Behind Brandon Sheppard making victory lane trips look routine again — having now won his sixth race of the season — is a rhythm he’s noticing within his Rocket Chassis house car group that’s evident just about everywhere they go.

“Right off the trailer again tonight we were comfortable, maneuverable, had a really well-balanced race car,” Sheppard said after Wednesday’s feature victory at Spoon River Speedway to open the FloRacing Night in America campaign. | RaceWire

Sheppard’s victory total through the first week of May isn’t only the most it’s been since he had six victories this time of year in 2022, but the pace and adaptability he’s exhibiting is something he hasn’t steadily exhibited since the height of his Rocket1 tenure when he won four World of Outlaws Late Model Series titles in a between 2017-21.

• Sheppard Family Giving Fellow Illinois Racer Golden Opportunity
• Brandon Sheppard Turns History Lesson Into Hagerstown Domination

Unlike the 2022 season, when three of his opening six victories were at a single racetrack —Florida’s East Bay Raceway Park — and when he only recorded three victories from March through June, he has victories at a variety of racetracks: from quarter-miles, to 3/8-miles and half-miles … in Florida, the Northeast and the Midwest.

In fact, Wednesday’s victory marked the fastest Sheppard has won at six different tracks to begin a season since 2018, when he had seven victories at six tracks by May 3 and went on for a 21-triumph season.

Those tracks: Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla., Ocala (Fla.) Speedway, Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway, Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway and now Spoon River. Sheppard has certainly noticed he’s multidimensional in just about every way right now, something he lacked last year as his car owner Mark Richards worked toward constructing and refining Rocket’s next-gen XR2 chassis.

All four of Sheppard’s national touring victories last season were on tracks and/or surfaces familiar to him: Farmer City’s lllini 100, a rough-and-tumble Atomic Speedway on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, a speedy Lucas Oil Speedway in the Diamond Nationals on the Lucas Oil tour and a Topless 100 prelim on an unusually hammer-down Batesville Motor Speedway.

Sheppard knows he excels on black-dirt bullrings, especially close to home, and on any track that’s either choppy and on the heavier side, or a mix of both. Now, Sheppard doesn’t feel constrained.

“That’s the thing. You have to be able to go to any part of the country and run good, be consistent night in and out, across the country, especially if you’re running a national tour,” Sheppard said. “Mark and the guys have worked their tails off and everybody at Rocket have worked their tails off to get these things to work. We’re not even all the way there yet. We can still be better. That shows how good the car is right now, how good these XR2s are. Yeah, it’s a testament.

“We’re just concentrated on keeping the balance underneath the car like they have night in and night out. Yeah, a lot of fun to drive and we’re just riding the wave.”