FARMER CITY, Ill. — Brandon Sheppard’s first home-state start of 2026 gave him everything he could have hoped for.
The New Berlin, Ill., native was the man to beat from the moment he rolled onto the Farmer City Raceway property for the Illini 100. He laid down the fastest lap of practice on Thursday, and Friday was nothing short of perfect.
Sheppard claimed the Simpson Quick Time Award in Qualifying, won his heat race and led all 40 laps of the main event for the 89th win of his career with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series.
The only part of the night that didn’t go exactly to plan was the Redraw, as Sheppard drew the two to start on the outside of Bilstein Pole Award winner Nick Hoffman. The No. 9’s time out front didn’t last long, as Sheppard rolled around his outside to lead the opening lap.
The race turned into a battle through traffic in the first green-flag run, as Bobby Pierce rallied to second and got within a half-second of Sheppard, but was unable to make a bid for the top spot. Pierce remained in second through a handful of restarts until Lap 31 when Brent Larson and Tyler Erb got together, sending Erb backwards directly in front of Pierce. The No. 32 had nowhere to go and piled into Erb before climbing back to seventh by the finish.
Pierce’s misfortune opened the door for Hoffman and Tim McCreadie to emerge as Sheppard’s closest challengers, but neither of them had enough to keep pace with the Rocket1 Racing machine. The win was his fifth at Farmer City with the World of Outlaws, breaking his tie with Billy Moyer for the most all-time.
It was also Sheppard’s second Series win of 2026 after he topped the final night of Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park, making him the fourth multi-time winner of 2026 alongside Pierce, Hoffman and Hudson O’Neal.
“Getting to the lead on the start was going to be key, for sure,” Sheppard said. “Hoffman’s been good all year, man. I know how important it is to be able to get out front and be able to run that line in [Turns] 1 and 2 and then go to the top in [Turns] 3 and 4. Knew if he was going to get the lead, he’d be hard to pass.”
McCreadie won the battle of the No. 9 cars on the closing laps to finish second, his best result since Feb. 12 at Volusia. Hoffman settled for third, which was enough to reclaim the points lead by five markers over Pierce.
Daulton Wilson recorded his third top five of the year in fourth, while Ethan Dotson rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 1S-Brandon Sheppard[2]; 2. 9M-Tim McCreadie[5]; 3. 9-Nick Hoffman[1]; 4. 58V-Daulton Wilson[10]; 5. 74X-Ethan Dotson[13]; 6. 22*-Drake Troutman[7]; 7. 32-Bobby Pierce[4]; 8. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[16]; 9. 14-Trey Mills[8]; 10. 1-Tyler Erb[20]; 11. 60-Dan Ebert[18]; 12. 19-Dustin Sorensen[21]; 13. 19R-Ryan Gustin[17]; 14. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[11]; 15. 122-Timmy Dick[9]; 16. 55E-Eli Johnson[25]; 17. B1-Brent Larson[24]; 18. 1Z-Logan Zarin[23]; 19. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[14]; 20. 25-Jason Feger[12]; 21. 24-Ryan Unzicker[6]; 22. 99-Devin Moran[3]; 23. 11R-Josh Rice[15]; 24. 40B-Kyle Bronson[19]; 25. 3S-Brian Shirley[22]
