Bobby Pierce
Over the last several weeks, it appeared the World 100 would come to a battle between Eldora’s dominant driver Jonathan Davenport and the country’s hottest driver Bobby Pierce. It seemed that battle was going to materialize and come down to the closing laps, but another driver played a big part in the finish. A driver no longer with us.
A lot of the attention to the World 100 weekend was given to the last Scott Bloomquist. It was the first major race held at Eldora since Bloomquist’s death several weeks earlier. Current drivers did a number of tributes and a couple of “show” cars with old Bloomquist designs on them. Eldora Speedway held a drone show during track prep before the feature. A lot of the drone show was dedicated to Bloomquist.
On the track, Bloomquist was still a factor in the outcome. Dale McDowell, who has lived near Bloomquist for nearly a decade and drives a Team Zero car, earned the pole for the World 100 and was the sentimental favorite. McDowell had never won the World 100 and was looking for his first globe trophy. But McDowell was also racing in honor of Bloomquist.
McDowell lead the first 4 laps of the race until a caution came out to restack the field. Garrett Albertson took the lead on the restart and McDowell slowly faded back as Pierce and Davenport began to assert themselves. Pierce took the lead from Albertson and Davenport quickly moved into second. Once Davenport took the lead from Pierce on lap 35, it looked as though Davenport was going to run away from the field. But Pierce remained close and reclaimed the lead on lap 63.
As Pierce looked to be in control of the race, McDowell worked his back to second. McDowell took the lead from Pierce on lap 92. Fans at Eldora erupted as McDowell took the lead and appeared to be on the way to the win. Bloomquist fans were as happy as McDowell fans. It looked as though McDowell was going to take the memory and aura of Bloomquist to victory lane.
Pierce fought back as the leaders worked lapped traffic and took the lead for good on lap 96.
Had McDowell been able to hold on for the win, it would have been the most emotional win in the 54-year history of the World 100. And the memory of Bloomquist would have been carried into victory lane with one of his cars as the winner. Instead, Pierce continued on his hot streak of big money races he hopes will still propel him to the World of Outlaws Case Constructtion Late Model Series championship in November.
