LONDON, ON – In 2004, Pete Shepherd captured the CASCAR Super Series Rookie-of-the-Year. On Victoria Day weekend Sheppard took aim of his sophomore season kicking it off with the MOPAR 250 at Delaware Speedway.
The weekend started on Saturday with practice and Shepherd’s brand new car was strong out of the box, as he turned in a fastest lap of 19.521 seconds. That was good enough for third quickest in the session. “We finished the car just before the weekend and figured that we would have a good car. All the hard work we did all winter paid off and it was fast.”
The next time the cars hit the track was for qualifying to set the grid for Sunday’s feature. And Shepherd stopped the clock in 19.593 seconds, just a hair off his fastest practice time, and a mere 6/100ths off the pole speed of Don Thomson Jr. “The track heated up from practice and we got a little loose. We didn’t run far off our practice time, but a couple more guys picked their speeds up. I think we’re in good shape for tomorrow.”
The green dropped on the MOPAR 250, and even though it was only Shepherd’s 16th career CASCAR start, Petey raced up front and looked like a seasoned veteran. He stayed in the top-five, racing with Peter Gibbons, Mark Dilley, and Kerry Micks, until the third caution of the race on lap 83 when he came to pit road for service. The # 50 machine returned to action deep in the field after giving up track position, but the move would pay off a short time later when another yellow flew and a host of leaders came to pit road. This put Shepherd back in the thick of the lead battle, being shown fourth on the leader board, but the pilot thought their Dodge might be developing a problem.
When the green re-appeared Shepherd concentrated on working his way to the front. He blasted through to third, fell back to fifth in traffic, before latching on to Ron Beauchamp Jr.’s bumper. Petey followed Ron past a number of cars, right to the front into second place on lap 145 before he started to fade on lap 162. “The car was starting to get loose, and it turned out to be oil leaking on the rear tire, and the car was a handful.”
Prepared by Maudsley Motorsports
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