BULLS GAP, Tenn. (Sept. 4) — Brandon Sheppard raced virtually unchallenged off the outside pole to a flag-to-flag triumph in Saturday night’s 40-lap World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series feature at Volunteer Speedway.

But when the 28-year-old driver from New Berlin, Ill., spoke in victory lane, his first comment made his $10,000 score seem anything but uneventful.

“That was definitely one of the wildest races I’ve been a part of in a long time,” Sheppard said of the race that felt much more taxing to him than it looked to everyone watching.

From three aborted attempts to start the feature — including one that beat up the machine driven by polesitter Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C. — to an early scrape with a spinning lapped car to running the high-banked, 4/10-mile oval’s choppy outside lane, Sheppard had plenty of reasons for expressing a sense of relief after securing his eighth WoO checkered flag of the 2021 season for the Rocket Chassis house car team.

Following a final restart with two laps to go, Sheppard crossed the finish line 0.889 of a second ahead of Madden, who went the distance in the runner-up spot despite racing with his car’s left-side door thoroughly mangled from contact with Ricky Weiss of Headingly, Manitoba, on the third unsuccessful attempt to start the race.

Michel Chilton of Salvisa, Ky., finished third — hot on Madden’s tail at the race’s conclusion — with his car throwing off smoke from its rear end over the final 10 circuits. WoO rookie Tyler Bruening of Decorah, Iowa, who started 10th, placed fourth after breaking into the top five for the first time on lap 34 and 11th-starter Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill., was fifth.

Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., rallied from the rear after pitting on lap 19 to finish sixth while Weiss held third place until slowing on lap 34 with a flat right-rear tire and settling for a 10th-place finish.

The race began in decidedly uneven fashion with its first three starts aborted. The original green flag was waved off because officials ruled that third-starting McDowell fired early, earning him a one-row penalty. On the second try three cars near the back of the pack — Brent Larson, Dakotah Knuckles and Jimmy Whisler — tangled in turn four. Then, on the third attempt, Weiss and Madden came together on the homestretch, setting off a chain-reaction pileup behind them.

Weiss, who was moved from fifth to third by McDowell’s original-start penalty, buried the right-front corner of his car in Madden’s left-side door as the field fired. The two cars came to rest stuck together past the flagstand as several other cars — including 2020 Volunteer WoO winner Zack Mitchell, Vic Hill, Jensen Ford and Boom Briggs — stacked up in their wake.

Madden climbed out of his car and had some angry words for Weiss, who remained in his mount’s cockpit as officials pried the two cars apart. After they were separated, both drivers were able to reclaim their original starting spots because a lap had not been completed.

While Weiss’s car sported nose and other bodywork damage, Madden’s machine had its crushed left-side door pushing into the left-front tire as he pulled away. Nevertheless, Madden stayed on the track, though he was unable to get the jump on Sheppard when the race restarted because his XR1 Rocket was handicapped for the entirety of the race.

Sheppard acknowledged afterward that Madden’s troubles allowed him to surge into the lead and stay there.

“I don’t think I would’ve been able to pass Chris if one of them first restarts would’ve went, so the key was getting the jump on that (third) start there,” Sheppard said. “Unfortunately for him he had some body damage, so he probably took off a little worse that last start which gave me a little bit of an advantage.”

Sheppard never looked back once he gained command. Six more caution flags prevented him from building a significant edge — the longest stretch of uninterrupted racing was 10 laps — but he handled all the restarts with aplomb to register his 77th career WoO victory, moving him within one of Josh Richards’s all-time tour record total.

“It feels really good to get one here,” said Sheppard, who won one of the tour’s two events at Volunteer last year. “We’re usually not very good at these tracks down here. Our car’s really good, but I’m not used to driving these places as much as some of these guys. It’s a good confidence builder going into next week (the double World 100s at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio).”

Madden, 46, soldiered on to finish second after turning back several restart challenges from Weiss and Chilton’s late-race bids. He wasn’t happy, however, about how his hopes for victory had been dashed.

“The handling of the car didn’t go away. It got destroyed before it ever got started,” Madden said of the tangle with Weiss. “He jumped over the tire, chewed the left-rear tire off of it, the left-front’s chewed off of it. So a guy anticipating the start, jumped the start. Me and Brandon tried it two or three times, we had perfect starts, no problems. Just the guys behind us can’t do what they’re supposed to do.”

The 35-year-old Chilton, meanwhile, knew his car was trailing smoke as the race wound down but it never slowed his pace.

“The gauges were fine,” said Chilton, who started fourth. “I seen (the smoke) on the Jumbotron (video screen) there on that last caution. I smelled a little rearend grease so I figured that was probably what it was. By the time it’s already smoking (the rear is) junk anyway, so Winters builds a helluva rearend. I guess it ran the last 15 laps with no oil in it.

“I hated to see those cautions there at the end. I could kind of get a run on Chris — he had a lot of damage there — and I thought we were gonna get to second. But that’s all right. We’ll take third. That’s a good night for us.”

Nine caution flags slowed the race, including the three aborted original starts. The fourth slowdown nearly included Sheppard, who clipped the spinning lapped car driven by Knuckles in turn four but escaped with only minimal damage to his car’s right-side door. Other cautions flew for McDowell (lap 19), Austin Neely (lap 25), Vic Hill (lap 33), Weiss (lap 34) and Drew Kennedy (lap 38).