Brandon Sheppard held by Bobby Pierce to win in Davenport
The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series completed its second of three nights at Davenport Speedway’s ‘Quad City 150’ event on Friday. The weekend will end on Saturday with a $30,000-to-win contest. At the end of the night on Friday, it was Brandon Sheppard who received the accolades for his triumph. The Rocket Chassis racer from New Berlin, Illinois picked up $10,000 for the win in a race aired live by DirtVision.com.
A total of 36 cars were signed in for competition.
Brandon Sheppard set the fast time in Group A qualifying with a lap of 13.842 seconds around the quarter-mile clay oval to beat out Jason Feger, Shannon Babb, Frank Heckenast Jr. and Jimmy Mars.
Chris Madden led Group B time-trials with an effort of 13.784 seconds topping Devin Moran, Cade Dillard, Bobby Pierce and Ryan Gustin.
Brandon Sheppard took the first heat ahead of Jimmy Mars, Shannon Babb and Spencer Diercks just before Jason Feger defeated Frank Heckenast Jr., Boom Briggs and Brent Larson in the second preliminary.
Chris Madden outran Cade Dillard, Brian Shirley and Ryan Gustin in the third heat of the night while Bobby Pierce bested Devin Moran, Nick Hoffman and Jeremiah Hurst in the fourth and final heat.
The WoO Late Models redraw set the first four rows for the feature race as Feger, Sheppard, Madden, Pierce, Mars, Heckenast, Dillard and Moran.
Dennis Erb Jr. and Tyler Bruening won the two Last Chance Showdown races used to set the remainder of the starting grid for the main event.
Sheppard, Feger and Madden crossed the line to complete the first lap in three-wide formation with Sheppard ultimately emerging with the race lead followed by Feger and Madden with Mars and Pierce rounding out the top-5. However, a caution just after the completion of the first lap slowed the pace and allowed the field to regroup.
On the restart, Pierce jumped to third behind Sheppard and Feger. One lap later, the No. 32 machine passed by the No. 25 to move into the runner-up spot and set off to pursue Sheppard.
Feger fell back into a fight with Moran and Mars for the remaining top-5 positions. Moran would eventually take fourth from Mars on lap 7 then grab third from Feger and lap 15. At that point, the top-2 of Sheppard and Pierce broke away and looked set to settle the issue among themselves. However, slower traffic would come into play on a track that became one-lane right around the top.
Moran, Feger, Madden and Dillard would eventually track down the leaders who were seemingly stuck in place as they carefully picked through lapped machines. The top-6 ran in nose-to-tail formation over the closing laps with Pierce taking a couple of peeks to the inside of Sheppard but never gaining the momentum necessary to draw alongside.
Sheppard ultimately drove under the checkered flag to claim the 76th WoO Late Models win of his career. That leaves him just two feature victories behind all-time leader Josh Richards.
Feature Finish: 1. Brandon Sheppard, 2. Bobby Pierce, 3. Devin Moran, 4. Jason Feger, 5. Chris Madden, 6. Cade Dillard, 7. Jimmy Mars, 8. Frank Heckenast Jr., 9. Nick Hoffman, 10. Shannon Babb, 11. Ryan Gustin, 12. Chris Simpson, 13. Ricky Weiss, 14. Boom Briggs, 15. Brian Shirley, 16. Brent Larson, 17. Jeremiah Hurst, 18. Tyler Bruening, 19. Garrett Alberson, 20. Dennis Erb Jr., 21. Justin Kay, 22. Rickie Gustin, 23. Spencer Diercks, 24. Jake Timm
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