WHEATLAND, Mo. — After struggling during preliminary action at the rain-extended Show-Me 100 weekend, Bobby Pierce didn’t have much confidence starting 20th in Sunday's $75,000-to-win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event.

Multiple suspension changes hadn’t helped, the track’s adjusted banking wasn’t cooperating and Pierce knew his team really needed to be back home preparing a new car for World of Outlaws Late Model Series competition.

“I was pretty pessimistic,” the 29-year-old Oakwood, Ill., driver said he told fans before the feature.

Those No. 32 fans were glad their hero was wrong.

Rallying from his 10th-row starting position and into the top five by lap 39, Pierce slid past Brandon Sheppard for second on the 58th lap, then took advantage of polesitter Jonathan Davenport’s turn-two miscue on a lap-61 restart in racing to his second consecutive victory in Lucas Oil Speedway’s biggest event.

The winner ended up aiming for holes in the track to gain speed as he took the checkers 1.296 seconds ahead of New Berlin, Ill.’s Sheppard while Blairsville, Ga.’s Davenport settled for third after leading 54 laps. Garrett Alberson of Las Cruces, N.M., and Lucas Oil Series points leader Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., rounded out the top five at the 3/8-mile oval in a Sunday program forced by Saturday’s steady rain.

The unpredictability of the track finally came around for Pierce, who won his first Show-Me 100 in 2017 before becoming the first back-to-back winner of the event since Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., in 2012-13.

“They give us a different racetrack every night, so it keeps us guessing,” Pierce said. “You can never run the same setup it seems like and it adds character to the racetrack where the holes are, and the holes are never in the same spot.

“So, luckily just the way the track was, the car was great, too, and my guys worked their butts off this weekend,” Pierce added. “Every single time I was in the pits we were changing something. Throwing the kitchen sink at it is an understatement for sure.”

The high-flying Pierce said that “where the holes were, I was making my speed, so I was trying to hit them” during the 100-lapper, and he survived several wall-scraping moments late in the race, including when he accidentally knocked off a piece of his car’s rear spoiler to draw a caution.

“A couple of times I felt the wheel hit the wall. I would kind of push. It started getting a little rut in (turn) three, and I'd push in that rut,” Pierce said. “Sometimes it actually helped me because it would push the car up on top of the cushion and I'd get a better run off the corner actually. But a couple of times when I did that, I felt the rim hit the wall and I was pretty worried about it for sure, but these American Racing Wheels are tough. They held on good.”

Pierce's friendly Prairie State rival Brandon Sheppard mostly stayed in touch with Pierce, but never made a serious bid for the lead. Sheppard’s tire combination forced him to primarily stick with the low groove, meaning he couldn’t mix it up on the cushion with the winner.

“If I could hit two laps in a row in (turns) three and four in the bottom right, I could creep to them a little bit. So I was really trying to do that and I felt like I was pretty good in (turns) one and two,” said Sheppard, the driver of the Rocket Chassis house car. “I didn't really move around probably as much as I needed to, but like I said, I was trying to take care of my tires a little bit there, and a bunch of guys that went with the same tire combination as we did, I felt like hurt their stuff and fell back.”

Sheppard gained more ground in the Lucas Oil Series title chase in duplicating his best Show-Me finish of second in 2021.

"I'm just thankful for my team, for sticking behind me and all the great sponsors on this thing and wish we could have been one spot better,” Sheppard added. “But our car's really good and we’re clicking away at them points and that's what we're trying to do is just be consistent and be up-front, night in and night out. The wins are gonna come, you're never gonna win them all. Sometimes it is what it is, and tonight it was one of them deals I just didn't feel like I could get up there against the cushion and pass him after he passed me, so I needed to try to do what I could do in the bottom to get past him and we just fell short.”

Davenport, who won a Friday preliminary and two earlier races this season in Wheatland, wondered if his suspension was bent from hitting rough patches on the track.

“We just started bottoming out really bad and I was even bottoming out through the middle,” said Davenport, who got too high on the 61st lap in turn two, allowing Pierce and Sheppard to zip past. “So I was just trying to find the smoothest place, which it wasn't as rough as what I thought it was going to get, so they did a pretty good job, the track crew. Obviously, there's three lanes there at the end. Me and Sheppard and Pierce was all trying to do something different. I was just trying to hang on there and just go wherever they wasn’t, really.”

Davenport added that “third is better than a poke in the eye, but leading so much and we've been so good here. It just sucks to run third, but, it's a lot better than fourth.”

Race notes: Bobby Pierce notched his 26th career full-field Lucas Oil Series victory for 2026's richest payday so far. ... Jonathan Davenport led laps 1-17 and 24-60. Fellow front-row starter and preliminary feature winner Josh Rice made an outside pass on the 18th lap to take the lead. The series rookie held the point six laps before Davenport went back ahead on the inside. ... Rice and Brandon Sheppard swapped the second spot between laps 41-49 before Rice fell from contention. ... Five cautions slowed the action, the most serious on the 60th lap when Mason Oberkramer and Clay Stuckey tangled in turn two. ... The first yellow fell on the 41st lap when 12th-running Dan Ebert spun in turn two. ... On the 46th lap, Daniel Hilsabeck slowed with a flat left-rear tire. ... Debris (Pierce's right-rear spoiler support) slowed the action on the 84th lap. ... The final caution dropped on the 94th lap for debris ... The 47-minute feature concluded at 10:48 p.m. ... Saturday rain forced the 100-lapper to be run on Sunday.