RaceWire<\/a><\/p>\nShould he stay or should he go? Those were the conflicting thoughts running through the mind of the 29-year-old superstar from Oakwood, Ill., who had performed so poorly in Friday\u2019s two preliminary features that he didn\u2019t even lock into one of the 18 starting spots for the 100-lap finale.<\/p>\n
Pierce had a lot of work to do in his shop. He was facing an earlier-than-expected haul east for a rescheduled World of Outlaws Late Model Series event Wednesday at Marion Center (Pa.) Raceway. And he was, of course, running like \u2026 well, not a positive word.<\/p>\n
So there was Pierce, expecting the Show-Me 100 to be pushed to Sunday and contemplating giving up his front-row starting spot in a B-main \u2014 and the possibility of a second straight victory in the crown jewel show \u2014 to head home early.<\/p>\n
After the race was postponed to Sunday and Pierce made a spectacular charge forward from the 20th starting spot to become a back-to-back and three-time Show-Me 100 winner, it seemed crazy to believe he had seriously entertained throwing in the towel on his weekend. But he really did.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegit, like me and Bob were talking when it was pouring down rain Saturday, I said, \u2018Hey, my phone (app) says it\u2019s supposed to rain for the next four hours like this. I\u2019m not saying the track couldn\u2019t be ready for tomorrow, but sometimes you never know, right?\u2019 \u201d Pierce said, referring to the conversation he had with father and crew chief Bob Pierce. \u201cAnd it\u2019s like, Ah, we got a bunch of stuff we want to try to see if we make the car better, and I was like, \u2018But I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve got a lot of work to do back at the shop.\u2019 I said, \u2018What do you want to do, dad?\u2019 And he said, \u2018I don\u2019t know. Go home? It\u2019s up to you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, the elder Pierce listened but left the decision in his son\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought when it rained he was gonna go, and then he said, \u2018What do you think?\u2019 \u201d Bob Pierce recalled. \u201cI said, \u2018Dude, it\u2019s your deal. You own all this s—. You tell me. You got to make some money.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby Pierce weighed the pros and cons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a new car sitting in the shop I just got from Longhorn, and it does have, like, a body mostly all on it,\u201d Bobby said of a machine he would like to debut in June 3-6\u2019s Dream week activities at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. \u201cBut you know, you get a car, there\u2019s a lot you have to do to it, and by this time right now (Sunday night), we had planned to be home, have the car from this weekend washed, and be working on the new car. Because of the rainout at Marion Center, we have to leave Tuesday afternoon because it\u2019s a 10-hour drive, so it just keeps pushing back our time to work on our new car.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Pierce ultimately opted to stick it out at Wheatland. He used the sunny Sunday morning and afternoon to get ahead on some work that he would have done at the shop \u2014 pulling the engine from his backup car to send to motor builder Vic Hill for freshening and then making the vehicle race-ready for Marion Center \u2014 and father and son moved forward accepting the team is in the midst of a hectic stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be rough on everybody getting home, and we leave Tuesday afternoon and get out there to race (in Pennsylvania) Wednesday night (leading into three more WoO evenings in Ohio),\u201d Bob Pierce said. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m wore out, but hey, I\u2019ve been wore all my life. Why change now?\u201d<\/p>\n
There was also another good reason for Pierce to remain in southwestern Missouri for the rain date: he was pretty awful in last year\u2019s Show-Me 100 preliminary programs as well but roared back on Saturday to win the headliner\u2019s $75,000 top prize from the 12th starting spot. Why couldn\u2019t he do it again?<\/p>\n
