VADO, N.M. (Jan. 5) — Surveying the progress of his burgeoning Dirt Late Model career, Bobby Pierce makes a point of trying to exceed his accomplishments from the previous season. The 28-year-old from Oakwood, Ill., can only blame himself for making that extremely difficult in 2025.

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Coming off a sparkling 38-victory campaign with eight victories paying $50,000 or more that included the World 100 and Dirt Track World Championship, Pierce needs to continue his stretch of otherworldly performances to raise his lofty standards.

DirtonDirt.com's 2024 Driver of the Year is enjoying an unprecedented stretch of back-to-back seasons with more than $1 million in earnings as the first driver in the current national touring era to crack the 30-victory mark twice in a row. Can Pierce reach the 30-victory plateau again as he embarks on another World of Outlaws Late Model Series season?

He’s off to a worthy start at the unsanctioned Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout, where he outdueled national standouts Garrett Alberson and Brandon Sheppard on Saturday and Sunday to collect $35,000 in first-place prize money at Vado Speedway Park just five days into the new year.

“Obviously, we can do it, because we did it the last two years, but people, they want to beat you for sure,” Pierce said after Sunday’s last-lap victory over Sheppard. “The competition level is always stout. Every night, a lot of races you win are races that can go either way. The last two nights I feel like it could have went either way. We could have finished second pretty easily.

"I don't know if we'll ever have a year that's that good as far as crown jewels. Like, maybe I can win 38 races again, maybe I can win 40, who knows? But as far as the crown jewels we won last year, that was another level of craziness.”

Pierce’s hot start at Vado, where last year he won four of six miniseries races in 2024, surprised exactly no one with observers at the 3/8-mile southern New Mexico oval labelling him a “generational talent,” saying "he's good everywhere he goes” and praising his current status as "the most impressive thing I've seen” in Dirt Late Model racing.

Even Sheppard, the 31-year-old New Berlin, Ill., driver and multitime DirtonDirt.com Driver of the Year, unequivocally says he was beaten by “the best guy in the country” in Sunday’s 40-lapper.

Sheppard is on a list of top national drivers including reigning Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., and five-time World 100 winner Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., who will be trying to wrestle the No. 1 driver status from Pierce in 2025.

"I don't think he's gonna get knocked off the perch necessarily. There's plenty of races for other guys to win,” said Sheppard, an eight-time winner in 2024. “We ran more than 100 races (in 2024), so there's plenty of other races to win. We just got to get to where we can run with him and compete with him, hopefully make it to where it's either him or I that are winning the races.

“That's tough to do because there's a lot of great competition out there, but we know in order to win 30 races we're gonna have to beat that guy at a lot of the big ones.”

The bigger the race, the better Pierce seemed to be in 2024, including a three-weekend stretch of consecutive victories in the $50,000 WoO Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway, $50,000 WoO USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., and $75,000 Lucas Oil-sanctioned North-South 100 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky. He won a series-high 14 WoO features and seven more in 16 part-time starts on the Lucas Oil circuit.

“You look at how many times he's winning and the caliber races he's winning, I really see no world with what I saw (Saturday) night where he’s not picking right back up where he left off the past two years,” said Ben Shelton, the veteran announcer and Wild West Shootout event manager.

“To me, when Bobby Pierce unloads, I actually think it's the field against Bobby. And I go back to the World 100 (preview) last year and I was the only person that picks picked Bobby Pierce and people, you know, they were picking everybody else that was on these hot runs. I couldn't see a world where you could go against him because it's one of those deals where if (I’m) betting on somebody, I'm gonna bet on somebody until there's a reason not to.”

Hall of Fame driver Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., who is serving as a driving coach for Riggs Motorsports drivers Jason and Jack Riggs at Vado, says Pierce’s maturation from a raw talent into the nation’s best driver is remarkable.

“He’s obviously matured racing so much and he's just matured so well as a driver. I mean now, he's good everywhere he goes, obviously. So that's a big part of it. And then all the racing that we do, it helps those guys learn and just become better in different scenarios, different type racetracks,” said the 58-year-old McDowell, a Dream and World 100 winner at Eldora and former Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series champion. "I mean, used to, several years ago he was gonna predominantly be good on the cushion. And now he's probably the best still on a cushion that I see, but he's also maneuverable. Like I watched the race (Saturday) night and just him racing through traffic, he just showed a lot of maturity, racing through and taking care of his tires and stuff that he does now more so than he did several years ago.

"So I think all that together just makes his program work good. It's always good when you got all these people in the pits chasing you.”

