It may have taken 36 races, but Brandon Sheppard is winless no more. The New Berlin, Ill., driver who had yet to find his triumphant touch to begin the season at the wheel of his new Longhorn Chassis finally put it all together Sunday night in the MARS Championship Series event at Red Hill Raceway in Sumner, Ill.

Sheppard led all 30 laps from outside the front row and topped Tanner English of Benton, Ky., for the $5,000 payday.

“Yeah, it feels awesome to finally get this first win out of the way,” said Sheppard, whose last win occurred Oct. 22 in World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series competition at 81 Speedway in Wichita, Kan. “Man, me and the guys have been working really hard. … It means the world to me.”

Judging the past two nights in his homeland, it was only a matter of time that Sheppard would put the nagging reality of being winless behind him. He finished second at Brownstown (Ill.) Bullring on Friday to Tyler Erb, briefly grabbing the lead with three laps to go only to lose out on the checkers by a half second. On Saturday at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway, Sheppard fell a car length short to Shannon Babb in a near-photo finish.

It’s certainly not a prototypical start to Sheppard’s season (last year he won six times through 36 races), but it’s progress, even if the win came among a slender 22-car field with only one fellow national touring driver to compete against in English.

“It’s been tough. There’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Sheppard said. “We’ve been getting rolling here really good the past couple of weeks. It feels really good to get the first one out of the way. Hopefully we have some more to come. We’re finally getting some consistency. We weren’t sure if we were going to come tonight, but as good as the past two nights have been, we’ve really wanted to come and try again.

“We’ve been right there at the end of the race the past two nights. We finally put a whole night together. We haven’t been able to qualify very good. We just keep getting better and better every night, just getting these cars to fit me. They’re a lot different than what I’m used to. Just really thankful for everything. Hopefully we can continue this consistency.”

English, who finished 3.692 seconds behind Sheppard, gladly settled for second knowing that he didn’t quite have what it took to match the winning pace.

“It’s not bad. We kind of put ourselves behind the 8-ball there drawing that five (pill),” English said. “I don’t know if I had anything for Brandon there. He was pretty fast. I would have liked to have a restart there, see what we can do. All in all, a pretty good night. To come out in one piece, that’s pretty good.”