When the 2019 season began for the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series, there were only a handful of drivers who fans, media and even track officials thought would be the ones to watch this season. One of the top names was that of the Rocket, Brandon Sheppard.
After this dirt racing phenom and his Rocket1 Racing team No. 01 pulled off their fourth straight Illini 100 title, there was no doubt that Sheppard is going to be the driver to beat this season. The Illinois native, who lives just over one hour outside of Farmer City Raceway, began in his usual dominating fashion at the dirt 1/4-mile with two heat race wins and a top-five starting position in Saturday night’s 75 Lap feature.
Although he took his time getting to the top of the 29-car field, as the halfway point of this race began to approach the hometown boy and his Mark Richards-owned No. 01 machine took off and never looked back. This superiority continued through a myriad of caution flags and even a red-flag period with 11 laps to go, which ultimately forced the 2017 Series champ to make good restart after good restart to pull off yet another season win as well as a fourth Illini 100 championship.
“It was awesome to once again win this race, especially in front of all of my friends and family,” said Sheppard. “It was kind of hard to tell where you needed to be on the racetrack at the beginning of the race. The bottom was really rough and treacherous, and I was just kind of moving around, trying to figure out what line I needed to be in.”
The No. 28m of Jimmy Mars and 32p of Bobby Pierce completed Saturday night’s podium finishes.
As the Outlaws head to Cherokee Speedway in early May, Brandon Sheppard leads the 2019 World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series Standings by over 50 points. Stay tuned to RacingJunk.com for all of the latest racing news in the dirt.
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