MAPLE PARK, Ill. — The road hasn’t been easy for Brian Shirley this week, but he was finally able to punch through to DIRTcar Summer Nationals Victory Lane Sunday night at Sycamore Speedway.
Shirley, the four-time Hell Tour champion from Chatham, Ill., started his Week 1 campaign on tour with back-to-back DNFs in his first two starts — Friday at Coles County Speedway and again Saturday at Fairbury Speedway.
But Sunday at Sycamore was his night for a rebound, driving the Bob Cullen Racing No. 3s to lead all 30 laps of the feature for his 44th Summer Nationals win and fourth in the series’ last six visits to the picturesque dirt track in Maple Park, IL.
“It’s been a tough week at some places we should be able to win at,” Shirley said. “I was really nervous coming into today, knowing that we weren’t going to run next week. So, it’s really awesome to be able to get one and it’s just nice to end the week, as bad as it started, on a good day.”
The feature began with Shirley immediately charging to the lead from the pole position. Jason Feger fell into second and Clay Stuckey rode in the third position.
Shirley ran the bottom and consistently turned laps that kept Feger behind him. He continued to find traction and momentum down low as Feger blasted the top every corner trying to make a bid for the lead.
“There’s just a lot of grip down there, so you just had to be patient and get the car pointed in the right direction to come off the corner with good speed and not overcharge the corner,” Shirley said.
A caution flag in the final laps restacked the field and put Feger on the leader’s tail, but Shirley was not going to be denied. He held strong on the green-white-checkered finish to bag the win with Feger crossing second, ahead of Tanner English, Stuckey and Daniel Adam.
In accompanying races, the 20-lap street stock feature race saw Zach Zuberbier take the checkered flag in front of Nick Clubb, Joel Hernandez, David Dulceak and Kraig Hughes. Kevin Memoli captured the 15-lap pure stock division headliner. Memoli defeated Ryan Petrukovich and Joe Moberg.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 3S-Brian Shirley[1]; 2. 25-Jason Feger[3]; 3. 96-Tanner English[6]; 4. 15-Clay Stuckey[2]; 5. 75-Daniel Adam[5]; 6. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[9]; 7. 09-Michael Leach[10]; 8. 10J-Jordan Bauer[7]; 9. 4G-Bob Gardner[4]; 10. 8-Matthew Larson[11]; 11. 89-Mike Spatola[16]; 12. 87-Jake Rainey[18]; 13. 31M-Tyler Millwood[8]; 14. 3-Dale Markham[15]; 15. 30-Mark Voigt[20]; 16. 17SR-Brody Smith[19]; 17. 05-Tyler Leach[13]; 18. 4D-Doug Tye[17]; 19. 74-Mitch McGrath[12]; 20. 55X-Mike Lofgren[21]; 21. 22M-Sean Mattingly[22]; 22. 42-Chad Finley[14]
