Pierce's roll continues

For the sixth week in a row, Bobby Pierce is a winner at the highest level of Dirt Late Model racing.

His 50th career win with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series in mid-May at Georgetown Speedway was merely the start of another epic hot streak for the 29-year-old Oakwood, Ill., racer. The following week, Pierce bagged $75,000 at the Show-Me 100, then another $30,000 three days later at the Connor Bobik Memorial. June began with Pierce's long-awaited maiden Dream victory before he turned his focus back to World of Outlaws action and reached double-digit victories at West Virginia Motor Speedway last weekend.

From there, the tour rolled north for 141 Speedway's inaugural World of Outlaws event, and Pierce picked up right where he left off. In his first start at the Maribel, Wis., facility since 2018, Pierce went flag-to-flag to earn another $25,000 at the end of 60 laps.

The early portion of the race was a duel between a pair of red, white and blue cars in Pierce and Drake Troutman, with both drivers swapping lanes through traffic looking for a way through. Troutman briefly got side-by-side with Pierce at times, but before he could make a move stick, the engine expired under the hood of the No. 22* and ended his race.

That misfortune moved Tyler Erb up to second ahead of Tristan Chamberlain in third, who won his heat race and was having one of the most competitive nights of his WoO career. Pierce pulled away from both of them on the restart, but a dozen laps later, some light rain started to fall which put the race under a red flag with 31 laps complete.

Teams were allowed to return to the pits and make changes during the delay, giving the rest of the field a chance to dial in their car to outrun the No. 32. They all came up empty handed in the second half of the race though, as Pierce went unchallenged on the way to his first 141 victory.

"There at the end, I was getting really loose," Pierce said. "Definitely didn't like to see a caution, so I'm glad we didn't have any. I've got to thank my crew for the quick turnaround back there, we were fixing the spoiler, put fresh tires on, put a little fuel in it and that was all the time we really had. I do thank them for getting the race in, I know these fans wanted to see all 60 laps, but it just made it tricky for me because I was in the lead."

McCreadie climbed to second to earn a spot on the podium for the first time since his (May 14) Selinsgrove Speedway win, while Nick Hoffman rebounded from a rough weekend at West Virginia with a third-place result. — Spence Smithback

A victory for Pappy

It wasn’t necessarily pretty, but SSI Motorsports crew chief Jason Durham came out on top of Friday's Crown Vic Challenge at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn., at the conclusion of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series program won by Brandon Sheppard.

The event pitted six crew chiefs on the national tour against one another in Crown Vic division cars and Durham — in part because he spun race-long leader Danny White of Rocket1 team entering turn three midrace — took the victory with White second and Anthony Burroughs of Koehler Motorsports third. Double Down Motorsports crew chief Chuck Kimble was a DNF in fourth after twice smacking the wall while Riggs Motorsports’ Ryder Cantillo retired early with mechanical woes. Centerline Motorsports crew chief Rob Blair scratched after his car’s motor blew up.

Durham’s driver, Hudson O’Neal, served as an infield commentator and didn’t hold back on his observations about Durham’s car in victory lane.

“The right-front fender on the 71 looks pretty used up,” O’Neal said with his fellow Lucas Oil competitor and commentator Devin Moran adding “whatever it takes to win, apparently.”

Durham, whose pre-crew chief career included Late Model victories in and around his native Georgia, focused on the positives in a race where he spun on the backstretch on the opening lap to trigger a complete restart.

“Obviously we ain’t going to do this every day, but I think it’s fun and fun for the fans to have something a little different going on like we did today,” said the winner, known as Pappy around the pits. “I’d like to see more of it and other people do it. Like, some of the other crew guys, they don’t have to be crew chiefs. Let some of the other crew guys do it.”

The runner-up White was the lone crew chief without competitive racing experience, but he fared well.

“I didn’t spin out and I didn’t finish last, so that checked all my boxes for the night,” he told Moran, who quickly pointed out that White actually did spin out. And got dumped, perhaps?

“What are you going to do? The way they talked, (Durham) probably could’ve passed me clean — but he didn’t,” White said with a laugh.

Overton, who announced the race with regular series announcer James Essex, questioned White’s move to the high side later in the race.

“I was wondering if he was getting tight or if he was just getting tired in there,” cracked Overton, who earlier was worried about the five-wide parade lap. “Oh my, someone’s going to get a wheel mark.”

Plans were for the drivers to jump into the Crown Vics after Saturday’s action, but with three cars out of action it wasn’t clear if that would happen at the Roger Sellers-owned track.

“Thanks to Rog for letting us do this,” Burroughs said. “It was awesome.” — Staff and series reports