Lonnie Wheatley, MAPLE PARK, Ill. (June 19, 2022) – Brian Shirley spent much of Sunday night’s 40-lap DIRTcar Summer Nationals “Hell Tour” feature just lying in the weeds at Sycamore Speedway.
But when money-time came about, Shirley pounced on leader Max Blair in the closing rounds to take the $5,000 winner’s share with his first win in the final round of the first week of “Hell Tour” competition.
“I felt like our car was pretty good,” Shirley said. “I knew I was gonna have to make a pretty big mistake to cost myself the race.”
While the Chatham, IL, racer gridded the field third, it was pole starter Payton Freeman pacing the initial nine rounds before Pennsylvania’s Blair took command.
With rhythm difficult to achieve with the caution flag flying no fewer than nine times along the way, Shirley battled past Jason Feger for second prior to the midway point and then overtook Blair for the point on the 32nd circuit.
Shirley weathered the final pair of cautions in the closing five rounds and cruised on to the stripe ahead of Blair and Feger with 12th-starter Ryan Unzicker and Dennis Erb, Jr., rounding out the top five.
“We came up on them lapped cars and I felt like he got pinched-down, and I just chose to go around him on the outside,” Shirley said of the race’s longest green-flag run of 14 laps after a lap 21 caution that opened the door for his ultimate charge into the lead.
While Shirley scored the feature win, Bobby Pierce raced from 16th to sixth to secure a $2,000 bonus as the opening week’s top point earner. Freeman fell to seventh over the final half of the race with 17th-starter Logan Martin, Justin Duty and Preston Luckman completing the top ten.
After Dale Markham established the fastest overall time of 14.558 seconds in qualifying, Feger, Shirley, Freeman and Blair topped heat race action before Martin topped the “B” Main.
DIRTcar Late Model Summer Nationals “Hell Tour”
Sycamore Speedway – Maple Park, IL
Sunday, June 19, 2022
DIRTcar Late Models:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 3S-Brian Shirley[3]; 2. 111V-Max Blair[2]; 3. 25-Jason Feger[4]; 4. 24-Ryan Unzicker[12]; 5. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[8]; 6. 32-Bobby Pierce[16]; 7. F1-Payton Freeman[1]; 8. 36-Logan Martin[17]; 9. 15-Justin Duty[13]; 10. 77-Preston Luckman[14]; 11. 14G-Joe Godsey[9]; 12. 21B-Rich Bell[11]; 13. 1M-Mike Mataragas[7]; 14. 89-Mike Spatola[20]; 15. 4G-Bob Gardner[19]; 16. 26M-Brent McKinnon[22]; 17. 4D-Doug Tye[15]; 18. 30-Mark Voigt[10]; 19. 3-Dale Markham[5]; 20. 01JR-Greg Cantrell[21]; 21. 10S-Taylor Scheffler[18]; 22. 29-Spencer Diercks[6]
Last Chance Showdown (12 Laps): 1. 36-Logan Martin[6]; 2. 10S-Taylor Scheffler[2]; 3. 4G-Bob Gardner[4]; 4. 89-Mike Spatola[8]; 5. 80-Rich Dawson[3]; 6. 26M-Brent McKinnon[1]; 7. 76-Titus Sneed[10]; 8. 01JR-Greg Cantrell[7]; 9. M27-Mike Provenzano[13]; 10. 10-Paul Parker[17]; 11. 03-Dan White[5]; 12. 31-Paul Stubber[14]; 13. 23NZ-Mick Quin[16]; 14. 44-Wayne Freimund[11]; 15. C15-Brandon Hamburg[15]; 16. 0-Deshawn Gingerich[18]; 17. 14R-Jeff Roth[9]; 18. 9-Lyle Zanker[12]
Heat 1 (10 Laps): 1. 25-Jason Feger[2]; 2. 3-Dale Markham[1]; 3. 14G-Joe Godsey[3]; 4. 15-Justin Duty[5]; 5. 26M-Brent McKinnon[4]; 6. 03-Dan White[6]; 7. 14R-Jeff Roth[9]; 8. M27-Mike Provenzano[8]; 9. 10-Paul Parker[7]
Heat 2 (10 Laps): 1. 3S-Brian Shirley[2]; 2. 29-Spencer Diercks[5]; 3. 30-Mark Voigt[6]; 4. 77-Preston Luckman[8]; 5. 10S-Taylor Scheffler[1]; 6. 36-Logan Martin[3]; 7. 76-Titus Sneed[4]; 8. 31-Paul Stubber[9]; 9. 0-Deshawn Gingerich[7]
Heat 3 (10 Laps): 1. F1-Payton Freeman[1]; 2. 1M-Mike Mataragas[4]; 3. 21B-Rich Bell[2]; 4. 4D-Doug Tye[5]; 5. 80-Rich Dawson[3]; 6. 01JR-Greg Cantrell[6]; 7. 44-Wayne Freimund[8]; 8. C15-Brandon Hamburg[7]
Heat 4 (10 Laps): 1. 111V-Max Blair[1]; 2. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[3]; 3. 24-Ryan Unzicker[6]; 4. 32-Bobby Pierce[2]; 5. 4G-Bob Gardner[7]; 6. 89-Mike Spatola[4]; 7. 9-Lyle Zanker[5]; 8. 23NZ-Mick Quin[8]
Qualifying 1 (2 Laps): 1. 3-Dale Markham, 00:14.558[5]; 2. 25-Jason Feger, 00:14.589[4]; 3. 14G-Joe Godsey, 00:14.806[3]; 4. 26M-Brent McKinnon, 00:14.840[7]; 5. 15-Justin Duty, 00:14.844[9]; 6. 03-Dan White, 00:14.864[2]; 7. 10-Paul Parker, 00:14.875[1]; 8. M27-Mike Provenzano, 00:15.220[6]; 9. 14R-Jeff Roth, 00:15.880[8]
Qualifying 2 (2 Laps): 1. 10S-Taylor Scheffler, 00:14.773[1]; 2. 3S-Brian Shirley, 00:14.963[8]; 3. 36-Logan Martin, 00:15.061[6]; 4. 76-Titus Sneed, 00:15.137[4]; 5. 29-Spencer Diercks, 00:15.155[9]; 6. 30-Mark Voigt, 00:15.488[3]; 7. 0-Deshawn Gingerich, 00:15.783[7]; 8. 77-Preston Luckman, 00:15.783[5]; 9. (DQ) 31-Paul Stubber, 00:14.860[2]
Qualifying 3 (2 Laps): 1. F1-Payton Freeman, 00:15.089[1]; 2. 21B-Rich Bell, 00:15.524[5]; 3. 80-Rich Dawson, 00:15.780[2]; 4. 1M-Mike Mataragas, 00:15.980[7]; 5. 4D-Doug Tye, 00:16.301[3]; 6. 01JR-Greg Cantrell, 00:16.415[8]; 7. C15-Brandon Hamburg, 00:16.428[4]; 8. 44-Wayne Freimund, 00:16.549[6]
Qualifying 4 (2 Laps): 1. 111V-Max Blair, 00:15.473[1]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce, 00:15.651[5]; 3. 28-Dennis Erb Jr, 00:15.722[3]; 4. 89-Mike Spatola, 00:15.859[2]; 5. 9-Lyle Zanker, 00:15.963[6]; 6. 24-Ryan Unzicker, 00:16.073[7]; 7. 4G-Bob Gardner, 00:16.154[4]; 8. 23NZ-Mick Quin, 00:17.237[8]