ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 4) — Bobby Pierce does plenty of things well behind the wheel of a Dirt Late Model. Seizing the moment when someone ahead of him slips is one of those he does best.
All it takes is one split-second hesitation, one brief loss of momentum, to open the door for Pierce. Devin Moran discovered that midway through Thursday’s 50-lap Dream XXXII preliminary feature at Eldora Speedway.
Dresden, Ohio’s Moran was leading over his 29-year-old rival from Oakwood, Ill., on lap 30 when he broke stride racing with a slower car in turn two. Pierce saw the opportunity and exploded into the breach, jamming on the gas pedal to find even more rpm from his engine and set himself up for a powerful slider through turns three and four that vaulted him in front and sent him to a $30,000 victory.
Was Moran, who went on to finish fourth after leading laps 1-30, surprised by Pierce’s predatory acumen? Not at all.
“He’s Bobby Pierce for a reason,” Moran bluntly said, hailing the country’s No. 1-ranked driver entering Dream Week.
There’s no room for error for a driver who has Pierce in hot pursuit. His reflexes, desire and, of course, derring-do are a killer combination when he spots his prey’s weak link.
“Hell, yeah, that’s true, man,” said Bob Pierce, Bobby’s father and crew chief. “He’s like a shark with blood in his teeth. Once he gets that taste …”
Indeed, Pierce almost became a rabid animal when Moran, 31, drifted high in turn two on lap 30 behind Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga. “I just got myself hung out there,” Moran said, and Pierce pounced on the skating Double Down Motorsports No. 99. He had been nearly a second behind Moran crossing the start-finish line to score lap 30 but drew alongside the pacesetter charging down the backstretch.
“It’s like you’re a shark and you dump blood in the water,” Pierce said when asked what went through his mind when he saw Moran light up his tires and lose speed. “It’s, like, salivating out of the mouth.”
Pierce, who started seventh, wrestled second from Josh Rice of Crittenden, Ky., on lap 29. He “had a lot of traction” running around the very top of the half-mile oval’s turns and his “tires felt really good, too,” so the timing of Moran’s slip was perfect for him.
“He did hang a little bit off two and I think I caught him off guard doing that slider line in three and four,” Pierce said. “He was in front of the lapper (slower car) on the backstretch and I was behind the lapped car and I couldn’t quite see around the lapped car yet, and then I peeked to the inside and I saw Devin was going in on the top and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, here we go.’
“So I just sent it in there, and after that I just made sure to block him in turn one.”
Pierce wasn’t about to play it safe and let his shot at the lead pass him by.
“There was a moment there where I think I passed Rice for second, and then a lapped car got in my way and I fell to fourth,” Pierce said. “I was like, ‘Man …’ You know, those moments, you just hope that you’re gonna get it back again because sometimes you pass people and then they figure out the lane and you can never pass them back.
“So when you notice that (chance to overtake Moran), it’s like, it’s game on, and you want to send it then because you just don’t know if that opportunity is going to present itself again.”
And considering the path Pierce traveled to find himself in position to snatch the lead from Moran, he had to take full advantage of the situation. Pierce winning a race is never truly surprising, but in this case it was at least … unanticipated?
Twenty-four hours earlier Pierce absorbed a rare DNQ in Eldora’s FloRacing Night in America event that kicked off Dream Week. He entered a brand-new Longhorn Chassis that he and his crew finished assembling Wednesday morning — delaying their departure from his Illinois shop and causing a late arrival to the track that forced Pierce to park in Eldora’s upper pit area — and was knocked from the lead in a B-main by a shredded oil-pump belt.
“The two days of busting tail (to build the new car) partially led to the belt breaking yesterday because, being in a rush, we kind of missed something,” Pierce said.
Bob Pierce elaborated further on the mechanical malfunction.
