QUINCY, Ill. — Bobby Pierce was able to put a perfect stamp on his weekend with the Lucas Oil MLRA on Sunday night as he rolled to victory lane for the third time on the weekend.
Pierce had his hands full for the duration of the 40 lapper that went green for the first 36 laps before the lone caution waved.
For the second night in a row, Pierce rolled off from the outside front row following his heat win, alongside polesitter Kyle Bronson who came from last to first in his own respective heat race. At the green flag, Pierce quickly shot to the lead and enjoyed the first 10 laps of the 40 lapper without any lapped traffic to impede his charge.
As the race progressed Bronson found himself fending off numerous challenges from Brian Shirley. Once Pierce finally began to catch lapped traffic it only took a matter of laps for Bronson and Shirley to erase the advantage that Pierce once held over the pack.
As the top side of the track began to take rubber Pierce found himself following lapped traffic, doing everything possible to make sure he did not give up the fast line around the quarter mile facility.
Shirley was able to clear Bronson late in the going and made multiple attempts to pass Pierce on the inside but was unable to duplicate the top side speed that Pierce was able to carry off corner exit.
As the lone caution waved on lap 36 it set up one last opportunity for a Pierce error, but just as he had done all weekend Pierce maneuvered his XR1 Rocket to victory and cashed in on another $3,000 pay-off.
Shirley who knew his best hope late in the going would be for a rare mistake from Pierce stated, “He (Pierce) was getting a little impatient with some of the lap cars, so I thought he might do something there, but it’s not big deal, we ran second and we got a couple good races next weekend and we will get ready for them.”
“If I had a mirror I would have probably been nervous, but I had my dad with the sticks down the backstretch, and for the majority of the race his sticks were really close, so I knew they were right there on me,” Pierce said.
“It (the track) made it an interesting show with him (Shirley) being right there the whole time and Kyle throwing that slider. He left me just enough room to get by him, thanks to him for driving me clean. I know if he could have gotten a few more feet he would have taken it on up and I would have had to tried to cross him over, but it was going to be pretty tough in the rubber,” concluded Pierce.
Following the leaders across the line in third was Dennis Erb, with Bronson and Logan Martin rounding out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1.Bobby Pierce 2.Brian Shirley 3.Dennis Erb 4.Kyle Bronson 5.Logan Martin 6.Hudson O’Neal 7.Mark Burgtorf 8.Mitch McGrath 9.Dewayne Kiefer 10.James Wilson 11.Jay Johnson 12.Jake Neal 13.Justin Reed 14.Jeremy Grady 15.Matt Mickelson 16.Joseph Gorby 17.Dylan Hoover 18.Will Vaught (DNS)