I-94 EMR Speedway
Early WoO struggles in rear-view for hot Pierce
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt.com staff reporter
Bobby Pierce at I-94 EMR Speedway. (highsideraceshots.com)
FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (July 1) — Bobby Pierce wouldn’t have set out on the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series if he wasn’t serious about wanting to win the championship.
Nearly halfway point of the national tour’s season, it’s reasonable to think the Oakwood, Ill., superstar is right he’s supposed to be, atop the tour’s standings. But is that what Pierce himself hoped for from the outset? Not exactly, especially after a whirlwind Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., where he surprised most observers by announcing a full-season WoO run. | RaceWire
“I didn’t know how this Longhorn and everything would be hopping in it, and once we noticed we were pretty good right out of the gate, we were looking forward to going to Volusia,” Pierce said. “And came out of there a mess. To be here now, it’s definitely … we didn’t expect to be in the lead by now, or at all.”
Pierce’s 52-point lead over Chris Madden by the first week of July wasn’t conceivable two races into the 26-year-old’s WoO season.
Mechanical issues handed Pierce a 25th-place finish in the tour’s kickoff Jan. 19 event at Volusia. The night after that, an engine failure momentarily depleted Pierce of race cars — his primary car hadn’t been fixed from the night before — and that called for the anomaly of anomalies: Pierce filling in the Big Frog Motorsports No. 58 Rocket Chassis, a car that had Scott Bloomquist’s seat bolted in.
Bloomquist was supposed to race the car Jan. 20, but withdrew from the event because his health wasn’t at full strength. The Big Frog team called on Chris Ferguson to fill the seat, but he didn’t qualify for the night’s feature.
After Saturday’s fifth series win of the season Saturday at I-94 EMR Speedway, Pierce couldn’t help but think back to that time of great need. And how his mom helped put it all together.
“You can thank me for that,” Angie Pierce said. “They told us Bobby had the last provisional (that night at Volusia), and Bobby was like, ‘I don’t know what to do. We can’t even start the race.’ I was like, ‘I will find you something.’
“I had no bike, no four-wheeler … Ol' momma just put her legs on and started running, asking everybody in the pits. Of course, nobody wanted to let him because they didn’t want him having points. (The Big Frog team) was like, ‘Hell yeah!’ I was like, ‘He just needs starting points,’ and they were like, ‘Oh, no, we’re going to let him race it.’
“That really paid off,” Angie Pierce added. “That’s probably the difference in what we have in the lead right now … and very well could be the difference (at the end of the year). I was like, if we’re going to do this, we aren’t going to give up that easy.”
Pierce started dead last — 28th — and salvaged a 17th-place finish in the most unorthodox car he’s ever driven. And it may have very well saved his season.
“If it wasn’t for that, I don’t want to say we wouldn’t have come back for the second Volusia weekend, but we very, very likely might not have,” Pierce said. “That’s what I kind of meant when I said down there (in victory lane) I have a lot of people to thank. … I was in Scott’s seat, and I couldn’t reach far enough to go full throttle. I couldn’t even get maximum brake pressure.”
In terms of points, Pierce would still have the lead at this juncture in the season even if he couldn’t race Jan. 20’s feature. He earned 117 points that night and would have at least received 90 show-up points. A 27-point swing, however, would only give him a 25-point edge over Madden. And considering the WoO’s points structure gives feature winners four more points than second with a slim two-point falloff per position, Pierce knows every point is crucial.
“Between all that, we were very lucky to have some things go our way once they’re going on our way,” Pierce said. “It is a long year, though. .. “Right now, we’re in the lead, and we just have to keep it going.”
When Pierce was outside the top-12 in the standings, 66 points behind Madden from the season’s immediate jump, Bob Pierce encouraged his son to stay the course. He reminded him why they signed up for the WoO season in the first place, that the schedule is Midwest-focused and that two races don’t define a season.
“If you’re going to do this, you better stay with it no matter what,” Bob Pierce said. “If you fall back to 15th or 18th with 10 (races) to go, then there’s no reason in trying. … I hope it doesn’t happen and it comes down to the wire in Charlotte. That’d be kind of cool. Maybe we’re 20 points or 10 points behind, or ahead, and it’ll come down to the wire.
