{"id":16025,"date":"2013-11-22T15:34:51","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T21:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/100.24.212.105\/?p=16025"},"modified":"2013-11-22T15:34:51","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T21:34:51","slug":"brandon-sheppard-ascends-to-superstar-status-with-spectacular-2013-season-on-dirtcar-ump-circuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dirtcar.com\/divisions\/late-models\/brandon-sheppard-ascends-to-superstar-status-with-spectacular-2013-season-on-dirtcar-ump-circuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Sheppard Ascends To Superstar Status With Spectacular 2013 Season On DIRTcar UMP Circuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Sweeping Summer Nationals & National Weekly Series Titles, Young Driver Will Receive Nearly $50,000 At Organization\u2019s Awards Banquet<\/strong><\/p>\n

CONCORD, NC \u2013 Nov. 22, 2013 – Brandon Sheppard came of age in 2012. In 2013, he became a star.<\/p>\n

After bursting onto the national dirt Late Model scene in \u201912 during his stint driving the Rocket Chassis house car, the 20-year-old driver from New Berlin, Ill., returned to his family-owned team this season and promptly made DIRTcar UMP history. He captured the DIRTcar UMP Summer Nationals \u2018Hell Tour\u2019 and national weekly-racing Late Model championships, becoming the youngest racer to win each title and just the fourth to sweep both points crowns in the same season.<\/p>\n

For a driver who hails from the heart of DIRTcar UMP country and grew up watching his father, Steve Sheppard Jr., race a dirt Late Model across the Midwest, grabbing the circuit\u2019s two biggest prizes is an accomplishment to savor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels awesome,\u201d said Sheppard, who joined Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill. (2012), Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ind. (2007-08) and John Gill of Mitchell, Ind. (1986) on the short list of drivers with Summer Nationals\/national title sweeps on their resumes. \u201cUMP is the big thing around us \u2013 has been since I was little kid, really. I\u2019ve been around it my whole life, so it\u2019s real special for me personally to win both championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working really hard for a lot of years to get where we\u2019re at right now and it was a long season, but it was all worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stage was set for Sheppard\u2019s spectacular campaign in the spring of 2012 when he made headlines as Rocket Chassis house car owner Mark Richards\u2019s hand-picked replacement for his son, World of Outlaws Late Model Series star Josh Richards, who left the dirt-track wars to pursue a pavement career with a NASCAR Nationwide Series ride. Sheppard steered Richards\u2019s familiar blue No. 1 to just a single Summer Nationals feature last year and finished a distant third in the points standings, but he authored plenty of head-turning outings throughout the season (including his first-ever WoO LMS triumph) and, perhaps most important, received an education from an established team that put him in position for future success.<\/p>\n

Indeed, when Sheppard was pushed back to driving his family\u2019s Rocket No. b5 machines this season by Josh Richards\u2019s return to dirt racing, he had a new perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark and his guys taking me in did so much for me career,\u201d said Sheppard, who not only drove the Rocket house car but also worked on the team\u2019s equipment at their shop in Shinnston, W.Va. \u201cThey really helped me set my whole program up the right way. My hauler and stuff might not be as clean and tidy as theirs is because I don\u2019t have as much help as they do, but as far as my car and my whole program \u2013 well, it\u2019s on a whole other level now because of what I learned from them. Preparation, maintenance \u2013 all that is where it needs to be now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheppard used all the lessons learned during his march to the championship on the grueling Summer Nationals series, which featured 26 races at 25 tracks in eight states over a 39-day period in June and July. He bagged a modest four wins (Spoon River Speedway and Belle-Clair Speedway in Illinois, and Clarksville Speedway and Clay Hill Motorsports Park in Tennessee), but consistent performance (19 top-five and 23 top-10 finishes) propelled him to the title by 75 points (1,675-1,600) over 16-year-old Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill.<\/p>\n

Clinching the $25,000 Hell Tour crown brought a sense of\u00a0Mission: Accomplished<\/em>\u00a0to Sheppard, who began traveling the circuit with his father before even reaching high school and has been a fixture in Summer Nationals fields for most of his seven years behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad worked hard a lot of years trying to win it and he was never able to,\u201d said Sheppard. \u201cI guess me winning it kind of fulfilled both of our dreams. I was always there when he was doing it and he\u2019s there helping me now, so it meant a lot to both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the joy that accompanied the Hell Tour title, Sheppard and his crew barely paused to celebrate. Even with fatigue overtaking them upon completion of the Summer Nationals on July 20 at Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon, Ohio, there was no time for a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, after the last night at Oakshade, we were like, \u2018Well, I guess we gotta load up and go to Quincy (Ill.) on Sunday so we can start running for national (DIRTcar UMP weekly) points,\u2019\u201d said Sheppard. \u201cSummer Nationals kind of put me in position to go for the national deal, so we decided to keep going and do as many nights as we could. It was never-ending this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Sheppard in the driver\u2019s seat for the circuit\u2019s national weekly-racing points crown after the Hell Tour, he threw his focus into chasing that honor for the first time. Twenty-eight of his 86 DIRTcar UMP-sanctioned starts came during the two-plus months of racing after the Summer Nationals ended; with a driver\u2019s best 35 finishes\/points nights used to determine the national champ, he had the volume of race appearances necessary to ensure his worst runs of the season were scratched from his ledger.<\/p>\n

