DUEL AT THE SPEED PALACE: ZEIGLER WINS AFTER INTENSE BATTLE WITH WEISS

PORT ROYAL, PA – Aug. 17, 2018 – With less than five laps to go, Mason Zeigler was running second and burning to make a move for the lead.

He and Rookie of the Year frontrunner Ricky Weiss battled it out for over 25 laps around the Port Royal Speedway on Saturday night. Their back-and-forth fight for the lead culminated with a side-by-side drive into turn one with three laps remaining of the 40 scheduled. One of them was going to win their very first World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series Feature.

In the end, the home-state advantage worked like a charm in the final laps. Zeigler made the winning move with just three laps remaining around the outside of Weiss to seal the deal and win his very first Morton Buildings Feature over Weiss and Brandon Sheppard.

“I’m so stoked for all of my crew,” Zeigler, of Chalk Hill, Pennsylvania said. “This was an awesome one, a really hard-fought one. It wasn’t just given to us.”

How right he was.

Zeigler and Weiss both won their Drydene Heat races earlier in the evening and redrew the front row. Zeigler pulled out to a sizable lead at the drop of the green with Weiss giving chase. The lead changed hands for the first time when Zeigler came up on a lapped car on the top side of turn one and jumped the cushion, opening the door for Weiss down low on lap 17.

Weiss sat in command for the next seven laps before Zeigler regained momentum and blasted by Weiss on the high side. The race’s only caution flew just a few laps later, setting the stage for the boiling point of this heated battle.

Racing past the flag stand to complete lap 37, Zeigler took a deep dive down low into the first turn while Ricky Weiss laid his right-rear tire on the cushion. Weiss had thrown a textbook slidejob on Zeigler on the restart to take the lead, so Zeigler returned the favor with a slidejob of his own to regain the lead out of turn two.

Down the backstretch they raced, Weiss regaining the lead slightly into turn three after crossing back under Zeigler’s slidejob. Zeigler switched back to the line that had kept him up front all night long, right on the high side, while Weiss kept it rolling through the middle groove. Zeigler mashed the throttle on the top and powered around the outside of the J&C Properties #7.

“My only option was just to get up there and murder the cushion,” Zeigler said. “I was so tight through the center and down low, where up top I could really wheelspin it and get sideways and not lose any ground. It was my only option and we were able to make it work, thank goodness.”

From that point on, the “Chalk Hill Express” held command and took the checkered flag, worth $10,000 – his second overall victory at Port Royal in 2019.

Pacing the field under caution with 12 laps to go and a hungry Weiss right on his bumper, some drivers would crack under the pressure. But not Zeigler. He’s got enough confidence in his car and crew to come through in high-stakes situations like these.

“It puts a little bit more pressure on me, starting up front. But I’ve known we’ve had a good enough car to win one of these things,” Zeigler said.

Another solid podium finish for Weiss helped to maintain his runner-up spot in the Series points standings. A perfectly prepared racetrack made for three grooves of racing, which “Slick Rick” took full advantage of in his efforts to hold off Zeigler.

“On that restart, I knew we could run the middle, or the bottom or the top, and I was able to get in front of Mason with [my crew chief] calming me down a bit,” Weiss said. “Mason just ran one heck of a race. He was do-or-die up there and he made it work.”

Brandon Sheppard redrew the fourth starting spot, made a pass for third on the opening lap and managed to stay in the final podium position for all 40 laps. His 29th top-five finish of the year in 31 starts certainly looks great atop the points standings.

“We had a good, balanced racecar again and this thing’s just been awesome, night-in and night-out. We’re definitely not going to hang our heads over third,” Sheppard said.

UP NEXT…

The World of Outlaws pay another visit to the Eriez Speedway in Erie, Pennsylvania tonight for another 50-lap, $10,000-to-win main event with Hot Laps going live on DIRTVision at 6:30 p.m. eastern!

SWEET SIXTEEN: SHEPPARD DOMINATES IN HOMECOMING VISIT TO WILLIAMS GROVE

MECHANICSBURG, PA – Aug. 16, 2019 – A sweet song of redemption rang through the Rocket 1 Racing pit area on Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway.

