FARMER CITY, In poor health. — This weekend’s Illini 100 serves as a homecoming for the numerous Late Mannequin stars who hail from the Land of Lincoln.
However few of them have a résumé at Farmer Metropolis Raceway as lengthy and spectacular as Brian Shirley.
The Chatham, In poor health., driver has been turning laps across the black-dirt bullring because the daybreak of his profession within the early 2000s. Between the World of Outlaws Late Fashions, DIRTcar Summer season Nationals and numerous different native and regional races, Shirley has performed a task in most of the monitor’s most memorable moments over the previous 20 years.
For the primary 14 years of his Farmer Metropolis profession, the one gap in Shirley’s résumé was a World of Outlaws victory. He had come shut, beginning on the pole in 2012 and 2015 earlier than arising quick on each events.
That each one modified in 2017 when “Squirrel” squeezed previous Billy Moyer with 4 laps to go for his fifth World of Outlaws win and first at Farmer Metropolis.
“Clearly the automotive was working fairly good there on the hub,” Shirley stated. “I bear in mind lap after lap, feeling I used to be gaining on [Moyer] a little bit bit. The following factor , I used to be within the lead and ended up profitable the race.”
Two years later, Shirley backed it up with one other triumph, but it surely got here in a stark distinction from the sluggish and slick floor he received on earlier than. Drivers within the 2019 version of the race had been confronted with a lightning-fast monitor that Shirley remembers a little bit too properly.
After getting up on two wheels and practically barrel rolling whereas main, Shirley regained his composure and held off Brandon Sheppard for his second win in three years.
“I simply bear in mind all people was within the fuel and we had been simply broad open, all you may get,” Shirley stated. “We had been fortunate sufficient to be out entrance. I bear in mind it was cowboy-up, and usually in that sort of situation we all the time appear to excel a little bit bit. I’m unsure why, possibly I’m not as nervous as all people else is to flip.”
It’s now been six years since Shirley’s newest rating within the Illini 100, a pattern he plans on snapping this weekend. And whereas the trophy and paycheck had been all Shirley was involved with after his first two victories, he now has an additional incentive as a third-year full-timer on the World of Outlaws tour – factors.
The No. 3s Racing group received 4 instances within the ultimate 10 races of 2024 and anticipated to hold that momentum into the opening weeks of the 2025 season. As an alternative, an attrition-riddled begin to the yr buried them within the standings and despatched them into rebuild mode to be prepared for the remainder of the marketing campaign.
“We positively wore some stuff on the market in Florida,” Shirley stated. “You’re employed all winter to place your self in the most effective place that you could to hopefully begin your self out in a optimistic means so far as being within the factors chase. For some purpose, it simply hasn’t labored in our playing cards the final couple years to start out out within the factors in a optimistic place. However for me, my guys, all people at Bob Cullen Racing, we’re not simply going to surrender and roll over. We’ve come dwelling, been doing our due diligence each week making an attempt to get again as much as the place we had been.”
Shirley hasn’t completed a World of Outlaws race within the prime 10 because the opening evening of the season at Volusia Speedway Park. He was in rivalry for a prime 5 within the Saturday program at Swainsboro Raceway , however a flat tire on the halfway level of the Function despatched him to the again and put him twentieth within the ultimate rundown.
With eight World of Outlaws races within the books, Shirley’s Twelfth-place slot within the standings is a far cry from what the 12-time World of Outlaws winner has come to count on.
“We’ve had a pair fairly good runs right here the final couple weeks, strong prime fives,” Shirley stated. “Bobby [Pierce] and them, we’re beginning to at the least get the place we will see him. And as soon as you can begin seeing him, then you can begin realizing a little bit bit extra what you’ve bought to do to beat them. It’ll all come collectively, we’ve simply bought to get into the following couple weeks and get this heat climate, get racing on a regular basis. Every thing will come collectively.”
