Bobby Pierce had to dig himself out of a hole last night to try and qualify for the FloRacing Night in America race at Eldora Speedway ahead of the 32nd Annual Dirt Late Model Dream. Unfortunately, just as it appeared that he was poking his head out of the hole, he fell back down.

Pierce started the night off by qualifying in 20th in Group B. He was able to start to dig himself out of that hole by advancing three positions from 7th starting position in Heat 5 to finish fourth. Unfortunately, that was one spot shy of locking himself into the feature. That put him in the third and final B-Main on the pole. 

At the beginning of the B-Main, it looked like Pierce was going to put it on cruise control and check out after an early battle with Zack Mitchell in the opening laps. Unfortunately, he had a mechanical issue with 8 laps left in the B-Main and he significantly slowed down the back stretch and brought his car into the pits while the race stayed green.

FloRacing pit reporter Mike Norris provided an update on Pierce after the race saying, “They surveyed the damage. Looks like an oil pump belt has been shredded. So, hopefully, it did not hurt the motor. He shut it off and coasted it back in. Hopefully,  everything okay underneath the hood for the 32.”

Pierce shared more details with FloRacing’s Kyle McFadden telling him, “I went into turn 1, steering wheel got tight. 9 times out of 10 that’s an oil pump belt and that’s what it ended up being. I like to say I hopefully got it shut off really quick, but I don’t really know if I did. The oil pressure light definitely hit zero right as I was about to shut the engine off. So that always sucks.”

“I’m not really sure why the belt broke, but it was rubbing on something in there and it broke. Just sucks. It’s unfortunate,” he continued. “I had some motor issues at Mansfield because of the race track and I ran hot a little bit one of those nights because it bashed in the radiator screen. Just some bad luck all around.

“Everything was running great before that. Car was really good in the B-Main. Motor was running great. Everything was great. I was looking forward to the feature and we’ll see if we can get everything changed and see if we can get her back going tomorrow.”

Bobby Pierce explains what took him out of contention in the final B-main at Eldora Speedway on FloRacing Night in America. #DLMDream #FuelingTheDream pic.twitter.com/WDm2JdbcdU

— FloRacing (@FloRacing) June 4, 2026

Pierce is scheduled to compete in the first of two preliminary nights for the 32nd Annual Dirt Late Model Dream.

The 87 car field was split into two groups on Sunday afternoon with Pierce being placed in the group that will race on Thursday. The second group will compete on Friday night. The track explains how the event format works, “Each driver will compete in one preliminary night program – Thursday or Friday. Drivers may request a particular night, but officials cannot guarantee all requests get fulfilled. Ultimately, Thursday and Friday fields will be competitively balanced for the good of both competitors and fans.”

The qualifying order for these nights will be based on a random draw. Drivers will then take on hot laps and qualifying. The heat races are different from your typical standard program in that they will be inverted. After the heats there will be B-Features and then the 50-Lap $30,000 to-win A-Feature.

On Saturday, there will be six heat races that are seeded through the track’s Every Lap Matters points system that is based on the preliminary nights and then inverted based on the spin of the track’s Wheel of Misfortune. There will then be two B-Features and finally the Dirt Late Model Dream.

The Every Lap Matters points system awards drivers points based on how they qualify, where they finish in the heat races, and how they finish in the feature. Points are also awarded to the first 10 cars that do not qualify for the feature. Here’s how the point system breaks down: 

Multi-Car Qualifying: the field will be split into two flights for Multi-Car Qualifying (Flight 1 & 2). Each flight earns points separately for their results – 1st) 100; 2nd) 98; 3rd) 96; 4th) 94; 5th) 92; 6th) 90; 7th) 88; 8th) 86; 9th) 84; 10th) 82; and balance of field decreases by 2 points per position.

Heat Races: 1st) 100; 2nd) 97; 3rd) 94; 4th) 91; 5th) 88; 6th) 85; 7th) 82; 8th) 79; 9th) 76; 10th) 73; 11th) 70; 12th) 67; 13th) 64; 14th) 61; 15th) 58; 16th) 55; 17th) 52; 18th) 49; 19th) 46; 20th) 43

Last Chance Showdowns: first 10 cars not advancing from any LCS) 222; 219; 216; 213; 210; 207; 204; 201; 198; 195 and balance of field decreases by 3 points per position.

A-Features: 1st) 300; 2nd) 297; 3rd) 294; 4th) 291; 5th) 288; 6th) 285; 7th) 282; 8th) 279; 9th) 276; 10th) 273; 11th) 270; 12th) 267; 13th) 264; 14th) 261; 15th) 258; 16th) 255; 17th) 252; 18th) 249; 19th) 246; 20th) 243; 21st) 240; 22nd) 237; 23rd) 234; 24th) 231; 25th)228; and 26th)225

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