“He was talking about the World of Outlaws a few years ago, but that wasn’t in the cards. (Our crew) guys are fairly new to it, too, so that’s a little rough on them right now. No, that’s what Bobby wanted to do. I said, ‘Look, this is probably the year to do it.’ Maybe because he had a few good years there and had some money that — I don’t want say blow — if something went south, we would have kept going.”
Of course, Pierce winning the next visit to Volusia and the WoO’s third race of the year on Feb. 16 was monumental and the turning point of the season. Pierce has since outpaced Madden by 118 points, a considerable advantage that compares to the summer dominance of Brandon Sheppard when he won his WoO titles.
By July of 2021 and ’20, Sheppard had also outpaced his nearest competitor in the WoO standings by more than 100 points. Pierce could feel a run like this coming. He finished third in last month’s Dream at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, and third in the 100-lap, $100,000-to-win event at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway before back-to-back DIRTcar Summer Nationals wins at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Ill., and Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway.
Entering the seven-race Heartland Speedweek, he made his goal to erase Madden’s 40-point lead and march into summer full steam ahead.
“Our goals back in January, if we finished top-five in the points, we’d be happy with it,” Pierce said. “But we came into this week, with goals, by the time we’re done with it, to be in the lead.”
While Pierce believes this is the year to finally capture his first national touring title, it’s not like he sees the lack of a touring championship as a nagging void on his resume.
“Not really. I mean, like, I try to go and win as many races as we can, just do as good as we can,” Pierce said. “At the end of the year, if we can come away with some crown jewels, come away with some victories … keep the lights on in the shop, that’s what we try to do.
“There’s something about the Outlaws I do enjoy. The Outlaws have a long history with dirt racing and there’s some nostalgia there with me, like the video game and stuff like that. It would be cool to win it. Our plans were to run it all and, like, hey, if we get top five in points, that’s great. Just to try to win races and be as good as you can.”
Pierce, while consistently one of the nation’s winningest drivers year after year, does feel the pressure to click off more crown jewel wins. His last traditional crown jewel victory — of course the race list is often debated — is the 2019 Silver Dollar Nationals. He does have a 2017 Show-Me 100 victory, as well as victories in the ’16 Dream and Show-Me 100, but Pierce acknowledges it’s time to add more wins of significance to his resume.
“I agree. I think those guys, though, when crown jewels come along they really get on it,” Pierce said. “Sometimes, I feel like they aren’t showing their true speed until Eldora rolls around. We have to get a little better at places like that. They have good setups for races like that, too, and the longer races. The track gets slicker. We’ve been good at the short races, but if we can get better at the longer races, it’ll help us a lot.”
One long-distance race that comes to mind, of course, is Fairbury's Prairie Dirt Classic, a 100-lapper where Pierce is always among the favorites, but it’s never fallen his way.
“Well, it’s time. He needs that race,” Bob Pierce said. “He’s won every other race there and that’s the one that’s gotten away from him. I’ve done it six times. And I don’t know why, but he can’t seem to nail one. He’s nailed every big race I’ve won and then some. He can’t get it, but this year … we hope. He ain’t going to give up.”
Bobby Pierce says it’s time, too.
“It seems like there’s a lot of hype building for it,” said the younger Pierce, who lost the PDC to Brandon Sheppard on the last lap in 2019. “People know that I’ve had my misfortunes there. We’ll see. Like every race, you have pretend it’s a new one and go at it. We’ve been good at Fairbury a lot lately. I definitely think I’m one of the favorites to win it. But there’s a lot of good guys that’ll be there now, like (Ricky) Thornton … but I think we can get ’er done.”
Asked if he’s on top of his game right now, Pierce said, “Definitely, but we’re getting better. So you better watch out. We’re only getting better.”
And asked what it might take to dethrone Thornton as the No. 1 driver in the nation, Pierce called his shot.
“Race him and beat him,” Pierce said. “We’ll beat him. You heard it here first. Pierce and Ricky, one and two, but I’m No. 1.”
