LA SALLE, Ill. — The FloRacing Night in America presented by Kubota dirt late model season stormed to life on Tuesday night with Bobby Pierce banking a $20,000 victory in the grand reopening of La Salle Speedway.
The 50-lap feature was brought to the green flag by Ryan Gustin and Drake Troutman with Gustin capturing the lead for the first three laps. Troutman pursued Gustin until lap four when he rocketed to the top spot.
Through both open track and lapped traffic Troutman held the top spot as Bobby Pierce marched from the sixth spot up to the second position.
The Oakwood, Ill., racer progressively began reeling Troutman in and as the leaders completed lap 27, Pierce used the high line to take the lead.
As Troutman slipped backward the battle between Pierce and the seventh-starting Ricky Thornton Jr. began to heat up for the lead before a caution flag waved with eight laps remaining.
On the restart, Pierce motored away from the field to claim his first miniseries win of the year and his all-time series best eighth win.
“(Promoter) Tony Izzo (Jr.) did a great job, the track was phenomenal. I know the infield tires got knocked down here in (turns three and four), it got a little dusty and stuff,” Pierce said. “If you could hit a good lap on the top, it was really fast. You could go to the bottom and kinda make some passes down there, too. Pretty cool to see a race track come back to life like this. You know there’s a lot of good fans in this area, they deserve a good track here so that’s cool to see.”
Thornton Jr., Nick Hoffman, Brandon Sheppard and Jonathan Davenport completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 32-Bobby Pierce[6]; 2. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[7]; 3. 9H-Nick Hoffman[9]; 4. 1-Brandon Sheppard[4]; 5. 49-Jonathan Davenport[11]; 6. 3S-Brian Shirley[5]; 7. 157-Mike Marlar[3]; 8. 28E-Dennis Erb Jr[12]; 9. 74X-Ethan Dotson[10]; 10. 22*-Drake Troutman[2]; 11. 111-Max Blair[19]; 12. 9-Tim McCreadie[18]; 13. 1T-Tyler Erb[14]; 14. 58-Garrett Alberson[8]; 15. 19R-Ryan Gustin[1]; 16. 76-Brandon Overton[15]; 17. 96-Tanner English[21]; 18. 81-Jason Riggs[16]; 19. 18D-Daulton Wilson[24]; 20. (DNF) 40B-Kyle Bronson[17]; 21. (DNF) 99-Devin Moran[13]; 22. (DNF) 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[20]; 23. (DNF) 2-Cody Overton[23]; 24. (DNF) 89-Mike Spatola[22]
