After placing fourth in Saturday’s 56th annual World 100 at Eldora Speedway, Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., no longer has to answer questions about why he had never finished better than sixth in his 12 previous starts in the crown jewel event. Now it’s just, “When are you going to win the World 100?” — and he believes that day is coming.
“We’ll keep plugging away at it,” Sheppard said of the Rocket1 team that he’s been with for nine of his 13 career World 100 feature appearances. “We keep getting better. I feel like we’ve had a really good car here since we broke this XR2 out last year (for the World 100). We’re gonna start being more consistent here at this place I feel like. We just gotta stay after it, keep it up front, and we’re gonna get ours eventually.”
Sheppard, 33, was a pre-race favorite after winning a Friday semifeature and earning the most points in the preliminary programs. He had to resort to using a provisional from his points standing to gain entrance to the A-main after failing to reach a transfer spot from his sixth starting position in the first heat — he glumly spun the hated 6 inversion number on the Wheel of Misfortune — but taking the green flag from the 19th starting spot didn’t seem to dull his chances considering just three months ago he showed race-winning speed in the Dream finale before blowing a right-front tire while stalking eventual winner Bobby Pierce.
But Sheppard said Saturday’s track surface was “just a little bit different” from the Dream conditions he mastered, and in turn his car wasn’t quite as strong as it was back in June.
“We were good, but just, you know, in order to get them last few spots, I just needed to just be able to roll the corners a little bit better,” Sheppard said. “I felt like we were carrying more speed (than during the Dream), like I felt like it kind of kept a little bit dirtier grip for longer. Once the track got black there at the end I started to come back to a little bit, but I just needed to steer just a little bit better right in the center of the corner.”
Sheppard moved up to the top-10 by lap 19, but it took him until the 88th lap to crack the top-five. He climbed to fourth after Ryan Gustin retired on the lap-88 restart but was unable to pick up any more positions.
Analyzing his race in the Rocket1 trailer afterward, Sheppard wondered if he just turned too many laps around the top of the track. In fact, he noted that he battled for position inside the top-10 with eventual winner Nick Hoffman for quite a few mid-race laps, but through all of them Sheppard was running the outside while Hoffman just kept chugging along on the hub.
“I probably — I know, woulda, coulda, shoulda — been better off if I never went to the top because you get up there and you just get burning it down and trying to make speed, trying to go,” Sheppard said. “I seen whenever Hoffman passed me in the bottom, I’m like, ‘Well … I should go down there,’ because you know, you don't want to overheat your stuff.
“I passed quite a few cars in the top, so it’s not like the top was the wrong place to be. That’s what I needed to do to get up through there. But at the end of the race, I think Hoffman was able to save his tires better and steer up through there lower in the track and I had to drive the s--- out of it a little bit.
“I passed (Hoffman) at one point, and then once the top got a little bit farther up …” he added, his voice trailing off a moment. “I could run about anywhere on the track, but for just them last few spots I just needed a little bit more left.”