Brandon Sheppard and the Rocket1 warriors have dominated the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series this season, but the tour’s last race on a half-mile track went to two-time DIRTcar Nationals champion Shane Clanton at Shawano Speedway. Flash forward to Friday night and Sheppard got his revenge in the Series’ historic homecoming to half-mile Williams Grove, where the Series’ inaugural race was run in 1988. This time, Sheppard charged to the lead and collected his 16th Morton Buildings Feature win of the year, moving him closer to the all-time single-season win record of 18 victories.

Sheppard has had plenty of dominating performances in the past, but on Friday night, he was downright perfect. Setting PFC Brakes fast time, winning his Drydene Heat Race and redrawing the pole position, “The Rocket Shepp” grabbed the lead on lap one and never relinquished it, leading all 40 laps en route to his 53rd career World of Outlaws Feature win.

“It was phenomenal, the guys had this thing dialed-in from the word ‘go,’” Sheppard said. “We were just fine-tuning on it all night long and it kept getting better and better.”

Before Friday night, Sheppard had never even seen the track from behind the wheel. But as he’s done so many other times this season, “The Rocket Shepp” adapted perfectly to the track’s size and shape, using a bit of pre-race planning before even the drivers meeting was called.

“I walked the track a lot during the day today,” he said. “So I kind-of had an idea of what I was going to do, as far as what lines I was going to run. But I really got a good feel for the racetrack in Hot Laps and took advantage of it. It was a phenomenal night.”

Using the low-middle groove, Sheppard was able to smoothly sort through the waves of lapped traffic and build a sizable cushion between he and those behind him early on before a few cautions re-stacked the field on him. But they were no match for the current point-leader, as the Rocket Chassis house car’s ability to take off on restarts was unparalleled.

To the younger generation, and Sprint Car diehards everywhere, Williams Grove Speedway was a track also featured in a certain respected World of Outlaws Sprint Cars videogame produced in the early 2000s. Sheppard joked earlier on in the evening that “it drives just like the videogame.” But after making several circuits around that same facility in real life, he recalls how realistic it was to him in his childhood and how neat it is to finally visit and race on such a place all these years later.

“It was cool for that game to be in my life when I was a kid. So to come and race at a place that I’ve never been to that was special to me early in my life is pretty cool.”

Behind Sheppard for most of the race was a close chase for the runner-up spot between Clanton and leading Rookie of the Year contender Ricky Weiss. Weiss held the spot and chased Sheppard for the first 25 laps until a restart on lap 26, where Clanton made a brilliant move around the outside to take the spot away at the start/finish line.

“After that second caution, I got beside Ricky going down the straightaway and had him in turn one,” Clanton said. “I just needed to get in front of him. If I could have gotten in front of the #1 car, maybe I could have stayed in the lead.”

From Weiss’ point of view, it seemed to be a difference in tire compound.

“Clanton and Sheppard both had the same tire on and we just had a little bit softer one,” he said. “It fired off early and did its job, but we took a gamble and theirs obviously proved to be better.”

With Clanton’s win at Shawano’s half-mile track last month, the former Series Champion has always had a positive attitude about the bigger facilities and the challenges they present the drivers. In his words, it takes “a good car and a good motor” to have success on configurations like half-miles.

“Clements does a phenomenal job on our motors,” Clanton said. “I like big, fast, half-mile racetracks and it shows in the last two races.”

Normally, “Slick Rick” Weiss sees his helpings of success on dryer, slicker surfaces with longer distances. But with the rain the track received in the hours before the event, a very tacky surface emerged and made for a great place to flex the engine’s muscles. Luckily for Weiss, he and the crew have been improving on just such places.

“We’re better when it slows down,” Weiss said. “But we’re also getting better on these tracks that, in the beginning of the year, we said we dreaded to come to.”

The World of Outlaws are right back in action tonight at the Port Royal Speedway for another 40-lap, $10,000-to-win show, alongse the Weikert’s Livestock 410 Sprint Cars. Hot Laps hit the track on DIRTVision at 6:30 eastern!