ABERDEEN, S.D. — In a groove-swapping battle through the middle of Tuesday’s Bullet Sportswear Shootout, polesitting Brandon Sheppard and fifth-starting Josh Richards maneuvered around the Brown County Speedway oval, looking for the fastest way around.

When the high-running Sheppard left the door open for Richards on lap 35, the Shinnston, W.Va., pounced, grabbing the lead in the midweek Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and cruising the rest of the way for a $10,000 victory.

The 32-year-old Clint Bowyer Racing driver — formerly of the Rocket house car now fielded by Sheppard — grabbed his second Lucas Oil Series victory of the season and 27th of his career.

“Hopefully we can get a few more now,” Richards said in victory lane after 50 laps of action. “We’ve had a lot of speed lately. We started the year off a little rough, but I can’t thank Anthony, and Jeff and Brad and Andrea and everyone (enough) for working so hard and not giving up. That’s what we’ve gotta do.”

Richards took the checkers 2.210 seconds ahead of 11th-starting Tim McCreadie of Watertown, S.D., who wrestled the runner-up spot from front-row starter Stormy Scott of Las Cruces, N.M., on the final lap. Sheppard, of New Berlin, Ill., settled for fourth while series points leader Jonathan Davenport rounded out the top five finishers in the tour’s third race at the South Dakota oval.

Sheppard got out front early while Richards took the second spot from Scott on the eighth lap and took up a chase of the Rocket house car. The frontrunners and the rest of the field sought the quickest line — many of them moving to the high side before halfway — and Richards closed in to pressure Sheppard by the 20th lap, just before Scott regained the third spot from Davenport.

Richards continued to experiment with high and low grooves and closed in on Sheppard as he tried to put a lap on Pat Weisgram — Sheppard running the top, Weisgram holding the bottom groove, and Richards nosing in between briefly on the backstretch before easing up on lap 28.

With Sheppard sticking with the high groove Richards charge underneath with 16 laps remaining to take command and wasn’t headed the rest of the way.

“We had a really good car. We knew Brandon was the one to beat tonight — he was good all night long,” Richards said. “I felt OK, I felt a little free in the heat race. We made a couple of changes and the track got a lot slicker than I anticipated. I knew once he got out front, I just tried to maintain. Actually (Sheppard) was (good to judge the track by), because I could move around and the car really worked. We were able to get by him there, so he was the run to set the pace.

“I just can’t thank (his CBR crew) enough. I feel like we should’ve won a lot more races than we have this year. We've had a lot of speed and consistency lately, and it’s good to finally get a win and give the team what they deserve.”

Richards pulled away to lead by more than three seconds in the race’s late stages, but he was still looking for a faster line.

“I was trying to move around, just trying to keep my speed up,” said Richards, whose previous South Dakota victory came in 2009 at Huron’s Dakota State Fair Speedway. “We were going to slow there at the end, it just felt comfortable because you can really park in that bottom and lose your momentum. I kept watching (wife) Andrea, she was giving my signals.”

McCreadie was glad to improve nine positions in finishing second, but he was still bristling over contact with Michael Norris — subbing for an ailing Don O’Neal as a temporary CBR teammate to Richards — in a heat race that sent him over the banking and left him with a sixth-row feature starting spot. His progress in the feature was aided by good fortune, he said.

“We got a couple of bottom restarts. For me, this is a nice little (track) condition. If I stay low down the straightaway, I can gain some traction,” he said. “ Sometimes when them guys swing out they just leave a whole lane open and as long as you don’t go in there and brutalize ‘em, it’s part of racing. I mean, we don’t really hit anybody, we just kind of get there, and when they start to come down, you’re already there.

“Josh did a great job. I wish we could’ve had (a few more laps). But that’s OK. You gotta build off your fifths and your fourths and you get to second to try to win. So hopefully when there’s 50-grand on the line this weekend (at I-80 Speedway) we’ll get up front.”

Scott, the modified ace moving up the national Late Model touring in 2019, notched his second top-five finish in four races and best performance of the season.

“It’s tough being on the road, and when you’re struggling, it’s real tough, and this is a complete different deal for us,” he said. “It’s just been, probably one of the hardest racing years of my life so far. But we’ve got this momentum going, and I’m pretty excited, especially with I-80 (coming up), these (Bloomquist) cars seem like they really run good there, so it sounds like maybe it’ll be up to me.

“It just lifts everybody’s attitude up and makes everybody smile, and when something goes bad, it’s easier just to put that off … hopefully we can just keep this going.”

Scott ran second early, then dropped back to fourth before reversing course and regaining the second spot on a lap-39 restart. He held that position until McCreadie went by on the final lap.

“I kinda had to just gather my head and think to myself, ’Smooth out and stay straight.’ If your car is a little too tight — which I was a little too tight — don’t break traction, just drive out and make it wide and try to keep momentum. Don’t break it,” Scott said “I’m just excited that I can get back up there. I wish I could’ve kept that second (spot). I could hear — I didn’t know it was Timmy — but I could hear someone right there behind me and I kept just getting tighter and tighter and pushing out. I guess if I wanted second I probably should’ve just tried to hug those tires, but I was just, at that point, was giving it all it was worth.”

Three cautions slowed the action, first on the 10th lap for Ryan Engles then again on lap 39 for a Billy Moyer Jr. flat tire. Another yellow appeared just before the lap-39 restart when Hudson O’Neal slowed with a flat.

Notes: After Late Model heats, rain beginning about 8:40 p.m. delayed action briefly during modified prelims. ... Rain hit about 8:40 p.m. during modified heat races, bringing out a double rainbow over turn one and causing a 13-minute rain delay to the night’s action. … All 24 entrants started the main event. … The national tour kicked off a five-night stretch of racing that continues at Jackson (Minn.) Motorplex and then three straight nights at I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Neb.

Correction: Fixes spelling of race sponsor.