Bobby Pierce addressed the flat tire Hudson O’Neal suffered after the two made contact in the final third of the race during a fantastic battle for the lead between them.

On a restart with 9 laps to go, Hudson O’Neal got a huge opportunity to snag the lead from Pierce after he had been stalking him for much of the race. He dove to the bottom scraping the inside berm to get to the inside of Pierce. Pierce was able to pull ahead by half a car, but heading through 1 and 2, O’Neal stuck the bottom while Pierce drifted up high. The two drag raced down the back stretch.

In 3 and 4, O’Neal threw a slider that stymied Pierce’s momentum and prevented him from executing a crossover. When he did try to get underneath O’Neal, O’Neal drifted down to block him. Unfortunately, the two made contact with Pierce’s right front making contact with O’Neal’s left rear and cutting it down. With the flat, O’Neal’s chances of going back-to-back were ended and he had to settle for a 10th place finish after drawing a caution and getting the tire changed.

Pierce addressed the flat tire telling FloRacing’s Trenton Berry in his podium interview, “When that deal happened on the front stretch there, I didn’t know who was pushing me into Hudson. It was kind of a chain reaction deal there.”

“Me and Hudson had a good battle there going on, but then he came down, I was there, kind of messed up my nose. Sucks to see he got a flat tire. We pry could have raced it out good. Maybe him and Ethan for the win, I don’t know. Come home second, we’ll take it.”

O’Neal addressed the flat on Facebook writing, “Took the lead after the caution with 9 to go and a little contact with the 32 knocked the valve stem out of the LR. Happy with the speed we are showing here out west in the R&D #6! Tomorrow we are off. See y’all back on Friday!”

As O’Neal noted, the Wild West Shootout is off today, Thursday, January 15th. It will be back in action for night 4 on January 16th. Hot laps are expected to start at 3:30 pm MT. All the action can be seen on FloRacing.

NEXT: Ethan Dotson Steals Wild West Shootout Win After Epic Duel Between Bobby Pierce And Hudson O’Neal