The Dirt Track at Charlotte
Notes: Pierce's clincher comes with ho-hum 12th
By Kevin Kovac and Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt
Bobby Pierce (32) heads for a 12th-place finish. (Zach Yost)
CONCORD, N.C. (Nov. 6) — Bobby Pierce’s World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series clinching moment didn’t come with any special flair — just a quiet 12th-place finish in Thursday’s 35-lap World Finals opener at The Dirt Track at Charlotte. | RaceWire
Not surprisingly, the evening left the 28-year-old superstar from Oakwood, Ill., with some mixed emotions.
“I’m not happy where I finished,” Pierce said in the pit area after changing into street clothes, “but I’m happy we won” the championship.
Pierce entered the weekend leading the WoO standings by a hefty 124 points over Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., essentially meaning only a disastrous three nights of racing for him — and a perfect performance by Hoffman — would cost him the title. He needed only to finish 16th or better in Thursday’s feature to secure his second WoO crown in three years with two races remaining.
Starting 16th in the A-main, Pierce hustled forward to the edge of the top-10 in the early laps before plummeting to 18th in the running order. This was as Hoffman, who started on the outside pole, led laps 1-12 and generally appeared headed to a strong finish that, if Pierce didn’t move up, could keep his flickering title hopes alive for at least one more night.
But Hoffman ultimately slipped to a fourth-place finish while Pierce gained positions over the race’s second half to place 12th, giving him a 108-point edge over Hoffman that is too large for him to lose with the WoO points computation only allowing a driver to make up 46 points in a single feature.
“I made a lot of moves the first couple laps, but then I don’t know … I guess the bottom came in and I wasn’t getting down quick enough,” said Pierce, who technically must start Friday and Saturday features to officially clinch. “I made some moves on the one restart (lap 23) and I went from like 18th and I finished 12th. I was saying I could have possibly sent ‘er on the cushion there — what cushion there was — at the end, but I was just satisfied with staying there.”
Pierce certainly wasn’t satisfied with his finish, but said “this feels awesome to win the points with like two nights to go. That’s sweet, right? So we’ll just kind of take this opportunity to try some things and go out there and gas on.”
There’s no doubt Pierce found himself with plenty of room for improvement after failing to crack the top-10 in Thursday’s feature. He was planning to throw more at his Longhorn Chassis in the Friday and Saturday programs, but his confidence was slightly below its usual level because, even though he scored a win at Charlotte in last year’s second World Finals feature, he’s not especially enamored with the 4/10-mile oval
“We’ll see what it is, but I’m not really fond of this track,” Pierce said. “This is probably like one of my very least favorite tracks. It’s tough here. The competition here is really good. And this is kind of a track where it's really cookie-cutter in the sense of like, there’s not a lot … the track doesn’t allow you to do a lot as a driver.
“It’s pretty basic. It's just a big circle. We'll just try to get through it, use the next two nights to just try some stuff and see if we can make something happen and make sure we’re better at Senoia” for Nov. 14-15’s FloRacing Night in America Peach State Classic at the Georgia track. — Kevin Kovac
More frustration
Thursday’s World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte was characteristic of Brandon Overton’s frustrating maiden year aboard the Longhorn Factory Team ride.
Race-winning speed and potential are clearly there, as the 34-year-old won his heat race over Jonathan Davenport to eventually start from the pole of the night’s main event. He lost the lead early, but battled back around Brandon Sheppard and Nick Hoffman to regain control on lap 18.
But then began the backslid for the Evans, Ga., driver who tumbled down the leaderboard to finish 10th, leaving him scratching his head as to what went wrong. The top-10 run had so much promise, yet disappointing at the same time.
“We wasn’t bad. Kept getting bad restarts once we went back green, wasn’t good enough,” Overton said. “I was just good enough to just be there. Sheppard obviously passed us on the bottom, and then he moved up trying to get around lapped cars. … Wasn’t good enough to carry speed around lapped cars, so I got pinched behind them.
“Moved out to get around them, then Drake (Troutman) ran the bottom to put me back to fourth. Then a couple bad restarts. I’m good enough to momentum with them and stay with them, but just aren’t good enough to drive by them.”
Overton, who hasn’t won a nationally touring feature since May 2’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action at Indianapolis, Ind.’s Circle City Raceway, thought he had a top-five car if all went right, like the restarts, for him.
“You can always see how good your car is when they bottle you back up, or when you get close to somebody, kind of shows who has the better car,” Overton sad. “Yeah, we just have to work on it. We did decent. Had a good heat race. Our car has speed early. Keep working on it and get it dialed in for the features.”
Overton indeed had a stellar car early on. He raced around Davenport on the initial start of his heat race and gapped the Double L Motorsport driver significantly in clean air. When he lost the lead on the initial start to Hoffman, he overcame a two-second deficit on lap 11 regain the lead on lap 18.
But then lapped traffic came and quickly shuffled Overton to fourth two laps later.
“Obviously, we can win. If we get our car right, we can win every race we go to, you know what I mean?” Overton said. “Nothing’s gone our way all year. I mean, nothing. Just nothing. Just one of those years. Anytime we are fast and can win, have speed to win, something happens. Blow up or tear up or something. What do you do? Just gotta keep on racing and get our car better so we don’t have to rely on so much luck.” — Kyle McFadden
Hoffman’s Charlotte quest
Nick Hoffman didn’t pay any attention to World of Outlaws title race scenarios. Entering the week 124 points behind Bobby Pierce, it would’ve taken a miracle for the Mooresville, N.C., driver to overcome that deficit considering 150 points goes to the winner and 102 goes to 24th on back.
