Josh Rice beat some of the best in the world including Bobby Pierce during the rescheduled Thursday night The Dream preliminary feature in what was one of the best races of the year.
The race did not start out well with two huge wrecks before they even finished a lap. First, Tristan Chamberlain got into the side of Mike Spatola after Spatola checked up after hitting one of the holes in Turn 1. That caused him to spin and Frank Heckenast had nowhere to go and ran into him.
On the ensuing restart, Carson Ferguson hit the cushion in turn 2 and it sucked him up into eventually flipping over, getting hit by Bobby Pierce, and then clobbered by Chris Simpson.
On the next restart, they finally were able to get a lap completed with Wil Herrington jetting to the lead with Tyler Erb taking over second, Max Blair in third, Rice in fourth, and Pierce in a tough battle for fifth with Dale McDowell. Herrington would lead until 40 laps to go when he jumped the cushion in turns 3 and 4 and allowed Erb and Rice to get around him. Terbo would maintain the lead for about the next 20 laps holding off brief challenges from Rice. However, with 20 laps to go in the 50-lap feature Terbo caught the cushion exiting turn 2 that allowed both Rice and Pierce to slip past him.
Rice and Pierce would then put on an epic duel. With 18 laps to go Pierce slid Rice through three and four and took the lead. Rice responded a handful of laps later with 11 laps to go. He threw a slider in turn 1 and finished it coming out of turn 2. Pierce attempted a crossover but was unable to pull it off due to the lap car of Garrett Smith directly in front of him.
The battle would be briefly put on hold due to a caution for Hudson O’Neal, who found himself nose first into Eldora’s cushion. On the ensuing restart before they even got a lap completed Wil Herrington overrated his car in the middle of turns 1 and 2. Jimmy Owens, who had nowhere to go plowed into him and caused Herrington to barrel roll.
When the race got back to green, Pierce would stumble coming out of turn 2 and allow Erb to take the spot from him with a slider through three and four. Rice would extend his lead to over a second. He eventually extended it to over four seconds and was never challenged by Pierce or Terbo the rest of the way. Pierce would eventually edge out Terbo at the line on the final lap to get the second position.
After pulling his car into victory lane, an emotional Rice celebrated the win telling FloRacing’s Ben Shelton, “Well, I thought Brownstown was hard to win at. This place is damn near impossible to win at. Especially do to it over the 32. You know, he wins damn near every weekend. … We been good here recently and a good thing we hot lapped again. I’m glad it rained out because I probably never would have won this deal. We hot lapped there and wasn’t very good and threw what we knew was going to be close. Honestly, didn’t know if it was going to be close or not, but it worked. $30,000. Holy s**t!”
After being asked what he was thinking after Pierce passed him with 18 laps to go, he said, “Just being honest, I was like, ‘Well, there’s that.’ I started riding through the middle there and I felt like I was staying with him and I felt like he kept getting tighter and tighter. I told these guys, I was like, ‘Man, I don’t want to fix this thing. I just want to finish.’ And I kept riding and riding. He kept getting closer and closer. Finally, I was like, ‘Hell with it. It’s time to just send it down here in 3 and 4.’ And what a hot rod, man!”
At the end of his interview, Rice said, “Biggest win of my career!”
On Facebook following the race, Rice’s team shared, “Josh started 5th in tonight’s feature event, fought and fought and FINALLY got a win at Eldora Speedway! Hard to put it into words how awesome this one feels! We’ll celebrate tonight, and turn our focus to tomorrow’s Dirt Late Model Dream!”
The win backed up what Rice told FloRacing earlier in the week that he was here to win. When asked if he could win, Rice said, “I really do think we can. I wouldn’t come here if I didn’t think we could win. … It depends on what right front we put on. I swear everything else we got going on’s perfect. Long as I can get the right front where I can turn for 100 [laps] I swear I think we’ll have a shot at it.”
Rice will now chase tonight’s feature. He starts fourth in Heat 2. He’ll be up against Dustin Sorenson, Chris Ferguson, Daulton Wilson, Spencer Hughes, Dan Ebert, Justin Duty, Cory Lawler, Jadon Frame, John Henderson, Jensen Ford, Chad Simpson, Jerry Bowersock, Rod Conley, Allen Styck, and Michael Page.