Of course, Pierce\u2019s performance in this year\u2019s two prelim features \u2014 a 22nd-place finish one lap down in the 45-lap Tribute to Don & Billie Gibson and a 15th-place result in the 40-lap Cowboy Classic after he started from outside the front row \u2014 was even worse than his runs a year ago. So despite his inherent confidence, he wasn\u2019t hopeful of repeating his 2025 rebound.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Hey, last year might have happened, but this year it\u2019s not happening. We\u2019re way off,\u2019 \u201d Bobby said. \u201cReally, the only thing that kept me here was we had done a lot of things to the car that we wanted to try. So it wasn\u2019t even like, \u2018Oh, we still might have a chance.\u2019 It was just, \u2018We\u2019re here. We need to see when we have the car better.\u2019 That\u2019s what we’re here to do, so we stayed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we did use the wrong tires in the (prelim) features. Staying with the right-rear (hard-compound) 4 wasn\u2019t the thing to do,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd this racetrack, just the dirt is such a weird dirt how it can be kind of slimy and then it doesn\u2019t hurt the tires, but sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn\u2019t, so it\u2019s a flip of the coin a lot of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pierce said his team \u201cthrew the kitchen sink\u201d at the car and the effort paid off. The No. 32 Longhorn Chassis came alive underneath Bobby on the big stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was bad\u201d in the preliminary features, Bob Pierce said. \u201cIt\u2019s like nothing I done \u2014 and me and him talked about \u2014 helped, and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know, bud.\u2019 So we just kept slinging a little here, a little there, I mean, stuff you don\u2019t never do. Because, I mean, with this Lucas (Oil Late Model Dirt Series) race, thank God, it\u2019s just money, we don\u2019t have points to worry about like World of Outlaws, so you can kind of do goofy things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the hot-lap session right before his B-main (which Bobby won) I did one little change, and then after that he said the car wasn\u2019t steering right, this, that and the other. I go, \u2018Well, then, I\u2019m gonna go a big swing on the right-front\u201d\u00a0 suspension equipped with an Ohlins shock.<\/p>\n
Pierce hit the track for the century grind feeling a little better that a turnaround was at hand. He\u2019s experienced and savvy enough now to know a long-distance race is a different animal.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome 100 laps, a lot can happen out there for sure,\u201d Bobby said. \u201cIt\u2019s a battle of attrition, that\u2019s one, so you gotta be able to put your car in the right spot, but you gotta be good. And I told a bunch of people this weekend, I said, \u2018Hey, if we\u2019re good, you can start anywhere in this race.\u2019 I\u2019ve done it several times. Scott (Bloomquist) has come from the back here. You can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Pierce did it. Perching his car on the most outer reaches of the 3\/8-mile oval virtually from the start, he made a steady advance. When the race\u2019s first caution flag flew on lap 40, he had already reached fifth place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey pretty much left the top open for him, like, right off the bat,\u201d Bob Pierce observed. \u201cBut it ain\u2019t so much the top I watch to see if we\u2019re gaining something. It\u2019s after he\u2019s off the top, down the straightaway, because you can go a 100 mph in that corner and then blow the tires off on the straightaway. So I watch when it does come off that corner without a big momentum run, like the momentum you can get off the corner at Eldora because it’s got the big banking. This place ain\u2019t that banked and he still was going forward, so I thought, OK, we hit on something tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the rest is, don\u2019t jump the cushion, don\u2019t knock on the fence down, don\u2019t wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby came close to disaster plenty of times, including two hairy situations when he was racing through the top-five. The first came on lap 51 when he made a breathtaking move between Josh Rice and Hudson O\u2019Neal off turn four to vault into third. The other occurred on lap 57 when Pierce plotted a slider underneath the lapped Cory Lawler and second-running Brandon Sheppard in turn three but had to change his line at the last moment and ended up cutting off Sheppard to grab the second spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told Brandon (afterward), I was like, \u2018Hey, sorry, I kind of slid up in front of you, but Lawler did kind of check up there as I was going in for the slider,\u2019 and he was, like, cool with it,\u201d Bobby said. \u201cThere was lots of slicing and dicing going on. I made plenty of moves like that even earlier. It\u2019s just nobody started watching me until I was towards the front.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pierce assumed command on lap 61 when two-time Show-Me 100 champion Jonathan Davenport, who had led since lap 24 after also pacing the first 17 circuits, slipped over the outside lip of the track in turn two and lost significant speed. Both Pierce and Sheppard sped by.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him (later), \u2018Were you too tight?\u2019 \u201d said Pierce, who also passed Davenport to take the lead for good on lap 69 on last year\u2019s Show-Me 100. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Yeah, I was too tight.\u2019 He said he started bottoming out and shoving the nose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen that happened, like, I thought he would be able to regroup and get back on the track quick enough. And then he was like, push, push, push, and I was like, \u2018Oh!\u2019 And Sheppard\u2019s there (on the bottom) and I had a run and I split those guys, and I was like, \u2018Oh yeah, come on, no caution, no caution.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
