Bobby Pierce adapting to numerous changes for 2018 season

To say that 2018 is a year of major change for Dirt Late Model racer Bobby Pierce would be a huge understatement. The three-time  and defending Summer Nationals champion is having to adjust to a new team, a new chassis, a new series, new crew members, a new travel schedule, and numerous new tracks. But the 21-year-old loves the opportunity and the challenge set before him in the coming campaign.

Pierce left his family owned team and its Bob Pierce Race Cars during this past off-season to join Carlton and Kemp Lamm’s Dunn-Benson Motorsports team as a full-time competitor on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. The North Carolina based organization uses Rocket’s XR1 Chassis. The team currently sits in the 11th position in the series points standings.

The Oakwood, Illinois native has yet to score a win with his new team but there have been some solid runs. A total of six top-10 results have come in the LOLMDS sanctioned events with four other top-10 finishes in races contested outside that series. However, inconsistency in the points paying races has particularly taken its toll on this newly formed partnership.

“It’s been a little bit of a challenge,” Pierce pointed out in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “Heck, I’ve always ran our Pierce cars and racing a Rocket is definitely something that’s different, from the way it drives to just sitting in it. The whole office is different, but it’s just a race car. I’ve had some good finishes so far but we had some bad luck during SpeedWeeks. It was like on all the points nights something would happen that we would have bad luck on all those nights and that kind of hurt us in points. But it’s been pretty good so far. The team is definitely top notch.”

Pierce acknowledges that visiting so many tracks outside of his Midwestern home area in the early part of the season has been tough. At the same time, the driver who has won crown jewel races such as the North-South 100, the Show-me 100 and the World 100 insists that he is enjoying the learning process.

“Going to all these new tracks is a challenge but it’s a lot of fun too.” Pierce declared. “I really enjoy that challenge. For me going into it, I don’t have any expectations. If we can get a top-5 at these new tracks then that’s kind of like a win for me.”

Adding to the difficulty of the early part of this season is the fact that Pierce is racing much more on southern red clay than he has in the past. The darker dirt of the Midwest behaves differently throughout a typical racing program and the driver is working hard to adjust to those new conditions.

“It’s kind of hard because I don’t really have that much experience on this type of dirt,” the driver who has impressed national audiences with his efforts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races at Eldora Speedway admitted. “It’s deceiving because the red dirt can sometimes act like black dirt in certain situations but the red dirt doesn’t like to form a cushion very much and I’m pretty used to having a cushion. You’ve got to drive it a little bit differently. But every track is different.”

One thing that is helping smooth the learning curve for the racer known as ‘The Smooth Operator’ is the fact that his father has remained as his crew chief despite the change in teams. However, there have been some unique challenges with the arrangement between the Pierces and Dunn-Benson.

“It definitely has,” Pierce replied when asked if having his father involved in his new team has helped to ease the transition. “He knows me better than anyone when it comes to being on the race track. He can tell not only what the car needs but also what I need to improve on. With all the years we’ve spent together he knows how to talk to me about it.”

Like every father/son relationship, there have been some difficult times, but Bobby Pierce believes that having Bob Pierce in his corner throughout his career has been of great benefit. He also believes that will continue to be the case even with the distance separating his pit boss from the crew.

“We’ve butted heads so many times before when he’s been trying to teach me how to drive the car right all the way up through the years,” Pierce said with a smile. “I’ve been racing Late Models since I was 13 and I think he could see that I had some talent at it. But with starting so young there were so many things that I didn’t know and he was trying to put all his years of wisdom into me. That’s been one of the things that’s made me better. It’s been frustrating at times because I want to be the best there is and he wants me to be the best there is. He really helps though and although this is a Rocket car, he’s really smart with race cars and he knows how to get them going. I think he’s definitely a good asset to the team. With him being the crew chief, it’s a little hard with him not being down there at the shop.”

Perhaps the biggest adjustment so far has been the switch from the Bob Pierce Race Cars he has driven during his entire racing life to the Rocket XR1 Chassis. But it is one that Pierce believes he and his crew will get a handle on sooner rather than later.

“Coming from a Pierce car, we weren’t really behind on setup but we just did things a lot differently than almost everyone,” Pierce explained. “With my driving style, I kind of had to get used to that. There’s a lot of times you don’t notice it but under certain track conditions and places I’ve kind of got to get rid of some habits that I had in those cars. But Mark(Richards) has been a great help to us so far in helping us get going. I’m getting more comfortable in the car, and in the seat. I think us running up front will be a consistent thing here soon once we just get some more luck on our side. I don’t think it will be too much further until we get a win on the Lucas Series.”

One thing Pierce hasn’t had to adjust to is his living arrangement. While there has been some back-and-forth movement, he has mostly stayed close to home.

“As far as living down there, I’ve stayed down there a few weeks but I’m still in Illinois,” he pointed out. “I’m not totally sure on what I’m doing there yet but I’ll probably be living in Illinois and just coming down every now and then throughout the week. When the racing gets really started up, I’ll be on the road a lot anyways. Every now and then they plan to dock up in Oakwood, Illinois when they’re up in that area. It’s been really good. My crew guys are great to work with and the Lamms are great people.”

So with all of the adjustments he is having to make, what are the driver’s goals for the 2018 campaign?

“I would definitely like to get higher up in points. Coming out of SpeedWeeks we just had some bad luck and we didn’t run very good on a couple of those nights. We qualified good but by the end of the night we weren’t up at the front. We need to get more consistent, and I think we will. But what I would call a good season would be something like 10 wins, that would be a really good season.”

The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series returns to action this weekend with the Bad Boy 98 at Batesville(AR) Motor Speedway.