BRANDON, S.D. — Brandon Sheppard held off challenges from both Bobby Pierce and Hudson O’Neal to win his second career Silver Dollar Nationals presented by MyRacePass on Saturday night at Huset’s Speedway.
The box score will show that Sheppard led all 80 laps, but it was far from easy as he took home $53,000 for his second Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win of the season.
Pierce, who started eighth finished second to Sheppard with O’Neal coming home in third. Ricky Thornton Jr. charged from his 16th starting spot to place fourth. Tyler Erb came from 12th to round out the top five.
Sheppard, who won the Silver Dollar Nationals when it was at I-80 Speedway in 2020 dueled with Pierce and O’Neal for most of the last half of the race, withstood every attempt by those two competitors to come home with the victory.
“Man, them guys were making it hard on me for sure. The track it was awesome. It was treacherous out there. I was tight about halfway through the race thru three and four and they had me messed up and a little bit worried,” Sheppard said. “Once I moved to the top in one and two I kind of started slowing down my entry into three and four and that helped me out a bunch then all the lapped cars were on the bottom, so I just committed myself to the top for the rest of the race. I got a smooth rhythm going and I was just able to hold them guys off. Bobby and Hudson have been really tough this year, we’ve had our ups and downs all year long. Our win column isn’t as good as we would have liked it to be.”
Pierce, who just a few weeks ago won the $50,000 NAPA Auto Parts Gopher 50 at Deer Creek Speedway took several shots at Sheppard but could not duplicate the ending where he beat O’Neal to the finish at Deer Creek.
“I wish I would have tried the bottom sooner,” Pierce said. “I just couldn’t make that run on him so I was hoping for some lapped cars to hold him up and maybe I could cross him [Sheppard] over. That was a heck of a race to come from eighth like that. We were on the move pretty quick in the race. I don’t how he [Sheppard] fit around me there in turn four that one lap, that was nuts. I had the slider basically cleared and he just got around and that won him the race so congrats to him on that. He drove a heck of a race.”
O’Neal finished third.
“That was brutal up around the that cushion, it wasn’t brutal for the race cars, man it was on us. I was dead about the last ten laps. Man, it was a good race me, Shepp and Bobby, I think you could have thrown a blanket over us the last 30 or 40 laps or whatever it was. I thought it was a great race. There was sometimes where I thought we were going to have a shot I got a good restart on the last one and I was able to kind of sneak under Shepp for a minute, but I just couldn’t quite get clear of him, and Bobby played it good and got back by me.”
The finish:
Feature (80 Laps): 1. B5-Brandon Sheppard (1); 2. 32-Bobby Pierce (8); 3. 1H-Hudson O’Neal (4); 4. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr (16); 5. 1T-Tyler Erb (12); 6. 39-Tim McCreadie (7); 7. 18-Chase Junghans (14); 8. 40B-Kyle Bronson (22); 9. 49-Jonathan Davenport (6); 10. 99-Devin Moran (11); 11. 58-Garrett Alberson (17); 12. 25C-Shane Clanton (2); 13. 157-Mike Marlar (18); 14. 111B-Max Blair (10); 15. 28-Dennis Erb Jr (13); 16. 11-Spencer Hughes (23); 17. 16-Tyler Bruening (9); 18. 25-Chad Simpson (19); 19. 46-Earl Pearson Jr (15); 20. 18D-Daulton Wilson (20); 21. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck (3); 22. 76-Brandon Overton (5); 23. 66C-Matt Cosner (25); 24. 7-Ross Robinson (21); 25. 99B-Boom Briggs (24).