Saturday, February 12, 2022

Sheppard A "Three Peat" as East Bay Rolls On

 Featuring a fifteen lap stretch in the first half of Friday night's feature race that would rival the best races seen anywhere at anytime, Brandon Sheppard once again came to the front as he won his third straight main event here during the annual Winter Nationals for Lucas Oil Dirt Late Models here at East Bay Raceway Park in front of a packed crowd of race fans from across the country. 

Sheppard is only the third driver to have ever won three straight here during the long history of this event here at the "Clay By The Bay" and after a mediocre 2021 racing season and a seemingly slow start to this season at some of the earlier races held in Florida, the Rocket house car team seems to have come alive in all aspects of their game. Sheppard has been qualifying well and racing well to and that is a combination tough to beat. 

It did take a spectacular heat race win fight over Devin Moran however, to ensure the pole position in the main rather than a fourth row starting spot and while Sheppard was able to win from the fourth row on Thursday night, that doesn't happen too often against a large and talent filled field like the ones that have presented themselves this week. 

One of the most noticeable stories  so far this week has been the huge crowds that continue to stuff East Bay every night. I was told by someone that has the inside truth that the crowd on Thursday night was the second largest in the history of this long event and surely the Friday night crowd was larger than that of Thursday. With a strong finish likely on Saturday night, this could very well turn into the most successful Winter Nationals in track history. Whether or not this will translate into a successful season for tracks across the country I can not foretell, but it certainly a positive way to begin the 2022 racing season for sure. 

Early on we learned that the very fast run by eighteen year old Garrett Smith last night that was negated by a too tall spoiler was not a fluke. For the second straight night he qualified very well, started on the pole and won a heat race and was running decent in the feature until he stuck his car into the turn one wall with just one lap to go and got clipped by both Brandon Overton and Spencer Hughes, which set up a dramatic one lap race to the finish. 

The, by know, familiar format of six heats and three B Features would set the running order for Friday night's feature race, added by ten laps to fifty on this night with twelve thousand dollars on the line to the winner. The only new competitor racing on Friday was Josh Richards, back and racing after his near disastrous camper fire earlier in the week. 

The feature race fields continue to get bigger as more drivers not making the show are using provisional starts to get into the main and on Friday, a large field of thirty drivers would take the green flag. And while the track didn't appear to be as wide as the track was on Thursday night, the skill of the drivers, the quality of their equipment and their intense desire to get to the front of the field would produce an event with approximately fifteen laps of the most intense racing seen in quite some time. 

There would be five lead changes by four different drivers before the halfway signal was given and the amount of position shuffling and lane changing was impressive. Sheppard would be the early leader but he was dogged by Brandon Overton and a surprisingly strong Chase Junghans. In fact, Junghans, after not showing much earlier this week and skipping the All-Tech events, would drive by Sheppard on the high side to take over the lead.

One lap later Sheppard was back in front but only briefly before Junghans repassed him and then was passed himself by Overton. In fact, during one stretch just before the halfway point, the top five cars were running within a couple car lengths of each other while at the same time trying to work their way through several back of the pack cars. 

Sheppard actually slumped back as far as fourth but somehow righted the ship and found a line that would carry him back into the lead by the halfway point. Things settled just a bit after that with Sheppard leading and Overton looking for a way by as a series of five yellow flags for minor spins over the next ten laps would keep the fields bunched but steady racing to a minimum. East restart would see Sheppard take off in the lead with Overton trying to sneak by on the low side while Ashton Winger would try to drive around Overton but inevitably have to settle for third. 

The top two drivers looked pretty even but as long as Sheppard didn't make a mistake, he looked home free as most of the drivers lined up in the low groove and hugged the tires. With just a lap to go, Smith stuck his car into the first turn wall and Overton bashed in his right side door as he had moved up the track to try a last lap run on Sheppard and couldn't avoid the crashed car. Damage was cosmetic and he would continue. 

They tried again for the last lap and Sheppard got away cleanly and with nothing to offer, Overton settled in behind him and raced home for second as Sheppard was flawless when he needed to be. Winger had another strong run for third as one of the positive surprises of the week  while Moran, who was up and down in the field, went barreling back to the top in the waning laps and was able to race up to fourth just ahead of Tim McCreadie. 

Seventeen cars were on the track at the finish with all on the lead lap as the frantic pace saw a number of drivers pull off as the lead pack caught them during the second half of the race. 

Saturday night the Late Models will close out their portion of the Winter Nationals at East Bay with another fifty lap war expected before the 360 Sprints move in next weekend for their three night show. 

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