Brian Shirley’s pep talks began as soon as he climbed out of his car in the pit area following Friday’s 50-lap Wieland Winter Nationals feature at Ocala Speedway.

He certainly needed the positive words. Without some light-hearted encouragement from such friends as Longhorn Chassis owner Steve Arpin, who was among the first people to stop by, Shirley would have had even more trouble dealing with his latest excruciating bout with misfortune.

“I don’t know what to say,” Shirley said, shaking his head his dismay as he stood alongside his Bob Cullen-owned machine.

Friday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned event won by Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., marked the seventh straight Georgia-Florida Speedweeks outing yielding no success for the 43-year-old driver from Chatham, Ill., since he escaped injury in a scary heat-race fire on Jan. 28 at Needmore Speedway in Norman Park, Ga. The reason for Shirley's latest misery was a flat right-rear tire that developed as he ran second in Friday's 50-lapper and ultimately forced him to bring out a caution on lap 16 after losing a couple spots.

Shirley glanced over at his team’s tire rack a few feet away and pointed to the cause of his 20th-place finish, his fourth result of 20th-or-worse in as many nights of Winter Nationals action at the 3/8-mile, D-shaped oval.

“Truthfully, it would be nice for America to hopefully just see what happened,” the subdued Shirley remarked, drawing attention to his deflated tire. “There’s just a cut in the center of the tire. Just ran over something. There’s nothing you can do.”

If Shirley thought his run of hard luck might have changed Thursday when he caught a break with a right-rear tire explosion happening as he crossed the finish line second in his heat race, his ensuing hardships wiped away that possibility. He was involved in two incidents during Thursday’s 40-lap feature — first clipping Drake Troutman’s spinning car on lap two, then getting collected in a multi-car accident on lap 32 — that put him on the verge of throwing in the towel on his week at Ocala and resetting for next week’s DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.

Shirley’s car was left a mangled mess after his 22nd-place finish on Thursday. Its right-rear bodywork was thoroughly thrashed from the scrape with Troutman, and the second wreck “knocked the front suspension off it and wiped out every body panel on the car.”

“Last night, this car was down to the frame, you know what I’m saying?” Shirley said. “After the feature, we took everything off, and if it wasn’t for (good friend and fellow racer) Kyle (Bronson), I was leaving. He just said, ‘Here, I’ll help you put it together.’ Kyle and his guys pitched in, and we worked till about 2 (a.m.) and we had it to where almost all the body was on it and we just had to finish the nose up today.”

The late night of work left Shirley and his crew dragging physically because it was another instance of long hours they needed to put in during Speedweeks. In fact, Shirley and Co. arrived at Ocala on Monday night already sleep-deprived after spending the preceding days shuttling between Florida and Longhorn headquarters in China Grove, N.C.

After smacking the wall during hot laps for Feb. 1’s Lucas Oil weekend finale at All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla., Shirley loaded up his lone serviceable car — the one involved in the Needmore fire was already back at Longhorn after he stripped it down at friend and fellow racer Mark Whitener’s shop in Middleburg, Fla., and had one of Whitener’s pals transport it to North Carolina — and immediately hit the road for Longhorn. He arrived in China Grove in the early morning hours of Feb. 2 and was awake a few hours later to begin assembling the fire car, which had been closely inspected by Arpin’s staff, and repairing the mount he crashed at All-Tech.

The impact Shirley made with All-Tech’s wall was hard enough that the car needed significant work, including to its fuel cell bars. With that job added to putting the fire-struck car back together, Shirley didn’t leave Longhorn for the eight-hour drive to Ocala until Monday afternoon and thus missed the evening’s open practice session.

Shirley, who failed to qualify for all three features at All-Tech, kicked off Ocala’s meet showing speed Tuesday with the same car he had crashed at All-Tech as he drove to a heat-race victory. But any hope of a storybook rebound ended quickly in the 30-lap feature when he slowed with a flat tire on lap six while running fifth. That 22nd-place finish was followed by a 20th-place result in Wednesday’s 30-lapper after he again began the night with a heat victory but then spun himself out of third place on lap five.

A Speedweeks that began so promisingly for Shirley with a fifth-place finish in Jan. 17’s Lucas Oil Series opener at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga., has simply gone wayward. He hasn’t finished better than 10th in his 10 starts across four tracks since leaving Golden Isles and just feels like he can’t get back in a groove.

“I mean, the car feels all right, but we have a lot to learn,” Shirley said. “These guys are all finishing the races and knowing where their car is, and we’re just sitting here (out of contention every night). Like (Thursday) night, I felt like I over-tightened the car a little bit for what the track was, and tonight I felt like I could’ve been a little bit tighter, so it’s just, like, you’re not even understanding how the race plays out to even remotely get better.

“It’s a disappointment, because we do have a good race car. But to understand how to beat these guys you gotta finish the races.”

Constant repairs are also taking away from Shirley’s focus on winning, something he’s never done during Speedweeks despite trekking south for the mid-winter stretch of racing numerous times over the past 15-plus years.

“That’s the problem,” Shirley said. “You can’t just throw all that stuff back on (a damaged car) and think you’re gonna beat these guys. These guys are just too good for that, and I know it in my heart.”

Shirley was confident that he returned to competition on Friday with his car prepared as well as he could have expected. He made sure of that or he wouldn’t have raced.

“If I truly don’t feel I have a shot to beat ‘em, then why are we here?” Shirley said. “So for me, I don’t want to have an excuse, like, ‘Oh, you didn’t fix your right front,’ or, ‘You didn’t fix your left front.’ There is no excuse today. Today, when we rolled on the track, I felt like my car was 100 percent.”

Nevertheless, Shirley understands that he’s still playing from behind because he’s spending too much time fixing damage.

“It’s frustrating because we’re not working on getting better,” he said, “we’re working on rebuilding race cars.”

The resilient Shirley still believes, though, that a turnaround in his moribund fortunes is possible before Speedweeks 2025 concludes.

“It’s gotta change,” Shirley said of his luck as his voice trailed off and his thoughts shifted to Saturday’s $25,000-to-win finale at Ocala.