Brandon Sheppard(1) and Scott Bloomquist(0) ended Thursday night on the Lernerville podium
The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series kicked off a three-race weekend on Thursday night at the Lernerville Speedway in Sarvar, PA. The first two nights of racing action will have drivers vying for their best finishes in two separate $6,000-to-win feature events. Qualifying, heat race, and feature finishing results from Thursday and Friday nights will be used to set the heat race lineups for Saturday’s $30,000-to-win Firecracker 100.
Brandon Sheppard struck the first blow of the weekend on Thursday night when the defending WoO Late Models champion beat his competitors to the checkered flag in a 30-lap feature race. It was only the second points-paying win of the 2021 season for the Rocket Chassis house car driver who was followed to the finish line by Chris Madden and Scott Bloomquist.
Ultimately, however, it might have been the 4/10 mile Lernerville Speedway that was the big winner of the first round as drivers were kept on edge throughout the night. And considering that this track has no outside walls around much of its layout, some drivers were even sent over the edge. Even the top-3 finishers found the course to be a significant challenge.
“Any time you’ve got Chris and Scott behind you like that, especially on a track that’s slick as that was, you definitely know that they’re there,” Sheppard said in his post-race interview. “We had a really good car at the beginning of the race then it rubbered up and we got to lapped traffic there and it definitely got a little bit hairy. Luckily when we got to them it started to latch up and I figured I’d just hold my line and hope for the best. It worked out for us tonight.”
Despite the slick and treacherous nature of the top groove during Thursday’s feature, Madden considered using that lane to make a run at Sheppard late in the race but ultimately thought better of it.
“I thought one time I was going to try him on the outside over there and I seen him starting to come right so I thought I better not do it because he don’t know I’m here and he’ll run me off the race track not meaning to,” Madden explained after the finish. “It kind of got one-lane there and lapped traffic was a little hairy for him(Sheppard).”
The track even threw a bit of a curve to the third place finishing National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member. And with track conditions as they were, Bloomquist pointed out that the WoO redraw did not help his chances.
“The track just ended up quite a bit harder,” Bloomquist said when asked what he needed to do to put himself in position to win a fourth Firecracker 100. “I haven’t looked at the other tires but it looks like we tore ’em up pretty bad. Drawing the five didn’t help any. We can work on it a little bit. I got a little tight in the center of the corner. We can fix that and come back and give it another run.”
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Unlike what is sometimes the case at the beginning of a long weekend at the same venue, the track was not exactly in hammer-down mode on Thursday.
“It was a lot of fun tonight,” Sheppard added to his earlier comments. “Hopefully we can keep this thing rolling. We had a really fast race car so hopefully we can be there at the end on Saturday. I feel really good about it. The beginning of the race was really slick and that’s a condition we’ve struggled with here in the past and I felt like we were good all night tonight. The track was slower than what we’re used to, you know, to start off the weekend. That’s a good confidence booster for us knowing that our car is pretty good in the slick so hopefully we don’t mess it up and we’re there at the end.”
The racing action is set to resume on Friday night then conclude with the main event on Saturday evening. DirtVision.com has all the action for those unable to attend.
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