Duane Shields Closes Out National Career in Las Vegas

Las Vegas - Las Vegas racing icon Duane Shields closed out his national event driving career in front of his family and friends at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals held at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "I wanted to have fun and celebrate my career with my family and friends and that's really what this weekend was all about" Duane said. Duane qualified eighth with a 5.29 at 272 MPH in a surprisingly tough field of over 20 cars.

In the Four-Wide format, the two cars that cross the finish line first move on to the next round. Duane came in third and missed moving into the second round by only three-thousandths of a second as he scored a decent 5.30 at 274 MPH on his final pass ever at his hometown track. "We wanted to finish here with a win but still the car ran great all weekend and I'm happy with that. I wanted to repeat that 5.29 run we made in qualifying and had we done that we would have made it to the next round. But I still ended my career here on a high note with a strong performance and had a lot of fun" he said.

On Saturday night after qualifying, there was a celebration of Duane's career in the team's pit. "We had a great time and a lot of people showed up including friends from the other teams we have competed against over the years" Duane said. The race was also special for Duane as he was interviewed by Amanda Busic during FOX Sports' TV coverage. He was also added to the pro driver introductions at the pre-race ceremonies and was interviewed in front of the home crowd.

This coming weekend the Muscle Milk team returns to the Las Vegas track for an NHRA regional event with Madison Payne resuming the driving chores. "Madison will be back in the driver's seat and I will hand off the torch to her. It will be a much tougher race because it's only an eight-car field rather than sixteen at the national event and a lot of teams are staying over, so it will be hard just to qualify" Duane said.

Duane would like to thank all of his fans and sponsors that have supported his racing program over the years including his current sponsors: Muscle Milk, Clean Boost, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods, and Brad Anderson Enterprises