FARMER CITY, Ill. (April 12) — This one is for the doubters. Without a doubt.

Eager for a vindicating victory to welcome the return of Brandon Sheppard back to the driver’s seat, the long-formidable Rocket Chassis house car team got a big one Saturday in capturing the Illini 100 finale at Farmer City Raceway. | RaceWire

The $20,000 World of Outlaws Late Model Series triumph couldn’t have come at a better time — or a better place — as the 32-year-old New Berlin, Ill., driver rallied from his 11th starting spot at the track where he cut his racing teeth.

It was clearly special for the Mark Richards-owned team, which amid its winningest seasons might give a fist pump at the checkered flag. Rolling into the Farmer City infield at the race’s conclusion, the familiar blue Rocket1 was swarmed by Richards, crew members and other well-wishers, with crew member Joel Rogers punctuating the team’s joy with a firm rap of the car’s roof as Sheppard eased away toward the scales.

The victory was the first for the team in eight months and first for Sheppard in the No. 1 since Aug. 26, 2022, a 961-day span that ended with hugs all around in victory lane among teammates, Sheppard’s family, well-wishers and even runner-up Bobby Pierce’s crew chief and father Bob, who leaned in late to squeeze his fellow Illinoisan.

“I know it’s not a crown jewel or anything like that, but just to come here (and win),” crew chief Danny White said while watching the Sheppard family celebration. “We have worked and worked and worked and people keep doubting us. And we're just going to keep working.”

Sheppard, a five-time WoO champion, has won the Dream, five Dirt Track World Championships and an array of crown jewels and six-figure paydays, but this one provided a certain relief that he can recapture the glory days of his previous six-year run with the Shinnston, W.Va.-based team.

“Mark and the guys have been working their tails off to (get a winning car) for me. And I know they've been frustrated and I've been frustrated. My family's been (frustrated). … just everybody's just like, ‘Well hell, what if we never win another race?’ You know what I mean?” Sheppard said later at the WoO tech inspection area. “So everybody's just so happy. A lot of hugs and stuff in victory lane because everybody knows how much we all wanted this.”

The night had its bumps along that way. After recording the third-best qualifying lap in time trials, Sheppard ran into trouble in his heat race. An early scuffle with Cody Overton — the inside-running Overton forced the outside-running Sheppard up the turn-two banking and virtually off the track — unsettled the Rocket1, the episode ending moments later in turn one with contact from Justin Duty that sent Sheppard’s car spinning.

During the ensuing caution, Sheppard drove 50 yards the wrong way down the track to come nose-to-nose with Overton in showing his displeasure. Then Sheppard went back to work for a third-place finish to earn a sixth-row starting spot for the feature.

The incident might’ve provided a little more motivation, White said, but there was no fire drill in the Rocket camp.

“We knew we had a good car in the heat race and we didn't do anything. Nobody panicked. We just tweaked on it like we were starting on the pole,” the crew chief said.

Before the feature, the buzz in the pits was that the track surface would get reworked. But everyone — especially Sheppard — is glad they didn’t touch it.

"I knew before we even took the green and my car was going to be pretty good,” Sheppard said. “I was questionable on what the track (surface) was going to do really. It looked like it was going to be pretty dry, but I wasn't 100 percent sure how exactly it was going to turn out. It stayed dirty — and that's the key here. It's got to stay dirty, the cushion’s got to get all the way up against the wall and the bottom's got to be there. So that was an awesome racetrack.

“When you ask me what my favorite racetrack is and I say Farmer City, that's the Farmer City (style) … that right there is awesome.”

With Drake Troutman taking command at the start of the 60-lapper from outside the front row, a flurry of contenders mixed it up behind him including Pierce, Overton, Devin Moran and Brian Shirley. Behind them, Sheppard was steadily gaining ground and catching the attention of the Farmer City faithful.

By lap 23, Sheppard cracked the top five, and over the next six laps gained three more spots, taking second from Shirley and tracking down Troutman, who knew the No. 1 was rising on the scoreboard. When Moran’s turn-four spin drew the race’s lone caution, Troutman was resigned to watching Sheppard complete his rally. When the green appeared, Sheppard blew around Troutman in turns three and four and took a lead he’d never give up. Pierce, last year’s Illini 100 winner, reached second place on lap 41, but he never got close enough to seriously challenge his friendly home-state rival.

