Bobby Pierce explained what went wrong during Saturday night’s feature for the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Late Model Series’ World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.

Bobby Pierce via DirtVision.com

With 29 laps left to go in the feature, Bobby Pierce, who was running fourth at the time, suffered a flat right rear tire. After his crew changed the tire, Pierce attempted to fight his way from the back, but was only able to salvage a 17th place finish.

Speaking with DirtonDirt.com, Pierce first explained what happened with the tire, “I think it blistered because it was going flat for so long.”

DirtonDirt.com’s Kevin Kovac also shared, “Extensive blistering was evident around the edges of the rubber, not from him running too hard but apparently because the tire had been losing air from sort of unfortunate failure.”

Pierce shared more details revealing he felt the tire going flat early in the race, “I felt like it was pretty good early in the race but I kind of felt it going. I do think somewhere around then (while close to Madden) it might have started going flat, and then once it did that, then it started blistering because it was overheating. So then I got looser, and then the restart….”

He continued, “It probably would’ve been a decent restart on the top, but obviously that tire was going. And I knew it, but you always want to stay out there just in case because I’ve had moments where I was just like, ‘ think my tire’s going flat, but it could be, like, a broken shock or something weird,’ so I stayed out there and kind of waited for it to finally blow out.”

Bobby Pierce returns to the field after replacing a flat right rear tire at the 2024 World Finals.

After he changed the tire, Pierce shared that the track just was not good for passing and moving forward from the rear, “We got (the tire) changed, and we didn’t really have a good racetrack to get back through the field. They worked on it (farming the surface before the feature), but there’s so many laps run on it here (throughout the weekend). I think the big-blocks and sprint cars, all them guys don’t want the track to be completely reworked before their races, but whatever it is, the Late Models race best here when we get a really fresh track. Like last night we raced first (in the features order) and that was the best race all weekend, so I think they need to race us first for a good track. Tonight, though, there just wasn’t anything there.”

To highlight how bad the track was, Pierce said, “When I went back out I was terrible. I had tried to run the top but I was like, ‘Man, there’s just, like, no top.’ Like, to run it, you’ve got to turn 9-grand (RPM) because there wasn’t any traction. It was just a curb. … It wasn’t even a curb, it was just clumps of mud, so it wasn’t like we had grip up there. You were kind of spinning all the time, so I didn’t want to blow another tire and possibly lose out on second (in points), because I noticed Hoffman was up there (running well toward a sixth-place finish).”

He did explain how he used a late race restart to grab a couple of positions on the outside through 1 and 2, “Then that last caution, I was finally tired of them backing up on the bottom. There was enough in one and two to go around them and get a few, but three and four was completely burnt up.”

Bobby Pierce via DirtVision.com

What do you make of Pierce’s run in the final night of World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte?

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