He stumbled out of the gate due to mechanical issues, but Bakersfield’s Buddy Shepherd has the hot hand heading into the Spears Southwest Tour 134 on Saturday night at Kern County Raceway.
Shepherd is coming off a dominating victory at Irwindale Speedway on Sept. 17, with a second-place and two third-place finishes after the early-season gremlins.
“It was good for us,” Shepherd, 23, said of the Irwindale victory. “There were three races we were really close (to winning) last year, probably two we should have won. Then we had mechanical problems at the end of last year, then started this year off with mechanical issues that were kind of out of our control.
“A big change to winning at Irwindale was changing the brake (system). That definitely helped our race program a lot. We were just getting a lot of inconsistency with the old stuff. I feel like changing the system gave us more consistency and got rid of our problems at the same time.”
Shepherd came within a few hundred feet of having two wins this season. He led entering turn four on the final lap at Kern on June 18 but got bumped by Jace Hansen, who then drove by for his lone win on the season. Shepherd managed to not crash but wound up a disappointing second.
The two pretty much agreed to disagree over the incident, and it may be water under the bridge at this point of the season.
Jacob Gomes holds a 12-point edge over Jeremy Doss in the battle for the series championship with two races remaining. Hansen is a distant third in points.
Shepherd sits eighth in points after skipping a race. And while the Southwest Tour was his major focus this season, he is almost halfway through a stretch of competing in six very different consecutive contests at a variety of tracks.
He competed in the IMCA Modified races on the dirt at Bakersfield Speedway two weekends ago and ran an ARCA Menards Series West race (starting 12th and finishing fifth) on The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last Saturday night.
He’ll head to Nashville for the All American 400 next week, is back in Phoenix for another ARCA race the following weekend and winds up his season in the Southwest Tour race at Irwindale on Nov. 12.
Shepherd’s dad, Dick, won numerous dirt and pavement championships, and the younger Shepherd has built a pretty good resume as well.
Buddy Shepherd won a Legends championship at Kern County Raceway, three Late Model championships at Madera Raceway and a Late Model title at Kern.
But for sheer fun, that comes on the dirt.
“Me and my dad, we love to go dirt racing,” he said. “We go out there and have a blast on Saturday night. It’s not near the work it seems, at least for us, that goes into an asphalt car.”
But some of the best Modified racers in the state and nation often run at Bakersfield and that means Shepherd is in tough company.
And unlike asphalt racing where there is lots of practice time, dirt racers generally get about three practice laps and a short heat race before the main event.
“Very tough,” Shepherd said about the Modified competition at Bakersfield Speedway. “Those guys race once or twice a week, and I drive that thing maybe once every two months. I wish I got that type of seat time. They are just fun to drive.”
Also competing on Saturday night will be Pro Late Models and Spears Manufacturing Modifieds.
Seth Wise of Bakersfield carries a 61-point lead over Tyler Reif in the 80-lap Pro Late Model race. Wise has one win and seven other top-five finishes in nine races. The Modified feature is 60 laps.
An on-track autograph and trick-or-treat session for kids is set for 5:20 p.m., racing starts at 6. An aerial fireworks show will end the evening.