The 33-year-old still has plenty of motivation this weekend.
“I just wanna win at Charlotte,” Hoffman said following Thursday’s fourth-place finish. “We were good enough to do it.”
Hoffman commanded the opening 13 laps from outside the front row before challenges began navigating lapped traffic.
“As soon as we get to lapped traffic, you just stall out,” Hoffman said. “Those guys are running multiple lanes. But the guys running the bottom threw crumbs across the racetrack. I’m telling you, if you go back and looked at the lap times, I’m sure I slowed down close to a second I bet.
“When I got to 10 car lengths behind, say Tanner English or Tristan Chamberlain, (Sheppard) gets back to me and drives back by me on the bottom. And he got stalled out behind those lapped cars and started moving around.”
The lap-24 caution gave Hoffman another shot to rally around Sheppard, but the lap-26 caution didn’t do any favors.
“Then we get a caution, I chose the outside lane and was able to beat Drake (Troutman) through one and two, but smoked me off of four,” Hoffman said. “I was scared to do that a second time because we got another caution again. Then I started running Sheppy back down because he committed to that bottom; thought I had a shot to drive back by him there. Then a caution comes out and they moved him up, their signal guys moved him up, and that was all she wrote for me to drive back by him.”
For the final 10 laps, Hoffman “had to fend guys off,” which didn’t go according to plan when eventual winner Hudson O’Neal made his way into second on lap 26.
“Probably used my tires too bad for like that last 10 laps, but all in all, it was fine to run fourth,” Hoffman said. “Pretty frustrated when you start second and lead laps.”
Hoffman feels the spotlight that’s shining on the World Finals this week, not only because it’s close to home, but that there’s a fair share of NASCAR personnel roaming the pits and watching from afar considering its season ended last weekend in Phoenix, Ariz.
He just wants to make his Tye Twarog-owned team and his partners proud.
“I’m telling you, I just wanna win at Charlotte. I have so many friends and family here, and I feel like so many eyes are on his race right now,” Hoffman said. “I’ve been so good all year and I just wanna show it here.” — Kyle McFadden
Eventful prelim
Thursday’s third heat race was anything but smooth. Just let Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., who won the qualifier, detail the prelim’s happenings after starting outside polesitter Ryan Gustin.
“On the original start I went to take off and (Gustin) kind of like brake-checked a little bit and then fired, so I didn’t get that great of a start,” Thornton said. “Then I just got in dirty air behind Devin (Moran) at that point and got over the (turn one) curb. I tried to get back in line, and I don’t remember who it was, like they slid into me — which it wasn’t their fault — and I was kind of bouncing around a little bit. Luckily the yellow came out (for a car that slowed due to the scramble) or I would’ve been 10th.
“The next restart, kind of the same thing — Gustin kind of brake-checked, and then, I don’t know if Moran just ran into him and popped his left rear or what. Then the yellow came out and I thought I was gonna be put back a row because I got a really good start, but (Gustin) had that flat so that put me on the pole. Then Devin broke getting into one on the restart and there was another yellow and then I had (Mike) Marlar alongside me, and I just got a good start there and was able to slide Marlar and get out front.”
Thornton cruised once the race got rolling, his Koehler Motorsports Longhorn Chassis only sporting some quarter-panel damage from the original-start scrape. He was relieved that he was fortunate enough to reclaim a front-row starting spot after his rough start and survived all the other mayhem.
“I was glad that we’re on gas,” Thornton said with a laugh. “I felt like there for a minute were going to run out of fuel just because it was taking so long. It felt like our heat race took forever.”
Gustin said afterward that his demise on the heat’s first restart resulted from a hiccup in his Cooney Motorsports Infinity car’s carburetor.
“The carburetor stumbled and it didn’t take off, that’s what happened honestly,” said Gustin, who ultimately had to use a provisional to start the feature but charged 25th to finish seventh. “It’s a carburetor that I don’t really like but it runs good when it’s wide open but doesn’t take off very good, and unfortunately it stumbled and I got run over. It is what it is.
“We don’t normally run that carburetor. We came here and tested and it was faster down the straightway, but we should’ve used our heads and taken it off for the heat race. The (original) start it took off OK. I don’t know if I didn’t get it cleared out enough, but it’s just so hard to get that thing to go consistently.”
Both Thornton and Moran understood the carburetor that Gustin said he experienced.
“It makes sense because I fired off right with him and then he slowed down,” said Thornton, who went on to finish sixth in the feature.
“That’s what it felt like,” Moran said. “It obviously wasn’t (Gustin’s) fault. I know Ryan wouldn’t mean to do that. If his carb stumbled, there’s obviously nothing you can do about that. And he’s points racing, so I hate to do that to him.”
Moran’s evening, though, was ruined by the contact he made to Gustin’s left-rear corner. He attempted to restart the heat despite his Double Down Motorsports car’s right-front damage but “couldn’t turn” when he reached turn one because the suspension was too comprised, forcing him out of the race. He failed to qualify through a B-main. — Kevin Kovac
