Volusia Speedway Park
Davenport's slide job rankles Pierce at Volusia
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt.com senior writer
Bobby Pierce (32) ended up in the muddy part of Volusia's oval. (joshjamesartwork.com)
BARBERVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 14) — As soon as Bobby Pierce parked his battered car in the pit area following a dismal 25th-place finish in Friday’s 35-lap World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature at Volusia Speedway Park, he climbed from the cockpit and headed straight for his trailer. He wanted to check the replay of the DIRTVision broadcast to confirm what he thought about the incident that had dive-bombed his bid. | Complete Speedweeks coverage
With a remote control in his hand, the 28-year-old sensation from Oakwood, Ill., leaned on the counter in his trailer and rewound the stream of the race on the television situated in the corner. He found the lap-six restart that highlighted Round 5 of the 54th DIRTcar Nationals and pressed play.
First Pierce watched the slider he executed through turns one and two on Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., as they battled for fourth place. Then he studied Davenport’s slide job at the other end of the track, one that resulted in the 41-year-old sweeping in front of Pierce in turn four in a close-shave manner that caused Pierce to aero-push into the thick cushion and absorb a hard hit from Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., as he attempted to wrestle his machine out of the muck.
What was Pierce’s assessment of the moment that resulted in his retirement from the race on lap 16 following multiple pit stops?
“J.D. don’t know how to throw sliders,” Pierce said through clenched teeth. “Plain and simple.”
Pierce, of course, is well known for his hard-charging, slide-jobbing talents. Davenport is regarded more for his cool, calculated driving, though he can certainly mix it up when necessary and isn’t afraid to toss sliders of his own.
The differing styles of the two Dirt Late Model superstars clashed in a manner that left Pierce breaking down the sixth lap in meticulous fashion.
“You throw a slider, you come from the bottom of the track and you leave a guy time to cross over,” Pierce said, before going on to describe Davenport’s move: “We call this an early slider, where you start your slider right next to a guy and you don’t give the guy an option to do anything. And that’s what that was (from Davenport), so a little bit of lost respect for him.”
Pierce went back to the video, putting the replay in slow motion to explain the episode from his point of view. He started by pointing to his move to the inside of Davenport entering turn one as the race restarted.
“Like when I throw my slider, (Davenport’s) 10 car lengths from (third-place Ethan) Dotson by the time we get to turn one,” Pierce said with the video running. “I mean, look at all the space there (in front of Davenport). Like, someone’s gonna take that space.
“So see, I gave him plenty of time to notice, to crossover. Perfect. Perfect racing. We’re good, we’re good to go.”
Continuing to follow the lap, Pierce noted that Davenport “gets back under me” with a crossover move off turn tow. Then “we’re side-by-side, if not I got a nose on him right here” upon barreling into turn three.
“The camera comes off us (for a moment), but see this? He needs to be here, right here (farther away and behind),” Pierce said, drawing attention to where he thought Davenport should have started his slider. “We’re in the corner. We’re entering the corner and he’s already in my door (at the start of the slider). That’s not what you do to a guy. That’s what you’re doing when you’re trying to (screw) somebody.
“So he gave me no choice. I was already backing out of it right here (as Davenport slid across his nose rounding turn four), and so I’m done. You can lift, you can brake, but you’re going over the cushion.”
Which is exactly what Pierce did. His car bounced in the deep, churned-up mud, and then, as he gassed up in an attempt to stay off the outside wall, the nose of his car swung back over the lip of the cushion and toward traffic. Sheppard, flying around the cushion and with no room to escape, clipped the left-rear of Pierce’s machine with the right-rear of his Rocket Chassis house car, sending Pierce toward the wall before turning nose-first toward the inside of the track.
Pierce described the end game of his trip over the cushion as he watched the replay: “So I’m struggling now (in the cushion), and I was all right, I’m coming back on (the lip), but I had the whole field behind me so I got slammed. That was a hard hit.
“And I got real lucky here,” he added, pointing at his car sitting sideways off turn four as several cars narrowly missed collecting him. “Luckily I didn’t get hit again.”
Pierce limped to the infield so his crew could attempt hasty repairs. They initially thought the right-front corner was the worst spot because Pierce had slapped the outside wall, but they soon realized the left-front tie-rod was bent significantly and, after pit stops during ensuing caution periods, they decided to withdraw from the race on lap 15.
The DNF was a frustrating development for Pierce, who was gunning for his first win of Speedweeks 2025 after finishing second in Thursday’s WoO feature. He noted that he hasn’t traded “a whole lot” of sliders with Davenport over the years and commented on how he hopes future instances with the three-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion will go.
“Just a little more room on corner entry is expected,” Pierce said.
Davenport, meanwhile, went on to finish second to $12,000 winner Devin Moran, Ohio, his sixth runner-up placing already in 2025. (He had five second-place runs in all of ’24.) He didn’t view the lap-six action in the same way as Pierce.
“I’ll have to go back and watch the film, but we took off on the restart and we was side-by-side getting into turn one and he slid me, he cleared me, and I turned back under him,” Davenport said. “Then I saw him out there (entering turn three), and as I went to turn to slide him … like, I couldn’t see him anymore so I know I had him cleared. Maybe not as much as he’d like, but he could’ve left me a lane on the top, too.
“So I don’t know why he’s mad, but maybe I done something I shouldn’t have.”
Davenport understood that his car crossing closely in front of Pierce messed up Pierce’s air and sent the 2023 WoO champion pushing into the cushion, but he pointed out that “there’s cars in front of me and, like, you can’t turn in that black anyway, so … maybe I didn’t give him enough room. I don’t know.”
“I ain’t ever really had no problems with Bobby, and it ain’t like I was trying to mess him up or anything,” he continued. “I was was trying to slide him back. Here, you gotta get all you can get on those restarts because then you get single-file and keep running until you get to lapped traffic and try to create another obstacle to go around. I didn’t do anything to mess him up on purpose. I was just trying to get position like he was on me on this end (turns one and two).”
Davenport noted that Volusia’s cushion makes it difficult for a driver to recover once he hops it like Pierce did. In fact, Davenport experienced a similar situation in Thursday’s feature that caused him to plummet from eighth to 23rd on lap 25 when he stayed straight in the cushion rather than attempt a risky save.
“It’s so thick, and they till it up above it, so once you get above it, then you’re in all the tilled stuff and you really can’t get out of it,” Davenport said. “Well, the same thing happened to me last night, but I opted not to turn back across it and ride it out. I didn’t want to mess nobody else up and I got a pretty good race car so I didn’t want to tear it up.”