“Remember the Sharon mud car last year?” Bob said, referring to a July 2025 World of Outlaws Late Model Series doubleheader at Ohio’s Sharon Speedway. “It was fast the first night (with Bobby winning) but then the second night the mud plug got full of mud and vibrated everything (causing him to lose the lead and finish second). That (oil-pump) belt last night is the last piece off that car. That came off that car to go on this new car, and it slid forward and got into the flywheel.
“We built this car in like two-and-a-half days, and everything was thrown together so fast you don’t really have time to look over stuff. Even new stuff. It’s just one of those things that got missed because we were all hurrying and it bit us.”
The motor had to come out of Pierce’s new car for Thursday’s program. The swap was made to the Vic Hill engine in Pierce’s trailer — the same powerplant that he used to capture May 24’s Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo.
“That’s the 430 (engine) we’ve run most of the year,” Bob Pierce said. “We took it out after the Show-Me to put in valve springs. We had to put it in because it’s all we got. Two of them (in need of freshening) are leaving Saturday morning to go back to Vic’s, and we gotta get at least one of them back for the next (WoO) swing.”
While the Show-Me-winning engine has “won some good money,” Bobby said, it doesn’t pack the punch of the motor he had to pull from his car. For qualifying and early heat races contested on a wetter, faster racetrack, Pierce would prefer a more powerful piece.
“Typically here, I will bring a little bit of a bigger motor,” Pierce said. “Like, it’s still a good-sized motor and everything, but typically for these really big tracks, a lot of times I’ll take a little bit bigger motor. You really just use it in qualifying and heat races. If I’m in the first, second, third heat race, the track’s hammer down … I don't want to start fourth or fifth in that heat race. I would need the biggest motor I’ve got.
“It’s still a good piece, and, you know, if you can maintain to feature time when it gets slick, it’s actually maybe a little better.”
Bob Pierce noted that Bobby had the “tongue hanging out” of his motor when he drove to a third-place finish in Thursday’s first heat. With the track surface remaining faster for the feature than it was on Wednesday, Bob feared Bobby pushing it too hard. But Bob also knows that the victory-hungry competitor in Bobby is hard to restrain.
“I was like, ‘Dude, settle. All you gotta do is get a top-five, get some points for Saturday,’ ” Bob said. “When you don’t let (the engine) breathe, it’s hard on them. And that’s what’s happening when it’s fast like that tonight. You just don’t lift here.
“Well, you know, when he started coming, coming, and that top (lane) started rolling, I go, ‘Well, he’s gonna go for it.’ ”
Pierce began to enjoy himself too much wheeling along the outside wall to cool his jets and settle for a conservative finish.
“The track was really good tonight for sure,” said Pierce, who turned back a late threat amid lapped traffic from Tyler Erb to beat the New Waverly, Texas, driver by 0.844 of a second. “I mean, you saw Terbo (Erb) making some gains there on the bottom, middle (from the 12th starting spot). I was on top most of the race just because I feel like that’s where I’m the best, but I really feel like you could race all over this thing tonight.
“When Eldora’s like that, it’s a lot of fun. That middle gets so slick and it takes a really good car to run it, but when you’re throwing sliders and stuff, it makes it a lot of fun because you got lapped cars in the mix and just people are everywhere. That’s Eldora right there. Not a lot of places compare to that.”
The triumph was Pierce’s first-ever in a Dream preliminary feature, which is quite remarkable since he’s been entering the event since 2013 — the year the format changed to include prelim races — and he owns four career preliminary victories in September’s World 100. But Pierce has also never won the 100-lap Dream finale in 10 career feature starts, so breaking through for the race’s $100,000 top prize on Saturday tops his list of personal objectives.
Can he add a Dream win to his two World 100 and two Dirt Track World Championship triumphs at Eldora? He remarked that he still needs to get his car “a little more maneuverable through the middle-bottom,” but he’s liking his chances after putting himself atop the event points. He’s well positioned no matter what he watches his competition do in Friday’s second preliminary program, after which is the spin of the Wheel of Misfortune to set heat inversions.
“I feel really good, yeah,” Pierce said, before adding with a smile: “I’ll feel better once I see what the invert is.”