Pierce Rules FloRacing Night As Dream Weekend Begins

Bobby Pierce celebrates in Eldora Speedway victory lane Wednesday night. (Tyler Carr photo)

ROSSBURG, Ohio – Bobby Pierce won Wednesday night’s 50-lap, $20,000-to-win FloRacing Night in America race at Eldora Speedway to open The Dream weekend at the historic half-mile dirt track.

The series made its first trip to Eldora in 2022, but this year marked the first time that FloRacing Night was run in conjunction with The Dream weekend.

The Dream is one of the biggest dirt super late model races of the year and has been held annually since 1994. Saturday night’s Dream finale pays out a whopping $100,000 to the victor.

But back to Wednesday night first.

Pierce took the lead from Hudson O’Neal with 28 laps to go and was able to largely pull away from there. A caution with three laps to go, however, reset the field and forced Pierce to hold off O’Neal and Dale McDowell on the late-race restart.

Thankfully for Pierce, O’Neal and McDowell battled each other for the runner-up spot, allowing him to earn the win with relative ease by .863 seconds.

“We were good tonight,” Pierce said in victory lane. “The car could really go middle or up top. I made a lot of moves through the middle in [the ruts], so don’t let it fool you … I can’t do that for 100 laps, but for 50 laps, you can kind of put the whip to the car a bit.

“I was nervous when that caution came out because I knew my spoiler was messed up, and I saw McDowell was up to third and had flashbacks of the World 100 when he passed me at the end, but we got him back. It was a fun race.”

While Pierce has won the World 100 and the Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora, he has never won The Dream. Wednesday night’s win is another shot in the arm for the Oakwood, Ill., driver in pursuit of that goal, on top of having a dominant year so far in general.

“I feel pretty good,” said Pierce, who has won 17 times this season already, including twice on the FloRacing Night in America tour. “This is on the new [Hoosier] right rear tire, and it does feel a little different, but then again, [it’s] a different racetrack every time we come [to Eldora]. I feel like it’s always slicker here [for] The Dream than it is the World [100] or the Dirt Track [World Championship]. The black spots are really, really slick, so if you hit it wrong, you hang there forever … kind of like what you do at Knoxville. But I feel pretty confident.

“We just hope to have a good finish tomorrow [in the preliminary race to] set us up well for Saturday,” Pierce added. “That's what it's all about. Tonight being a Flo[Racing] night, I really wanted to maintain that point lead and try to grow it, so we did what we could, and got the job done there. [I’m] just looking forward to the rest of the weekend. It’s going to be fun.”

O’Neal ended up with the runner-up honors over McDowell, while Nick Hoffman and Garrett Alberson crossed fourth and fifth, respectively.

Josh Rice, Tim McCreadie, Kyle Bronson, Daulton Wilson, and Tanner English closed out the top 10.

Eighty-five drivers entered Wednesday’s program at Eldora, with those missing the feature including the likes of Ricky Weiss, Frank Heckenast Jr., Jimmy Owens, Tyler Bruening, Dennis Erb Jr., Jason Feger, Cade Dillard, Max Blair, and Ashton Winger.

The first night of preliminary action for the 32nd annual Dream starts Thursday, June 5. Friday, June 6 will also feature preliminary racing, with the Dream finale capping the weekend on Saturday, June 7.

Each night of Dirt Late Model Dream weekend streams live starting at 6 p.m. ET on FloRacing.

The next race for the FloRacing Night in America series is Wednesday, July 23 at Fairbury (Ill.) American Legion Speedway.

The finish:

Feature (50 laps): 1. 32-Bobby Pierce [6]; 2. 71-Hudson O'Neal [2]; 3. 17M-Dale McDowell [8]; 4. 9H-Nick Hoffman [10]; 5. 58-Garrett Alberson [3]; 6. 11R-Josh Rice [5]; 7. 9M-Tim McCreadie [13]; 8. 40B-Kyle Bronson [16]; 9. 18D-Daulton Wilson [17]; 10. 96-Tanner English [4]; 11. 93-Carson Ferguson [1]; 12. 1-Brandon Sheppard [28]; 13. 44-Chris Madden [7]; 14. 49-Jonathan Davenport [25]; 15. 5-Mark Whitener [23]; 16. 19R-Ryan Gustin [27]; 17. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr. [26]; 18. 57-Zack Mitchell [14]; 19. 157-Mike Marlar [19]; 20. 99-Devin Moran [9]; 21. 22-Chris Ferguson [21]; 22. 01-Tyler Erb [22]; 23. 10S-Garrett Smith [20]; 24. 88-Trent Ivey [12]; 25. 14JR-Trey Mills [24]; 26. 25Z-Mason Zeigler [15]; 27. 76-Brandon Overton [11]; 28. 25C-Shane Clanton [18].