Late-Season Speed Has Shirley Poised for Top-Five Push at World Finals
Photo by Emily Schwanke
CONCORD, N.C.—The 2025 season will undoubtedly go down as one of the most eventful of Brian Shirley’s career.
It started with a violent fire in January, along with a string of other breakages and bad luck that wiped out the team’s inventory in the first two months of the year. Since then, Shirley and the Bob Cullen Racing team have clawed their way out of the hole and persevered through their third-consecutive full season on tour with the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision, which could potentially end with a career-best points finish.
On one hand, if Shirley was told at the start of the year that he would be going into World of Outlaws World Finals (Wednesday-Saturday, Nov. 5-8) with only one Series win on the season, he wouldn’t have been satisfied after winning five times a year ago. But if you told him what that one win would be – his first victory in one of the sport’s biggest events, the Prairie Dirt Classic – he would have certainly perked up.
“Coming off the end of the year last year, how well things were going, I would have definitely said you were lying,” Shirley said. “But the fact that we did get the PDC win was huge, and it makes up for a lot of things. But obviously there’s still disappointment in the situation as far as only having one win on the year.”
The story of Shirley’s 2024 campaign was how he came on strong in the closing stretch, with four of his five wins coming in the final 10 races of the season. Despite making fewer trips to Victory Lane in 2025 than he would prefer, Shirley has once again turned into one of the most consistent drivers in the country over the past two months. After racking up 10 top fives in the first 30 races of the year, he’s finished there in nine of his last 10 starts, with brake issues at Boothill Speedway being the only thing keeping him from a double-digit streak.
“I do believe we would be right there, top three in points if we didn’t have such a bad start to the year,” Shirley said. “If you look back at the points, probably even a month or two ago, I mean, we were 300, 400 points behind even fourth or fifth place. I felt like we put in a strong effort at the end of the year here. Our biggest goal is to put everything in place to hopefully be a title contender. You just can’t have the problems we had and try and overcome them with guys like Bobby [Pierce], [Nick] Hoffman, [Tim] McCreadie. You don’t make up that type of ground without other people having problems, and it shows that those guys are obviously consistent enough.”
Shirley’s recent streak of success has allowed him to climb up the points table to his current position, a tie with Dennis Erb Jr. for fifth in the standings. Like Shirley, Erb has also had his highs and lows this season, as a sluggish start gave way to a run of six podiums in nine races in June and July and an eventual first World of Outlaws win in two years at Humboldt Speedway in October.
The pair of Illinois drivers have been trading paint for two decades at both the regional and national levels, and both know they’re in for a hard, but fair battle at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in two weeks. A $20,000 difference in end-of-year championship payouts is on the line, and there’s only one way for Shirley to get it – by beating the No. 28 car over the course of the final three race nights.
“Dennis has also had a great second half of the year,” Shirley said. “For a guy like himself that defeats a lot of odds racing with just him and Heather [Lyne, crew chief]. You’ve got to be proud of their team for what they’ve accomplished, being able to get themselves in a top-five position. But for us, that’s the ultimate goal, we want to end a tough season on a high note, wrap up a top five in points and look forward to doing better than that next year.”
Shirley has already begun the process of getting dialed in for World Finals, as he was one of more than a dozen competitors present at a Longhorn Chassis test session at Charlotte on Monday night. With two to three Hot Laps moments before Qualifying being the norm, any chance teams get to turn laps ahead of time is a welcome one.
“I felt like it was a positive test,” Shirley said. “Guys like Bobby, Jonathan Davenport, there were other great drivers there trying to prepare themselves for the best weekend possible for the World Finals. I’m definitely feeling, not overconfident, but where our program is right now, we had great lap times there late in the night when the track got slick. Like anything, you’ve got to practice, and you’ve got to put in the time and effort to get better. That’s one thing, I am proud because my team’s willing to spend that money, and my guys are willing to give up the time and sacrifice their lives for us to have a better performance at the track.”
Given the unique World Finals format in which Qualifying for Thursday and Friday’s programs is held on Wednesday night, a lack of speed off the trailer to start the week can tarnish the rest of the event. That’s why maximizing single-lap performance was of utmost importance for Shirley at the test, and the results have him feeling optimistic about his chances of finishing strong and potentially grabbing his first Charlotte victory.
“Charlotte was definitely a little different objective for me than a normal practice night,” Shirley said. “I wanted to make sure that when we went to Charlotte, I was hoping that we were up to speed for Qualifying. Know that you can go around the racetrack wide open and keep good speed through the corners, so that way you qualify good. And then when the track goes away, you want to make sure you’re in the right ballpark for keeping up with the grip levels. We weren’t really trying to adjust and work on trying to find better speed than what we have, we were just trying to make sure that the speed we’re at right now is good enough to hopefully win the race when we’re down there.”
The 2025 World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision season concludes at The Dirt Track at Charlotte as part of World of Outlaws World Finals, Wednesday-Saturday, Nov. 5-8, alongside the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the Super DIRTcar Series. Get your tickets in advance by clicking here.
If you can’t make it to the track, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
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