Sheppard Wows the Hometown Crowd

  The forecast for Tuesday was looking good for a change, and we headed to the Jacksonville,Illinois Speedway for the Wildman Kelly Memorial event featuring the UMP late model Summernationals, Summit Racing Summernational UMP modifieds and the local UMP street stocks. The Summernationals, also billed as the Hell Tour is off to a miserable start in 2019, having only completed one full show in the first five attempts, that being at Kankakee Speedway. In addition, the features fell to rain at the Sycamore Speedway, while Peoria, Joliet, and Brownstown, Il.were washed out completely. Also, early in the program at Jacksonville, it was announced that the Wednesday night show in Belleville, Il. was off due to the rain that had fallen there and the forecast for more! But on this night, the sky was clear, and by race time the grandstands were filled to overflowing.
  A solid if not spectacular field of twenty five late models were vying for a $5,000 top prize, while the modified entries stopped at thirty seven. Fifteen street stocks brought the three division total to seventy seven.
  After a short delay waiting for an ambulance to arrive, late model hot laps began on the banked, 1/4 mile bullring. Next it was hot lap - time trial qualifying for the mods. The five at a time process created some " do overs, " but surely sped things along, none the less. St Louis area hot shoe Rick Conoyer bested a truly all star field of open wheelers with a time of 12.981 seconds.
  The late models qualified in pairs, with only Jimmy Miller failing to take his turn, as he lost a transmission in hot laps. The late models timed in their heat race group, with Rusty Schlenk tops in group one and overall with a lap of 12.266 seconds. Fresh off his victory at the Dream, Brandon Sheppard drove his family owned #B5 to the best lap in group two, while veteran Billy Moyer paced group three.
  Following street stock hot laps, it was time for late model heats. As is most often the case with lineups determined by timed qualifying, the passing was minimal in the ten lappers. Bobby Pierce used his outside pole start to capture heat one ahead of pole sitter Schlenk. Sheppard led flag to flag in heat two over his row one mate Shannon Babb. And Moyer held off third starting Brian Shirley in the final heat. Matt Bailey charged from the pole to top outside row one starter Cody Maguire in the B main. In the end, only Miller and Dan Jacober, who smacked the turn two wall in the B main, failed to take the green in the forty lap finale.
  Four modified heats along with a pair of B mains - with only the winners moving on - qualified eighteen cars for their twenty five lap feature, with four provisionals added. One of those was Dave Weitholder, who found himself upside down in his B main as he attempted to drive past eventual winner Michael Long. It did not seem likely that Weitholder would be a factor in the main event, provided he could even get his car race ready, but...
  With preliminaries out of the way and some track work complete, the late model feature lined up first. By virtue of their heat race wins, Pierce and Moyer lined up in row one, with Sheppard and Schlenk in row two. Moyer won the race back to the line as lap one appeared complete, but a caution at the back of the field brought a full restart. Back to green, Pierce now jumped ahead, with Moyer, Schlenk, Sheppard, and Shirley trailing. On lap eight, as the leaders closed in on the back of the pack, Bailey and Jason Suhre got together in turn one. Pierce was able to avoid the stopped cars, but Moyer made heavy contact with Bailey, and Schlenk was also involved. Bailey left on the hook, while Moyer ducked to the pits for repairs, eventually rejoining at the tail. After some discussion, Schlenk was allowed to restart in the runner up spot. Shirley powered to second on the restart, but a three car pile up involving Suhre, Maguire, and Chuck Hummer stopped the action one lap later. Back to green, Schlenk used the Delaware start to move to second, while eighth starting Tanner English, in his family #96, charged to fourth. Meanwhile, Pierce began to open a lead until Schlenk slowed with a flat tire on lap eighteen. He was able to tag the tail as racing resumed, with Sheppard now second and Shirley dropping to third. Pierce was riding the concrete wall on the outside of the track, his rear spoiler showing the effects, while Sheppard did business a 1/2 line lower on the oval. One more caution slowed the action on lap twenty three, but Pierce continued to dominate. With the laps clicking off, Pierce moved through slower traffic and Sheppard stayed within striking distance. But a handful of laps ahead of pay dirt, Pierce came upon Paul Stubber and Mark Voight racing side by side for positions outside the top ten. With Sheppard breathing down his neck, and three laps to go,  Pierce went all in for a high side pass in turn one. At the same time, Sheppard dove to the bottom and cleared both cars ahead of the now second running Pierce. From that point, Brandon was able to pull away, crossing the line several car lengths in front. Having grown up and still living in New Berlin, about fifteen miles from Jacksonville, " B Shepp " is the hometown hero, and the capacity crowd stood and roared from the late race pass through the post race celebration. No doubt a bit frustrated, but still with a podium finish, Pierce took runner up honors ahead of Shirley, ninth starting Frank Heckenast Jr., and English. Babb came home sixth, besting Jason Feger, Allen Weisser, Rusty Griffaw, and Rodney Melvin wheeling a #33 machine. Griffaw was the hard charger of the race, moving up six spots from his row eight starting spot.
  Weisser then jumped out of his late model and into his modified for another twenty five laps of action.  
  Levi Kissinger and Conoyer lined up in row one of the modified feature, but Conoyer brushed the turn two concrete at the start, with fourth starting Weisser slipping around him for second. On lap three, Weisser took command, while Tyler Nicely cleared Ray Bollinger and Conoyer for third. Weisser was able to open a sizable lead as Kissinger running the inside line and Nicely in the middle ran side by side, lap after lap for second. The yellow waved for the first time on lap eleven as Long stopped in turn four, his night over. The caution came again at lap twelve, and for a spinning Conoyer at lap fourteen. By now Nicely was in control of the second spot and was applying pressure to the leader as the pair worked the low and middle grooves. Suddenly it was Tommy Sheppard Jr. who found the very top of the track to his liking, powering to second as lap sixteen was scored. Following a lap nineteen yellow, Nicely regained the runner up spot, and Sheppard Jr.  pulled to the infield one lap later, his run from row four over. Weisser held on for the win, with Nicely in second. Bollinger ran a steady third, topping Kissinger and Jeffrey Ledford. The run of the race was turned in by Weitholder, who not only recovered from the B main rollover to start in row ten, but worked his way all the way to sixth at the checkers. Mike Harrison started in row six and came home seventh, followed by Hunt Gossum, B main #2 winner Will Krup, and Chris Smith.
  The clock had now ticked past 10:30, and we headed for the car as the street stock finale came to the track.
  Thanks to Kenny Dobson for a fun night of racing at Jacksonville. Early on it looked like the track might develop some trouble spots, certainly understandable with the seemingly non stop rain, but it quickly smoothed out and produced top notch, multi grooved racing.
  With both Belleville and the Independence, Iowa IMCA Summer Series shows washed out today, we will keep an eye on the forecast before deciding where our next racing adventure will be!