There were two more slowdowns, on laps 83 and 93. Both were for debris; the flotsam on the track that caused the final caution appeared to be a portion of Pierce\u2019s own rear spoiler that was knocked loose from one of his run-ins with the concrete wall in turns three and four as he kept racing on a razor\u2019s edge in the late stages to keep runner-up Sheppard at bay while Davenport finished close behind the Rocket1 driver in third.<\/p>\n
Several times Pierce came precariously close to duplicating Davenport\u2019s stumble in turn two but managed to save his car. He had problems at the other of the track as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe really started bottoming out after he got the lead,\u201d Bob Pierce said. \u201cHe was busy. He was on the verge of wrecking every lap. That\u2019s why his spoiler\u2019s knocked off, because he jumped the cushion three or four times in three and four.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pierce wrestled his machine every lap around the outside lane in turns three and four, which had a different configuration this year because the banking was altered to run right up to the wall rather than flatten out. It proved to be a challenge but one that Pierce mastered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey moved the dirt all the way to the wall,\u201d Bobby said. \u201cIt’s hard to run, though, because, like, the cushion (previously would) stay two car widths off the wall, so now that they moved it to the wall it sort of in a way lost banking when they did that because, you know, they would have had to build onto the walls if they would\u2019ve continued that banking. So it lost banking up there, so it feels really flat up there. And so you get up there, you gotta manhandle that thing just to get the car set right, launch around there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I bobbled a bunch of times, but sometimes when I did, it actually wasn’t too bad because then I would still got a good launch off the corner. As long as I got a good launch off the corner, it was OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pierce beat Sheppard to the finish line by 1.296 seconds, completing yet another performance to build his ever-growing legend. He became the first driver to capture the Show-Me 100 two years in a row since Jimmy Owens in 2012-13 and the fifth driver to capture the race at least three times, joining the late Scott Bloomquist (six), Owens (four), Billy Moyer (three) and Wendell Wallace (three). It was also his 16th career crown jewel victory, continuing his steady climb to all-time great status in the Dirt Late Model division.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt Pierce is a generational talent. Sunday was just more evidence of his sublime ability, another exploit to show that he\u2019s already among the elite drivers in the sport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I don\u2019t know how he does this s—,\u201d Bob Pierce marveled. \u201cWhen he gets a mindset like that and he can pull the belts down \u2026 I don\u2019t know. He does stuff that that you can\u2019t explain. I don\u2019t know how he learned (to run a cushion) like that or where he learned it from or how he does it, but yeah, that\u2019s saved us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby, meanwhile, had no definitive explanation for how he was able to go from zero to hero overnight in one of Dirt Late Model racing\u2019s most prestigious events for the second straight year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know what it is,\u201d Bobby said, shrugging his shoulders while discussing the race at his trailer. \u201cMy mom (Angie) found a four-leaf clover this weekend, so maybe that\u2019s just what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bobby Pierce and wife Abby. (photosbyboyd.smugmug.com) WHEATLAND, Mo. (May 24) \u2014 Rain was pounding down on Lucas Oil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,275619,1571,806,805,803,804,275620,44,63540,85],"class_list":["post-694900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dirt-late-model","tag-history","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-national-updates","tag-news","tag-schedules","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Bobby](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/img-460x0-upload-articlephoto-cphoto_12992.jpg\")