SPRING RUN, Pa. — With a large points gap starting to get even bigger, Bobby Pierce needed momentum. After four straight podium finishes, he didn’t finish better than 10th in his last two World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Model Series races.
That changed at Path Valley Speedway Sunday night. He powered from eighth to the win, scoring his second win of 2024.
Beginning the bullring battle in the eighth, Pierce immediately moved up to the sixth and tried finding any sweet spot for him to find an edge to place himself in contention to win the 40-lap feature.
Pierce used every open lane of the track to maneuver his No.32, moving into the top-three with the halfway mark shown on the flag stand.
With laps ticking down, the urgency to get to the lead had Pierce doing what he does best, ripping the high line around a short track.
He got by Brandon Sheppard, then tracked down Mason Zeigler for the top spot.
With Zeigler stuck behind lapped traffic, Pierce took his chance, nailing the throttle off turn two to fly by him, squeezing through the slower cars in his way, to take the Feature lead.
From there, Pierce used any lane he could to gap Zeigler, who began using the middle lane to try and run down the defending Series champion.
However, Zeigler’s efforts weren’t enough to catch the “Smooth Operator,” who took home the landmark win in the World of Outlaws Late Model Series’ 900th featurr.
“First off, this place was really badass,” Pierce said. “I was looking forward to it for sure. We struggled in Hot Laps, so it had me really worried to start. We worked on it and had a good qualifying effort. Drew the eight in the pill draw and I was like ‘Man, I don’t think we’ll be able to get ‘er done.’ But we had a good car, and I can’t thank my crew enough.
“The track really came around to me cause I snookered the guys up in turns one and two. It was a super fun race all around, we caught some breaks here and there and it was just an awesome race track. I thought they over-watered the track, but it was all it took to make two lanes out there. We really needed that, badly.”
Zeigler crossed the finish line second.
“I could’ve done some things different,” Zeigler said. “In that condition, I was judging the drivers on the outside that I was trying to lap, and he wasn’t gaining much on the lapped car on the inside, but he wasn’t no Bobby Pierce. I didn’t know who was coming up from behind me and where they were running. I could hear cars all around me because it was such a small racetrack, so if I had known it was Bobby coming after me, I probably would have moved up or be more aggressive.
“It is what it is, hindsight if I go up and try it and goof it one time, maybe he gets by anyway. Whenever he got by me and I found the middle, it was too late. I just made the mistake of not being in the right places.”
Sheppard came home in third.
“The biggest consistency is our inconsistency,” Sheppard said. “I’ll take tonight for what it is. We had a solid night, the car felt pretty good, and we gotta repeat it. We did a few different things with setting up the car tonight and I felt better in certain situations, so we may have something there that we can take and race a little bit. That’s where we’ve been struggling, and we’ve got to find something that we can take track-to-track to be up front from when we unload. Just gotta keep working, man…
“I had a lot of fun at this place, the track was really cool and looked like some of the places back home, like Peoria, but different because of the dirt, of course. All in all, we had a decent night, so we’ll just take it for what it is and go to work to get that consistency in the top five.”
Ryan Gustin came home in fourth place and Dennis Erb Jr. completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 32-Bobby Pierce[8]; 2. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[2]; 3. B5-Brandon Sheppard[5]; 4. 19R-Ryan Gustin[7]; 5. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[10]; 6. 40B-Kyle Bronson[16]; 7. 9-Nick Hoffman[1]; 8. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[12]; 9. 19-Dustin Sorensen[18]; 10. 45-Kyle Hardy[14]; 11. 97-Cade Dillard[13]; 12. 16-Tyler Bruening[9]; 13. 6-Jamie Lathroum[11]; 14. 22*-Max McLaughlin[19]; 15. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[17]; 16. B1-Brent Larson[23]; 17. 97C-Cody Overton[4]; 18. 11H-Keith Jackson[22]; 19. 2T-Kyle Lee[20]; 20. 3S-Brian Shirley[15]; 21. 14W-Dustin Walker[24]; 22. 6JR-Parker Martin[25]; 23. 72-Tyler Emory[3]; 24. 0-Rick Eckert[21]; 25. 44-Chris Madden[6]