HARTFORD, Ohio (Aug. 30) — Brandon Sheppard is tough to beat. One driver who knows that fact all too well is Ricky Weiss.

New Berlin, Ill.’s Sheppard once again denied his Canadian rival a first career World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series victory, overtaking the Headingley, Ontario, driver for the lead coming to the white flag to win Friday night’s 25-lap Battle at the Border opener at Sharon Speedway.

The 30-year-old Weiss appeared primed to finally nab his elusive WoO checkered flag when he grabbed the lead on lap 20 by breaking free of a titanic four-car battle at the front of the pack that he waged for the second half of the race with Sheppard, Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga., and Chase Junghans of Manhattan, Kan. But Sheppard, 26, turned up the wick of his Rocket Chassis house car in the A-main’s final moments to surge ahead as lap 24 was scored and then beat Weiss’s family-owned Bloomquist machine to the finish line by 0.715 of a second.

As Sheppard earned $6,000 for capturing his second straight and 18th WoO triumph of 2019 — tying the national tour’s single-season win record in the process — Weiss mourned yet another close-but-no-cigar outing. It was Weiss’s fifth runner-up finish of his rookie WoO campaign — and four of them have come behind Sheppard.

The 26-year-old Junghans, who briefly nosed ahead to lead lap 19 before ceding the top spot to Weiss, lost touch with the race’s top-two finishers over the final circuits and finished third in his XR1 Rocket car. Clanton, 43, settled for a fourth-place finish in his Greg Bruening-owned Capital Race Car after starting on the pole and leading laps 1-18 while seventh-starter Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky., completed the top five.

Sheppard had a simple description of the wildly entertaining conclusion of the WoO tour’s first visit to Sharon in nine years: “It was definitely wild out there.”

Indeed, the race heated up immensely shortly after its halfway point. Clanton, Junghans and Weiss raced three-wide through slower traffic on lap 16 and again across the start-finish line on lap 18 — both times with Sheppard right behind looking for an opening — before Junghans shot through the middle to assume command on the 19th circuit.

Moments later, though, Weiss ducked underneath Junghans through turns one and two and moved into the lead on lap 20. Sheppard, meanwhile, shot past Junghans for second that same circuit and immediately began pressuring Weiss for the lead.

Using the inside groove, Sheppard fell inches short of taking the lead from Weiss on lap 23 before completing the pass the following circuit. Weiss attempted to make a final bid to regain command but slipped high in turn two and lost ground that he wasn’t able to make up at the other end of the 3/8-mile oval.

Sheppard was surprised that the bottom of the track propelled him to victory.

“It definitely was a different line than I was used to running, around the bottom there,” said Sheppard, who started sixth but immediately moved up one row when fourth-starter Boom Briggs of Bear Lake, Pa., smacked the turn-one wall on the original start to bring out the race’s lone caution flag. “But those guys were kind of all over the place and I didn’t really know where to go. I found a little bit of grip down there.

“I moved out a couple times and I noticed the middle-high was starting to get slippery so I was trying not to miss the bottom. It was really hard in (turns) three and four because there wasn’t much bottom down there either, so that last lap I just kind of floated across there and hoped for the best. I didn’t know how close he was or not, but I knew I was really good through one and two.”

Weiss, who started second and ran in the position until Junghans overtook him on lap 15, employed the inside lane to rally to the lead. Sheppard went lower, however, to pass him, and Weiss’s attempt to use the outside to regain the lead from Sheppard fell short.

“We were really good on the bottom,” said Weiss, who recorded his 11th podium finish of the WoO season. “We were three-wide going through lapped traffic, kind of give-and-take a little bit. I hit the right-front a little bit and it just pushed (off the bottom) a little bit the last five laps there and I just thought, Well, it’s kind of backwards, but I thought maybe I could pass Sheppy back on the top, but it was what it was.”

While Weiss was disappointed that he remained winless on the WoO tour, he didn’t show any dejection in victory lane.

“We definitely want to win, but in the back of our mind we didn’t think we’d be up this far in points so we’re trying to be a little smart out there,” Weiss said.”Hopefully we can hold that second place in points.”

Junghans said afterward that his car went away right after he spent one lap as the leader, leaving him to watch the Sheppard-Weiss battle for the win.

“It was definitely fun,” Junghans said of the competitive race. “I don’t know if I went too hard at the middle of the race or what, but towards the end I started fading back a little bit.”

Notes: Making his first-ever start at Sharon, Sheppard registered his 55th career WoO triumph and his 24th overall win of 2019. … Sheppard praised Sharon’s track crew for whipping up a racy surface: “This track was awesome tonight. The way this racetrack seems to be right now, it’s hard telling where the line’s gonna be tomorrow. It’s just a really great racetrack.” … Michael Norris of Sarver, Pa., finished sixth driving the Todd Cerenzia-owned No. 02 that he piloted to a WoO win earlier this year at his hometown’s Lernerville Speedway. … Ken Schaltenbrand, Andrew Wylie and Joel Watson had their qualifying times nullified for either weighing in light at the scales or not reporting to them. … The Battle at the Border weekend concludes on Saturday with a $15,000-to-win feature.