“I hardly even looked at Dan to see how big of a lead I had,” Sheppard said. “I was just driving my ass off every lap and doing what I had to do because we really needed that. Our team's been working their tails off and they've been doing everything needed to win these races. We just haven't been able to start up front. We haven't been able to be in a position to make it happen.”

The never-say-die Rocket house car team, among the sport’s longest-running and successful programs, doesn’t often get ruffled by naysayers, but there’s no doubt they liked the statement the victory made.

“We’ve been working hard,” said Richards, who tapped Hudson O’Neal to replace Sheppard in 2023 and enjoyed a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-championship winning season, then employed veteran Tim McCreadie upon O’Neal’s abrupt resignation early in 2024. McCreadie won once (the Topless 100) last year as the team unveiled its XR-1.2 edition, but gains made with that car for McCreadie didn’t translate when Sheppard returned to the seat in January after departing his WoO-title winning Longhorn Factory Team.

“We were on a path last year with Timmy, and then you know we made that change, and everything that we did with Timmy (with setups), nothing worked for Brandon,” Richards said. “All the stuff we learned with Timmy, he just might as well start over. It's just been getting what it took for Brandon Shepherd … He’s an incredible driver.”

Sheppard and White said the team knew during last month’s Lucas Oil events at Atomic Speedway near Chillicothe, Ohio, and Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway that success was near, despite failing to crack the top five in either race. “We knew we were going in the right direction,” White said.

Did the calendar hanging in the Rocket Chassis shop have the Illini 100 circled because it's fertile territory for B-Shepp?

"I feel like he's a good enough driver that they're all circled — I'm not trying to sound arrogant — but the top drivers, yeah, you circle the ones you think you really want to do good at, but you expect to roll in everywhere and compete,” White said.

Sheppard did more than compete. He ended his 20-race losing streak in the Rocket1 that included a fruitless Georgia-Florida Speedweeks. Friday’s fourth-place finish at Farmer City marked just his second top-five finish since his return to the team, but Sheppard was confident this day would come.

"Mark's been working really hard on this car, tweaking on stuff,” Sheppard said. “Truly, he's just been working really hard to make it fit my feel and my style. It’s all thanks to him and Fox (Shocks) and all our great sponsors for sticking behind me and sticking behind our team because there's been a lot of doubters lately. I'm just happy to get a win for all of them, and like I said, my team's just been working hard and they deserve this.”

Enjoying the vindication at Farmer City was especially satisfying.

“It’s one of them things where, at the end of the day when we come here and we unload, by the end of the weekend we know what we got after we leave here. A place like this, a place that I cut my teeth at, me and Bobby. And any time you can run with that (No.) 32, you know your stuff's pretty good,” the winner added. "I think we got something to build on. Obviously we got something to build on. We got a little confidence back and, like I said, really our car's been different a bunch. Every time we hit the racetrack we've been trying stuff and just trying to get that little niche, that feel that I've been missing.”

Sheppard and the team rarely directly said it, but in a landscape where Longhorn Chassis is clearly at the top of the heap in the Late Model world, they wanted to make clear that Rocket would have an answer.

“Everybody's like, ‘Well you ought to be able to get back in and be as good as you were back then,’ ” Sheppard said. “Well, everything's different. Cars are different. Shocks are different. Everything's just changed a lot over the years.

“It's not that people are doubting us, it's just people just doubt. People just talk crap. You know, the internet, just everything, it just feels good to get this win and be able to shut the haters up for a little bit. Just shut everybody up for a little bit. We’re here and we had to make a statement at some point to let them know that we were. For me, I know this is going to light a fire.

“Everybody's been working hard to get there, but this is what we needed to get that extra fire lit under everybody's ass to keep it going and keep working hard. Mark and Dan and Austin (Hargrove) and Joel have just been putting in endless hours trying to figure out what we needed to be better and trying to figure out what I needed for my feel compared to what McCreadie had or what Hudson had.”