In a press release announced by Rocket 1 Racing this morning, it was revealed that one of two four-time World of Outlaws Late Model Series champions is switching tours.
Brandon Sheppard, the winner of the past three points championships with the World of Outlaws, is taking his early season success to the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.
“The past few years we’ve come out of Speedweeks either atop the Lucas Oil (Late Model Dirt Series) points or near the top of the standings. This year was the same, and after Speedweeks we had a meeting as a team to discuss if we wanted to try something different this year, and it was a unanimous decision to go after the Lucas Oil title,” team owner Mark Richards said in a press release.
The move comes to fans as a surprise – Sheppard has been the flagship driver for the Outlaws’ over the past five seasons.
“The World Racing Group and the World of Outlaws have been great to us over the past several years, and we are grateful for all the support they’ve shown us,” Richards said. “We’re just to a point that it was time to shuffle the deck and try something new, and who knows, next year we might be back chasing a World of Outlaws Late Model Series championship.”
In the late model world this season, there’s a large number higher-paying races that are sanctioned by three different entities – the Outlaws, Lucas Dirt, and Race XR.
Less and less drivers are securing themselves to running a singular series for a points championship.
This also takes Sheppard out of running for the crown at this week’s Bristol Bash, as he’ll have a Lucas Dirt commitment to attend to.
“I think the most exciting aspect for our team is that we’ll get to run some events and visit some tracks this year that either we haven’t been to in a long time or maybe we’ve never even been to,” Richards said. “We are going to put everything we’ve got into getting our first Lucas Oil championship this year.”
The next LOLMDS races will be ran on Friday and Saturday at Tri-City Speedway as well as Macon Speedway, both in Sheppard’s home state of Illinois. The No. 1 team’s next race will be tonight at the FloRacing Night in America Series at Eldora.
