Kevin Kovac's Take Five
Take Five: Pierce continues record pace
In a new feature appearing regularly on DirtonDirt, senior writer Kevin Kovac will offer readers five things worth mentioning from around the Dirt Late Model landscape (index to previous Take Fives):
No. 1: With his third straight and seventh overall World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory of the season coming in Thursday’s 30-lap Dairyland Showdown opener at Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City, Wis., Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., has himself on a unprecedented checkered-flag pace. His seven triumphs on the national tour by the end of April is a WoO record, surpassing Brandon Sheppard’s six in 2019 and Josh Richards’s five in ’16. What’s more, the 29-year-old Pierce’s previous best win WoO win total at the end of April was three last year when he went on to capture 10 features; his other seasons as a WoO regular saw him win just once each year by this point in the schedule en route to 14 full-field victories in ’23 and 13 in ’24.
No. 2: It should be noted that this season the WoO circuit has completed a record number of features by the end of April with 18 (of a possible 20) races already in the books. Excluding the tour’s original two-year run in 1988-89, over the last 22 seasons since the WoO reincarnation in 2004 the series has averaged just under nine features contested at April’s conclusion. That includes a high of 15 in ’21 and a low of five in ’05. This year marks the ninth time that the series has reached double-figures in completed features by the end of April.
No. 3: Speaking of Mississippi Thunder Speedway, the 3/8-mile oval became the latest notch on MARS Championship Series director Jonathan Clayton’s long list of racetrack visits on Thursday. The 32-year-old from Tolono, Ill., is a dedicated track chaser, so with Clayton needing to return a set of scale pads he had borrowed from WoO officials for recent rained-out MARS events in Iowa, he jumped at the opportunity to meet up with series director Steve Francis at Mississippi Thunder since he’d never been there. It was the 284th all-time track at which Clayton has seen a race and “it didn’t disappoint” with the action he witnessed, he related. Clayton said his officiating duties with MARS, DIRTcar and on Saturday nights at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway — plus now being a married father of two — prevents him from pushing his track total up as quickly as in his younger days, but he’s still eyeing the 300-track milestone as well as his “biggest goal” of visiting a track in every state. In fact, he said he was planning on visiting Iowa’s Fayette County Speedway on Friday to knock out track No. 285 on his way home for Saturday’s season opener at Fairbury.
No. 4: Tuesday’s upcoming 2026 FloRacing Night in America series opener at La Salle (Ill.) Speedway will feature a new attraction for fans: a large video screen that will provide a live feed of the race’s FloRacing broadcast, giving attendees an opportunity to see replays of the on-track action. The mobile Jumbotron will be at all FloRacing Night in America and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events starting with next week’s Illinois Speedweeks.
No. 5: As I write this just after noon Friday, all systems still remain go for Saturday’s Comeback Classic at Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway. Former NASCAR driver and occasional Dirt Late Model racer Matt Tifft is anxiously anticipating his first event at the helm of the reborn track that last hosted action in 2019. A $5,000-to-win Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series tops Saturday’s program that also features 410 sprint cars and UMP modifieds and is scheduled to start with hot laps at 4:15 p.m. — earlier than originally planned due to expected chilly temperatures. Tifft primed for Saturday’s show by having a Dirt Late Model and sprint car turn some laps on Thursday and testing out the new giant video screen that sits just behind the backstretch entering turn three.
