Rain postponed the finale at Williams Grove on Friday and will be made up on Saturday night. Following that event, Shaffer and his team will quickly pack up and head east to Orange County Fair Speedway for Sunday night’s event. Also on the horizon are events at The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway and the series debut at Virginia Motor Speedway to follow next week as the East Coast swing continues. This has Shaffer and his fellow drivers excited as they begin to race three and four times a week.
“It is a good time of the year when things start picking up and we start running during the week and on the weekends, ” said Shaffer. “We just need this rain to stop following us. It seems like it has been following us around the country. The racing is always good out here. ”
Shaffer competed a couple of times in Pennsylvania earlier this season, while there were rain induced breaks in the World of Outlaws schedule. He finished second at Williams Grove Speedway at the end of March against a very strong field, that included a number of fellow World of Outlaws drivers, and he also competed a couple of times at Lernerville, earning Top-10 finishes in those events.
“It’s hard to stay sharp and to stay focused, ” he deadpanned of the rain plagued start to the season. “You just need to keep racing. This is by far the most rainouts that I have ever seen. It’s amazing that the weather can be that bad. We had one year where we thought it was following us around, but this year blows it away and we are not even in the heart of the season yet. ”
Shaffer enters this weekend with two Top-Five finishes in World of Outlaws action, with those coming at I-55 Raceway in Missouri and Eldora Speedway in Ohio. He is just 21 points out of the tenth position in the championship standings heading into action on May 18 at Williams Grove.
“You definitely click the more you race, ” said the 1993 Lernerville Speedway track champion. “Everyone goes through their motions and does their jobs. It clicks because you are doing it all the time and everyone is working together. ”
Shaffer was fifth quickest in time trials at Orange County Fair Speedway last season and ran in the Top-10 for most of the A-Feature, winding up 11th at the checkered flag. He finished sixth in 1999 with the World of Outlaws in his first visit to the track. He looks to use all of this experience at the track on Sunday, May 18 to run at the front of the field.
“Definitely a feature win would make it a good night, ” he said. “You have to qualify good and run good in the heat. You need to make the dash to get a good start in the feature. It’s the whole package deal. If it’s like the old surface, the pill draw will mean a lot. Hopefully the new surface will not make the pill draw as important. ”
| 
|