Shirley went for a wild ride as he barrel rolled into turn three
Brian Shirley has landed in Georgia-Florida Speedweeks. He’s currently running with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series as they tour the South in a marathon string of dirt late model races.
On Saturday, Golden Isles Speedway hosted two feature events. The first was a makeup feature from the rain out in the night prior.
He was running in the 8th position, in a battle with Scott Bloomquist and Kyle Bronson. Suddenly, Shirley was pointed toward the outside heading into turn three. Nose first, he caught the wall.
He then began to climb the wall. He was pointed skyward. The car went into a barrel roll at the fastest point on the race track.
It rolled sideways across the top of the wall. The left rear wheel went flying about a hundred feet away from the car.
Almost three complete barrel rolls later, the car came to a stop on it’s roof in turn three. The medical staff arrived quickly. They rolled the car back on it’s wheels and Shirley climbed from the machine under his own power.
Brian Shirley talks about the crash at Golden Isles Speedway
We’ve all seen the video. But, I don’t think many people know what started that crash, including myself. Do you know what happened?
“I’m not really sure exactly what started it,” Brian Shirley told RacingNews.co . “I just know somebody got into me on the left side. It all happened so fast, it just shot me straight to the right.”
“Then, there it was. You just hit the wall, up and over you go.”
“I really don’t know. I’d have to see a video of it to understand it fully. It all happened so fast. It’s honestly all a blur.”
Brian Shirley heads to East Bay Raceway Park
And it didn’t start any better. Shirley unloaded the backup car and took it to the track for hot laps. He ended up getting a push back to the pit area without a lap of practice.
I would assume that’s your backup you rolled out. What happened in hot laps where it lost drive?
“We broke a driveshaft in hot laps.”
Then, things took a sudden turn. Shirley went out on the track without practice and put it on the pole!
You put it on the pole with no practice. How does that happen? Just years of coming down here?
“Aw hell. It showed we weren’t very good. I killed the motor in the heat race. We struggled pretty bad on Monday.”
“I wouldn’t say it was anything to do with — Honestly, it was probably just luck. We ended up being in the right spot on the race track that the car was good enough to put it on the pole.”
Shirley ended up with a rough heat race, finishing 6th. He made it into the feature on a fast time provisional and finished 25th.
“All in all, we just did a bad job on Monday, executing and doing what we need to do to be competitive.”
On Tuesday, Shirley qualified 3rd in group A. He then finished 2nd in his heat race. He finished 6th in the feature as Tyler Erb went on to pick up his 3rd LOLMDS win of the year.
The third night of six at East Bay Raceway Park is set to get underway.
“That’s the good thing about this deal. You get six night to figure it out,” Shirley stated.
Backup cars
Is a backup car really a backup? Or is it more of a clone of the primary car?
“Oh yeah, they’re just a duplicate of what our primary car is. Obviously, we run a car that we feel has a little bit of an edge, little better that the backup car.”
“All in all, they’re still the exact same thing. It’s just driver preference. You might run one. Say it’s a little better, then you just stick with it.”
“With that other car — One car we just ran all the time just to not wear and tear on our backup car to keep it fresh.”
How bad is that car?
“I don’t know yet.”
“We’ll send it back to Rocket when we get home. We’ll see what they want to do with it. If it’s salvageable or if we need to put a new frame under it,” Shirley concluded.
You can view the partial Brian Shirley crash video below. That’s all the Lucas Oil Racing TV coverage caught of the incident.
Brian Shirley crash video
Brian Shirley crash photos
More
East Bay Raceway Park Results: Feb 5, 2019
East Bay Raceway Park Results: Feb 4, 2019
Golden Isles Speedway Results: Feb 1, 2019
Brian Shirley explains what happened with the GR Smith ride
Links
Brian Shirley | Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series | Golden Isles Speedway
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