Bobby Pierce Leads All Laps At Bedford; Wins $15,000

Bobby Pierce competing at Bedford Speedway in Bedford, PA (Photo: Emily Schwanke | World Racing Group)

BEDFORD, Pa. — The World of Outlaws late models kicked off their weekend of racing at Bedford Speedway with the 45-lap, $15,000-to-win Billy Winn Classic.

For the first time in 15 years, the super late models ripped around the dirt oval, and Bobby Pierce clocked the quickest time by running a 19.094 second lap. Pierce went through the rest of the preliminaries and ended up being on the outside pole to kick off the feature.

Brian Shirley, who had the actual pole, got ahead of everyone else to keep the lead, but Pierce got up high and was looking for a mistake to swoop down and steal it. He saw what he was looking for and slid past him on the top coming out of Turn 2.

Meanwhile, Cody Overton and Ryan Gustin battled it out for sixth, with Nick Hoffman closing in on them. Four laps later, Hoffman got by them both to take over sixth with a hope to crack the top five.

On Lap 10 Pierce was able to catch up with lap traffic. A couple spaces behind, Alex Ferree and Brandon Sheppard were going head–to-head for fourth with Sheppard choosing the bottom. No matter how hard Sheppard tried, he could not seem to find the correct lane and move combination to get past Ferree who seemed to be in a zone.

Hoffman, who was behind Sheppard, was looking to get around him to get into the top five, and Gustin was behind him, trying to get the coveted sixth place position. Up ahead a little ways, Shirley was closing in on Pierce due to traffic.

The first caution of the night came out with Kyle Bronson who had a flat right rear tire go down. He went into the pit area to get it changed and was able to make it back out in time to continue on.

On the restart, Cade Dillard got by Shirley for second down the back stretch and Shirley tried to get it back going into the corner, to no avail. Now, Shirley had to deal with the pressure of multi-champ Sheppard going after him for the final podium finish spot.

Just as Shirley got the hang of holding onto Sheppard, his left rear tire went flat, causing another caution to come out and him having to go to the pits to get a new one. Luckily, Shirley was able to get one on in time to go forward in the race.

This restart saw Sheppard get second with Gustin looking to crack the top three by going after Dillard. Gustin ended up getting by Dillard because Dillard hopped the cushion and tagged the wall, injuring his spoiler. This caused him to fall back significantly.

The flat tire curse continued on with Overton’s left rear going down on Lap 22. He went in and got one put on in a timely manner, allowing him to come back out to catch the tail-end of the field.

Dustin Sorenson was making his way to the top, but he got bumped by Ferree after hitting a rut in Turn 3, drawing yet another caution. Ferree ended up going three-wide on the restart with Gregg Satterlee and Gustin for fourth.

Going into Turn 4, Kyle Lee and Hoffman were side-by-side. As they made their way to exit the corner, they rubbed against each other and this caused Hoffman’s left rear to go down. Hoffman went into the pits and got a new tire to replace the barely intact, cut in half one. Ferree also had a flat left rear and was able to get that repaired as well.

The restart saw Gustin and Pierce battle it out for the lead, but Pierce was able to walk away ahead of Gustin soon after with no problems. 

On Lap 28, Dillard got a flat right rear, and became the next victim of the tire curse. He was able to go in and get it fixed in the time frame to be able to keep going.

Brandon Sheppard competing at Bedford Speedway in Bedford, PA (Photo: Emily Schwanke | World Racing Group)

Sheppard claimed second this time around, and Dennis Erb Jr. and Tyler Bruening began vying for the sixth place spot. Erb ended up getting it after running the bottom to slide up in front of him to get the better line around the track.

Kyle Lee came to a stop on the front straight on Lap 32. He ended up being pushed to the pits and this allowed anyone who wanted to go into the pits to have a little more time. That is exactly what Dillard took advantage of when he went in and got a new left rear tire and a little work done to his spoiler.   

Gustin got by Sheppard on the restart and was looked towards Pierce, but just as he was going to go after him Bernheisel went around due to Erb hitting him lightly. This caused Bronson to slam into Bernheisel, sending Bronson spinning into the wall and away from the carnage of about four other drivers, including Hoffman, hitting each other. Hoffman went in to the pits to get checked out and got his car cut apart to be able to make it back out.

This time, Sheppard got second on the restart and Erb and Bruening still went at it for sixth. Just as the cars got going again, the tire curse struck again. This time, Max McLaughlin slowed due to a right rear going soft and drew the caution. Sadly, he was not able to make it back out in time to continue on for the remaining ten laps.

With four laps to go, Gustin tried to reel in Sheppard for second but couldn’t pull it off successfully due to Tristan Chamberlain slowing on the back straight. After going into the pits to have his crew look over his car, it was deemed that he had nothing wrong with his car and went back out.

On the last lap, Rick Eckert slowed in Turn 4 and then pounded the cushion due to a left rear flat. Eckert, realizing there was not much time left, decided to stay in the pits and not come back out.

Pierce was able to hold the lead to win the race, but coming into Turn 2 at the end of the feature ended up with a wrecked car for the defending champ. Bernheisel had spun out and the officials called a caution, and just as Pierce was slowing to go around him, he started up his car and drove right out in front of Pierce. Pierce, not wanting to hit him head on, spun out to hit him less hard with the back end, and that’s exactly what he did. Pierce went to Victory Lane with his left rear quarter panel, and bumper, all crunched up.

“It was challenging on the restarts,” said Pierce about the race. “I was watching my guys but they were hard to see. There were a lot of cautions and I’m just glad it’s over.” Pierce then gestured to his car. “We’re happy but we don’t like working on these things all the time.”