Shelton echoes Pierce’s relatively newfound patience that’s become another weapon for the fearless driver.

"I think (back to) two years ago at Deer Creek at the Lucas (Oil Series) race, where he wins the photo finish over Hudson, and I go back to that,” Shelton said. “His patience. He saved it for the end, and he even said that he goes, ‘Me maybe two years ago, I'd have knocked the deck out of it with 30 laps to go. Yes, I'm aggressive, but I'm more patient.’ And a more patient Bobby Pierce is really a big problem for everybody because he's not afraid to go tackle it when you need to tackle it, but if he can reel that back in and have a car left at the end of 100 laps. I think that's what we've seen in the past few years. Especially last year, and I don't care if he's showing up at a weekly show or the World 100, you know he's going to be in the contention for the win unless something bad happens.”

Veteran official Kelley Carlton, working as race director at the Wild West Shootout, calls Pierce a “generational talent,” but one that’s not just using dirt racing as a steppingstone to greener pastures.

Some standout drivers "might have a brief stop in sprint cars or a brief stop in whatever (division), but Bobby's here. This is his vocation. This is what he wants to do so, and Lord knows he's started so young right into the Late Model,” Carlton said. "I felt like I knew something was gonna be pretty special with him when he won the World (100) at 18 years old. You’re just not gonna ever see a better field than what he beat there.”

Even how Pierce, whose father Bob Pierce has long been his mentor and crew chief, handled Vado’s practice night struck Carlton.

“I think he's really in touch with his race car and I know that sounds weird, but for example, he came out and practice that first night, the first sessions he wasn't very good. But by the end of the night he and Garrett are right on the same times,” he said. "So I think he's just really in tune with his race car; obviously, his dad is good for him and keeps him centered a lot, I think as well. If his dad has to retire at some point, that's certainly I think we'll set him back a little bit, but a guy that's got that much talent, he's gonna find a way.”

McDowell, who still competes at a high level and finished second to Pierce in last season’s World 100, doesn’t see Pierce slowing down anytime soon. But McDowell has watched enough hot streaks by superstars like Scott Bloomquist, Billy Moyer, Darrell Lanigan, Jimmy Owens and others that eventually come to an end at the hands of eager competitors.

"You just hope that the wheels don't fall off the wagon when things are going right. We’ve actually seen this where people will get on a run for a couple of years even,” McDowell said. Streaking teams "get in an area where you just keep doing the same things that you're doing and it’s working for you. But what he's doing right now is he's got the competition working, too."

The competition is “actually working to catch up,” McDowell added, “so sometimes it seems to cycle where the competition would catch up and then it'll have you — what you've been doing all this time that's been working — is not quite working as well. That's generally how it goes. Not to say he may continue this on for 10 years or longer. He’s a young guy. But in the past, that's kind of what I see has happened over the years.”
Whether Pierce cracks the 30-victory mark and tallies another $1 million in 2025 doesn’t matter to Shelton.

"I think there's a lot of factors there, but in my lifetime, now 45 years old, I feel like this is the most impressive thing I've seen,” Shelton said. “If he can maintain this, especially if he goes — a couple of years ago he's at 34 wins, he's at 38 last year — if he goes over 40 this year and that level shows he's entering, that's spectacular.”

Most Dirt Late Model aficionados rank Bloomquist and Moyer among the best all-time in the sport, and Carlton isn’t afraid to say Pierce could be headed for that level.

"I don't throw out the comparison to Scott very often, but he could very well, he could very well reach that in our sport right now. He's that good,” said Carlton, who points to Pierce’s 2024 multi-tour success with the Outlaws, Lucas Oil, XR Super Series and FloRacing Night in America circuits.

"It didn't matter who he was racing against. He was kicking their teeth in nearly every week wherever he went, so I just don't think you're gonna stop him, for sure. He's a really determined, focused guy and like I said, generational talent,” Carlton said. “I don't know any other way to describe it, man. It reminds me a lot of Scott. Obviously Scott was different in personality and things like that, but as far as on the racetrack, I mean just very similar.”

And at just age 28, "I think we're gonna be seeing Bobby for a long, long time,” Carlton added.

Pierce on Wednesday is scheduled to go for his third straight Wild West Shootout victory — he also won the first three miniseries races at Arizona Speedway in Queen Creek, Ark., in 2019 — and he’ll get three more chances at Vado on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It’s just the beginning of a long season with Pierce knowing a third consecutive season of 30-plus victories is possible.

“We'll see what we've got,” Pierce said Sunday. “We’re going to give it our best and keep our head in the game.”