events May 14-16 at Eagle Raceway before the May 21-23 Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway. A World of Outlaws weekend May 29-30 at Mansfield Motor Speedway is also on the schedule ahead of the June 3-6 Dirt Late Model Dream at Eldora Speedway.
“We’ll just take it weekend by weekend and see how it goes,” Bruening said.
Lucas champs take hit
The reigning three Lucas Oil champions will want to take Saturday night at Fairbury — Hudson O’Neal 19th, Devin Moran 20th and Ricky Thornton Jr. 25th — and toss them in the metaphorical trash can.
Just how much of an outlier was it? Between the three of them, they’d combined for only one finish of 19th or worse in series action this year: Thornton’s 24th-place finish at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway after breaking a driveshaft.
All three were swept up in separate incidents Saturday. Moran’s trouble started with a flat tire on lap 27 while running 21st. His Double Down Motorsports team bolted on fresh rubber, but he could only rally to 20th, one lap down.
Thornton had charged from 25th to 11th in the closing laps when he tangled with Tyler Erb entering turn one with eight laps remaining. The Chandler, Ariz., driver said he was still deciding whether to commit to the top or bottom before choosing the bottom — the same piece of real estate Erb aimed for.
“It’s part of it,” Thornton said.
O’Neal seemed the most frustrated of the three. He also got swept up in the Thornton-Erb tangle, but not until moments after both cars had stopped on the track.
Running 14th at the time, O’Neal “thought the yellow was already out” as he barreled into turn one and had nowhere to go, only to be sent to the tail for being collected in the wreck — compounding the frustration of a night that began with him starting fifth.
Winner Brandon Sheppard chopped 125 points off his 260-point deficit to O’Neal, who now leads by 35 points over Moran and 135 over Sheppard. Thornton, meanwhile, goes from 205 points behind to 280 going into this week’s Eagle (Neb.) Raceway tripleheader.
Odds and ends
Carson Ferguson of Lincolnton, N.C., recently locked down a wedding date with his fiancee MaKenna Adkins — New Year’s Eve later this year. The 25-year-old driver for Paylor Motorsports is also hopeful he’ll make another NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start for Kaulig Racing before his next confirmed run Oct. 30 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. … Bob Gardner of Peoria, Ill., had plans to race Saturday at Fairbury, but after Friday’s runner-up at Kankakee (Ill.) County Speedway he noticed a few things mechanically amiss with his race car that sidelined him. He’s planning to follow the MARS Championship Series in 2026. … Garrett Alberson’s Roberts Motorsports team added a new full-time crewman for the remainder of the season in 21-year-old Paden Hines of Lexington, Va., who on Wednesday completed his final year at the University of Northwestern Ohio, majoring in High Performance Motorsports. Hines arrives fresh off helping capture the Limaland (Ohio) Motorsports Park modified track championship alongside driver Aiden Hines through UNOH’s modified program — ironically, no relation to Paden despite the shared last name. Hines fills the void left by Dawsonville, Ga., racer Donald McIntosh, who had crewed for the Roberts team from March 20 through Saturday at Fairbury Speedway. McIntosh is now headed back home to Georgia to evaluate his next move currently as a free agent driver without a ride.
