“Squirrel” led the remaining 21 laps to claim his second World of Outlaws CASE Late Models victory in 2024
Brian Shirley hit the ground running at the right time with the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models.
On Wednesday night, the Chatham, Illinois native earned a hard-fought victory in the series’ first race at Highland Speedway, with Bobby Pierce, Tyler Bruening and Brandon Sheppard trying their hardest to catch the No. 3S Late Model of Bob Cullen Racing.
Shirley started the evening with a win in Heat 4 and then won the Bilstein Pole Award for the $10,000 Beat the Heat 40 special feature.
He was then sent back to second place when Decorah, IA driver Tyler Bruening took the lead on the first lap by using the top line of the track. While Shirley tried to use the bottom line at the start, Bruening was able to pick up speed coming out of the turns and keep him at bay.
Bruening began to build a lead over Shirley as he battled with driver Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Illinois, for second place.
Numerous cautions in the first half of the race created new opportunities for the field to get past Bruening, especially Shirley, who was trying to surprise the No. 16 Skyline Motorsports machine and take the lead.
The chance to take the lead came on lap 19 when Shirley needed a slow start from Bruening to overtake him with a run across the center line of the 1/4-mile race track and take the lead.
Throughout the second half, Shirley maintained his distance from the hornet’s nest of cars behind him, while driver Cade Dillard of Robeline, LA, and driver Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, IL, found solid ground in the top five until halfway through the main event.
While Dillard engaged in a battle with Sheppard, Pierce, after overtaking Bruening, fought his way up the field to take second place behind Shirley.
When Pierce passed Bruening with four laps to go, it was too late for him to challenge Shirley and “Squirrel” took the checkered flag to take his second win of the 2024 season at his home state race track.
“It’s so great,” Shirley said. “There are a lot of places that can host World of Outlaws races, so it’s always special when you can win a race on home soil. We don’t get to come (to Highland) very often, so it’s always important and it’s great to win in front of a crowd like that.”
“Ultimately, a win always boosts morale. You become more confident. I’m not 100 percent sure where I want to go with the car, but I know we’re headed in that direction. The more races we do, the better we’ll be in the end.”
Pierce finished second, further narrowing the gap in the battle for the series title. He is 72 points off the lead in the overall standings, with 12 points races remaining in 2024.
“We fell back to ninth at the start,” Pierce said. “The restarts helped me get back through the field. Without those restarts, I would have been stuck back there. Hopefully we can get some wins here. We need the wins if we’re going to have any chance of scoring points. We need them badly.”
“I think we’ll be better though. I didn’t feel so good tonight so I’m looking forward to getting in the other car because I didn’t like the feeling here tonight. Somehow we got away in second place. The crew is working hard so I have to thank them. We have three races here and we’re going to try to win all three.”
Bruening finished third and achieved his first podium finish since 2022 with the World of Outlaws CASE Late Models.
“Finally a solid night from start to finish,” said Bruening. “Hot laps, we didn’t get off to a good start. We got the car back to what we’re used to and it took off right away. It’s a long week with three more races. It’s always good to start with a good result heading into the next races. We were good but we didn’t have the results we needed due to bad luck and complications. We pulled a solid night tonight and we’ll see what we can do next here.”
Sheppard finished fourth to extend his lead over driver Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, NC, to 46 points leaving Highland, IL. Dillard rounded out the top-five finish in the feature race.
SUMMARY OF NOTES:
Hottest lap in the Dirt King Simulator: Ryan Gustin
Simpson Quick Time Award: Cade Dillard
Heat Race Winners: Dennis Erb Jr., Brandon Sheppard, Tyler Bruening, Brian Shirley
Last Chance Showdown Winners: Shannon Babb, Tristan Chamberlain
Bilstein Pole Award: Brian Shirley
FOX Factory Hard Charger: Brent Larson (+9)
Next: The World of Outlaws CASE Late Models will race for the last time in 2024 at Spoon River Speedway in Illinois on Thursday, August 15. The “world’s most powerful Late Models” will then travel to Iowa for two nights in the Hawkeye 100 at Maquoketa Speedway on Friday and Saturday, August 16-17.
In addition to the racing on the track at Maquoketa, there will also be off-track activities for fans on Saturday, including a car show from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., a kids’ zone from noon to 4 p.m., the Hoker Trucking Toys for Tots fundraiser, a driver autograph session at 4:30 p.m. and a cornhole tournament starting at 12:30 p.m.
Get tickets for Spoon River Speedway HERE.
Get tickets for Maquoketa Speedway HERE.
If you can’t make it to the race track, you can watch every round of the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models season on DIRTVision – via your computer or mobile device.
CASE Late Model Feature (40 laps): 1. 3S-Brian Shirley(1); 2. 32-Bobby Pierce(7); 3. 16-Tyler Bruening(2); 4. B5-Brandon Sheppard(4); 5. 97-Cade Dillard(5); 6. 19R-Ryan Gustin(12); 7. 10-Daryn Klein(6); 8. 40B-Kyle Bronson(8); 9. 25-Jason Feger(14); 10. 28-Dennis Erb Jr(3); 11. 18-Shannon Babb(17); 12. 19-Dustin Sorensen(13); 13. 97JR-Cody Overton(15); 14. 9-Nick Hoffman(19); 15. B1-Brent Larson(24); 16. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain(18); 17. 78-Chad Zobrist(16); 18. 4-Jordan Suhre(22); 19. 52-Matt Bailey(9); 20. 22*-Max McLaughlin(23); 21. 17-Todd Rehg(25); 22. 11G-Gordy Gundaker(20); 23. 24H-Mike Harrison(10); 24. 27-Rodney Melvin(11); 25. 15-Clayton Stuckey(21)
