Bobby Pierce put on a herculean run last night similar to Tim McCreadie’s run earlier in the week. He came from 19th to finish in second and even challenged Sheppard for the lead late in the race.

He spoke with DirtVision’s Ashton Smyth about what he needed to do to get around Sheppard and cap off the run with a win, “I was on the wheel so hard. It’s not like the rough stuff was that bad. I love when it gives character, but I was up on the wheel so bad my grip was kinda going away on the steering wheel and my shield was fogging up because I’m breathing so hard. It’s just a constant battle on the steering wheel.”

“Here, sometimes, how it was tonight, you barely have time to reach up and grab a tear off because you just need both hands on the wheel at all times,” he continued. “The front stretch is kind of shorter and you’re going this way and that way. And the back stretch got a little jump on it. There’s really no time to relax. And you go flying into the corner. You just gotta be on the wheel because one second your car pushes, the next second it slides.”

“You got lap cars in the way,” he added. “That is what kind of got me there, was the lap traffic. I kind of picked up an aero push on them. I ran out of tear offs like early in the race. So if I kinda had a caution, got a reset, and go again we might’ve got her done.”

To Pierce’s point, he had closed on Sheppard with less than five laps to go. On lap 48 of the 50-lap feature, Pierce looked to the top side of Sheppard and appeared poised to turn it into a potential slider heading into turn 3, but the lap cars of Brenden Smith and Blair Nothdurft were down at the bottom of the track. Sheppard ran through the middle of the corner while Pierce ran a line lower, but had to change lanes when Smith got a little sideways through the middle of the turn. That blunted his momentum and he was not able to challenge Sheppard again.

Nevertheless, Pierce was pleased with his result, “[The car] was really maneuverable. For a long time there I could fly into the bottom of turn 1 and stick pretty hard. Just getting off was a bit of a challenge. But everyone else was slipping and sliding up there off of 2. It kind of worked out.”

“We kind of made a little bit of a gamble tonight. Went with a different tire than I’ve had on this week. Saw it work for [Tim McCreadie] so figured I’d give it a shot,” he added. “Really an awesome race track. We actually were able to race the top of 3 and 4 now. I know a little bit more up there we could’ve got it. It shelfs off a little bit up there, but, man, it was a fun race trying to catch Brandon [Sheppard].”

“Just getting through all the traffic. I definitely don’t like making it hard on myself. I was pretty upset that we didn’t qualify good, but at least we put on a show and came to the front,” Pierce said.

NEXT: Brandon Sheppard Spoils Nick Hoffman’s DIRTcar Nationals Sweep