Brian Purdham has won the last four Late Model Stock Car features at Shenandoah Speedway. If he can win his fifth consecutive race at Shenandoah on Friday night, it would be the biggest win of his career.
The stage is being set for the biggest race to ever be held at Shenandoah Speedway, located in the mountains of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. The Racing for Wishes 150 will pay $6,000-to-win, the largest payout at Shenandoah Speedway and could see the largest field in Shenandoah Speedway’s young history.
The car Purdham has scored his four wins in has only five starts on it but it has been fast and Purdham, who has raced at Shenandoah ever since the track opened.
“This will be the sixth race for this car,” Purdham said. “It’s a brand new car. We ran three races at Shenandoah last year, one race it was off so we worked on it. It has five races on it and four wins. It’s a brand new car. We’re pretty excited. Me and my dad (Allen) and two guys that work at the shop with me, we work on the thing right now.”
While names like Philip Morris will invade Shenandoah on Friday, Purdham has home track advantage in a way and he hopes that advantage will translate into the biggest win of his racing career.
“I’ve raced at Shenandoah since it opened,” Purdham remarked. “I won the very first race there in a U-CAR. I’ve probably turned 10,000 laps there in 10 years so I know my way around. I’m pretty confident about Friday. There’s been more competition there the last two years than there have been. We want to branch out and run other places, but Shenandoah’s in our back yard so it’s easier to run there. I’m excited about this weekend.”
Purdham will be running with a GM 604 Crate Engine but he says Shenandoah’s a handling track, not a horsepower track.
“Until recently, we haven’t had the funding to run other places,” Purdham explained. “In the last couple years, we have newer cars. I have the best of the best shocks and springs. Shenandoah’s not a motor racetrack and we run the e604 Crate Motor and I’ve run the same motor for a couple years and that’s all I’ve ever ran there and that motor does pretty good.”
It would be a huge win for Purdham if he can score the victory on Friday night as a marquee event comes to his backyard for the first time ever.
“I have a huge fan base there and I have a bunch of people coming,” Purdham commented. “It would be awesome to win. We went to these first two races to test for this race. They inverted nine cars on Saturday night. We were going to ride where we were but, by lap 10, half the field wrecked out and we were able to get near the front. Car turns exceptionally well in the corner. That’s where we’re beating them. Temperature’s going to be the same as it was the first night. We’re definitely excited, sure.”
While he likes his chances of winning, he also knows that he will be racing alongside some of Late Model Stock Car racing’s elite and that means a lot for him as a driver.
“I’m friends with Philip and I like racing guys like him because you know they know how to drive a racecar. They’re not going to put you in the wall. I’m excited about him coming and he’s probably the best Late Model driver there ever was so I’m excited to run against him.”
The Racing for Wishes 150, which is being organized and promoted by Jeffrey Thielscher of KT Racing, will go green at 6pm EST on Friday night, April 24th. Proceeds from the event will go to benefit the Greater Virginia Make-A-Wish Foundation.