While Pierce made a late push to close the gap, Sheppard beat his teenage rival for the $20,000 national title by 47 points (2,549-2,502). On the strength of a season that saw him lead the DIRTcar UMP Late Model ranks with 14 feature wins (at nine tracks) and record 47 top-five and 66 top-10 finishes, B-Shepp found himself standing as a national champ before even reaching the legal drinking age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning, you never think you\u2019d do something like win a national championship that young,\u201d said Sheppard. \u201cBut we\u2019ve been improving as a team and I\u2019ve been improving as a driver every year. I can see myself getting better every year, driving harder and driving better. It all came together this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the 2013 DIRTcar UMP awards banquet is held on Jan. 11 in Springfield, Ill., Sheppard\u2019s total earnings for his championships and other awards will near the $50,000 mark. Thrown in the $50,000 first-place check he collected for winning the prestigious 100-lap Dirt Track World Championship event on Oct. 19 at Portsmouth (Ohio) Raceway Park in a return engagement with the Rocket Chassis house car team, and it\u2019s abundantly clear that Sheppard has become one of dirt Late Model racing\u2019s titans.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

For ticket information on the annual DIRTcar UMP \u2018Night of Champions\u2019 Awards Banquet on Jan. 11, 2014, at the Crown Plaza in Springfield, Ill., call the DIRTcar UMP office at 618-450-2072.<\/p>\n

Sheppard will be one of eight DIRTcar UMP national champions honored during the gala, joining Devin Gilpin of Columbus, Ind. (UMP Modifieds), Aaron Heck of Mt. Vernon, Ill. (Pro Late Models), Jon Ripperda of Bartelso, Ill. (Sportsman), Brad DeYoung of Wheatfield, Ind. (Limited Modifieds), Josh Frye of Coopersville, Mich. (Stock Cars), Jason Worley of St. Genevieve, Mo. (Factory Stocks) and Adam Webb of Decatur, Ill. (Sport Compacts).<\/p>\n

For more information on DIRTcar Racing and to see the complete final points standings for all DIRTcar UMP-sanctioned divisions, visit www.DirtCar.com.<\/p>\n

Final 2013 DIRTcar UMP Late Model National Points Standings<\/a><\/a>\u00a0(rank\/driver\/races counted\/points):<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Brandon Sheppard 35 2549<\/p>\n

2. Bobby Pierce 35 2502<\/p>\n

3. Rusty Schlenk 35 2357<\/p>\n

4. Eric Spangler 35 2273<\/p>\n

5. Scott Schmitt 35 2259<\/p>\n

6. Alex Ferree 35 2252<\/p>\n

7. Kevin Weaver 35 2229<\/p>\n

8. Shannon Babb 35 2221<\/p>\n

9. Ryan Unzicker 35 2161<\/p>\n

10. Rich Neiser 34 2124<\/p>\n

11. Randy Korte 35 2087<\/p>\n

12. Scott Bull 35 2063<\/p>\n

13. Michael Kloos 35 2048<\/p>\n

14. Brian Shirley 35 2025<\/p>\n

15. Brandon Thirlby 35 1956<\/p>\n

16. Mark Burgtorf 35 1948<\/p>\n

17. Michael Norris 35 1872<\/p>\n

18. Jesse Stovall 31 1847<\/p>\n

19. Rickey Frankel 35 1846<\/p>\n

20. Dona Marcoullier 29 1833<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Sweeping Summer Nationals & National Weekly Series Titles, Young Driver Will Receive Nearly $50,000 At Organization\u2019s Awards Banquet CONCORD, NC \u2013 Nov. 22, 2013 – Brandon Sheppard came of age in 2012. In 2013, he became a star. After bursting onto the national dirt Late Model scene in \u201912 during his stint driving the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,4],"tags":[107,104,161,304,337,210,345,341,391,81,193,63,113,380],"division":[],"series":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-16025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-nationals","category-late-models","tag-belle-clair-speedway","tag-clarksville-speedway","tag-clay-hill-motorsports-park","tag-dirtcar","tag-feature","tag-featured","tag-hell-tour","tag-high","tag-oakshade","tag-oakshade-raceway","tag-states","tag-summer-nationals-2","tag-tracks-2","tag-ump"],"yoast_head":"\nBrandon Sheppard Ascends To Superstar Status With Spectacular 2013 Season On DIRTcar UMP Circuit - DIRTcar Racing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dirtcar.com\/divisions\/late-models\/brandon-sheppard-ascends-to-superstar-status-with-spectacular-2013-season-on-dirtcar-ump-circuit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brandon Sheppard Ascends To Superstar Status With Spectacular 2013 Season On DIRTcar UMP Circuit - DIRTcar Racing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For Sweeping Summer Nationals & National Weekly Series Titles, Young Driver Will Receive Nearly $50,000 At Organization\u2019s Awards Banquet CONCORD, NC \u2013 Nov. 22, 2013 – Brandon Sheppard came of age in 2012. 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