Bobby Pierce was certainly the favorite heading into the Prairie Dirt Classic and it looked like he might be able to repeat as he ran in second behind Brian Shirley most of the race. However, his chances of repeating were dashed on lap 85 during a restart.
As the field was accelerating about to take the green flag, Pierce’s car got sideways in the middle of turns 3 and 4 and came to a stop in front of the entire field except for Shirley and Brandon Sheppard. The wreck collected Jonathan Davenport, Nick Hoffman, Mike Marlar, Max Blair, Jason Jameson, Tanner English, and Garrett Alberson.
Pierce explained what happened in a post to Facebook, “My PDC magic ran out while running 2nd on a restart w 16 to go. Took a few shots for the lead right before the caution came out.. On the restart, I misjudged the timing a lil bit & tapped the brakes to not get called for a jump, while simultaneously attempting to set the car to turn down the hill.. RPM idle was too low and it stalled. Need to look into why it stalled so easily, as it even happened during the race a time or two while running the bottom into corners.”
He then apologized to his fellow competitors, “I feel bad & apologize to any other drivers involved that had to go to the tail. Congrats to Brian Shirley on his biggest win.”
Pierce eventually finished in sixth behind race winner Brian Shirley, second place Brandon Sheppard, third place Dennis Erb Jr., Nick Hoffman, and Tim McCreadie. He commented, “With 16 to go, I rallied back to 6th. Was turning a couple of the fastest lap times at the end so of course that’s how it goes. Could’ve been a top 5 but the rear end got knocked over with 2 to go. Luckily my FastShafts driveshaft held strong for about 2 laps!”
“LOTS of damage to fix in less than a day & everything is a muddy mess. I’m probably a lil dehydrated & beat up from running the curb for 100 laps. Oh well, Wilmot tomorrow.. another day, another race. Gotta grind,” he concluded.
Pierce maintains his points lead over Nick Hoffman and Ryan Gustin. He currently has an 88 point lead over Hoffman and a 156 point lead over Gustin. Drake Troutman, who finished in 23rd, sits in fourth while Tim McCreadie is in fifth.
What do you make of Pierce’s explanation?
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