World of Outlaws Gopher 50

There are few pairings in dirt racing quite as strong as Bobby Pierce and Victory Lane at Deer Creek Speedway.

In his first NAPA Auto Parts Gopher 50 in 2023, he won. Pierce came back later that year for his first World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision start at the track and won again. When the Gopher 50 returned to the World of Outlaws schedule in 2024, he won it.

And in Thursday night’s kickoff to Gopher 50 weekend, the “Smooth Operator” took the checkers in Spring Valley once again to make it four-straight trips to Deer Creek in which Pierce has collected at least one trophy.

“I love this track, it always races really well,” Pierce said after his sixth World of Outlaws win of the year and 19th overall triumph of 2025. “They know how to prep it good, they’re not afraid to prep it if it needs it. Our car’s really good right now.”

Pierce started the 30-lap Feature on the second row trailing Bilstein Pole Award winner Ryan Gustin and hometown hero Dustin Sorensen. Gustin won the battle of the No. 19 cars to lead early, while Sorensen lost second to Pierce five laps in.

The gap between the top two was roughly a second when Pierce got the spot, but he trimmed that down to a car length over the next five laps. Pierce made his first bid for the lead on the bottom just before halfway, but Gustin was initially able to find enough speed on the high side to hold the lead. That was until Pierce fully committed to the slide job entering Turn 3 and cleared the No. 19R, but Gustin crossed him over off of Turn 4.

The next few laps were a prime example of why Deer Creek is a fan favorite in dirt Late Model racing. Corner after corner, Pierce dove it in on the bottom and slid up in front of Gustin before Gustin cut back down and powered back ahead. Gustin tried the bottom himself on a few occasions to counter Pierce, but after half a dozen laps of back-and-forth racing, Pierce finally took command.

“What an awesome race me and Gustin had,” Pierce said. “Thanks to him for racing me clean, lot of fun there. Thanks to Deer Creek for having an awesome racetrack allowing us to race like that.”

The No. 32 started to pull away while Gustin fell into the clutches of Sorensen for second with the laps winding down. But before Pierce could ride off into the sunset, Brian Shirley slowed with a flat tire to bring out the caution, setting up a restart with three circuits remaining.

That gave the field their chance to pounce on Pierce, but they were unable to capitalize as the Oakwood, IL held on to claim another Deer Creek trophy. However, Pierce said he didn’t feel nearly as comfortable behind the wheel on the final dash to the finish as it may have looked from the grandstands.

“Worst timing for the caution, I didn’t know where to go,” Pierce said. “I really felt like I had a terrible restart through one and two, so I was pretty worried down the backstretch thinking I might get slid into three or something.”

The win came after four World of Outlaws races without a trip to Victory Lane, Pierce’s longest drought since the season-opening events at Volusia Speedway Park. But with the upcoming schedule featuring crown jewels nearly every weekend, Pierce knew how critical it was to get back into his winning ways.

“Very important just to get back in the routine of getting to win at least once every weekend, at least one,” Pierce said. “Last weekend, we just had lots of, I guess you could say bad luck, but just lots of little things that just didn’t really go my way. River Cities, I qualified bad, and from there, I couldn’t catch a break with the cautions I felt like.

“And then Ada, I had the flat tire with 10 to go, Bruening ends up having a flat and I get into him when he has a flat and it blows the deck out. Still ran seventh, and then obviously the brake issue [at Nodak Speedway], that was probably the win last weekend that got away. I felt like I had a really good car that definitely, in my opinion would have won. So it’s nice to finally have a night that went really, really smooth for us.”

While Gustin came out on the losing end of the sliderfest with Pierce, his runner-up result at one of his home tracks was his best World of Outlaws result since his most recent win at Swainsboro Raceway in March.

“We were alright there, Bobby just kind of found another gear once he got by us there,” Gustin said. “Was able to run around that top a lot straighter than we were, I kind of had to back into it because we were tight. As soon as you back into it here, you just lose all your speed on exit. All in all, we’ll take it.”

Bringing it home third was Tyler Bruening, who had a front-row seat for Pierce and Gustin’s battle but was unable to make it a three-way fight for the win.

“Bobby was pretty good, he’s good at using the wall even for a little bit of traction,” Bruening said. “I was good on the bottom, I just needed a little more dig through the center getting off to get that little squirt to get back up to speed. You’ve got to slow down so much here running the bottom.”

Tanner English finished fourth for his first top five of the season, while Tim McCreadie backed up his Nodak win from four days prior with a fifth-place effort.

RACE NOTES:

Tyler Bruening set the Dirt King Simulators Fastest Hot Lap.

Tyler Bruening won the Simpson Quick Time Award.

Dustin Sorensen won Real American Beer Heat 1.

Bobby Pierce won STAKT Products Heat 2.

Tyler Bruening won Keyser Manufacturing Heat 3.

Ryan Gustin won Jarrett Rifles Heat 4.

Ryan Gustin won the Bilstein Pole Award.

Drake Troutman won the FOX Factory Hard Charger Award.

Drake Troutman was the MD3 Rookie of the Race.

Ryan Gustin won the WELD Racing Second-Place Finisher Award.

Tanner English was the ARP Fourth-Place Finisher.

Tim McCreadie was the MSD Fifth-Place Finisher.

Nick Hoffman was the Swift Springs Sixth-Place Finisher.

Brent Larson was the VP Racing Fuels Eighth-Place Finisher.

Drake Troutman was the Lifeline USA Ninth-Place Finisher.

Chad Simpson was the COMP Cams 10th-Place Finisher.

Boom Briggs was the Cometic Gaskets 12th-Place Finisher.

UP NEXT: The Gopher 50 continues with an Independence Day spectacular for the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision on Friday, July 4. Tickets will be available at the gate.

If you can’t make it to the track, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.

Feature (30 Laps): 1. 32-Bobby Pierce[4]; 2. 19R-Ryan Gustin[1]; 3. 16-Tyler Bruening[3]; 4. 96-Tanner English[6]; 5. 9M-Tim McCreadie[11]; 6. 9-Nick Hoffman[7]; 7. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[10]; 8. B1-Brent Larson[8]; 9. 22*-Drake Troutman[18]; 10. 25-Chad Simpson[12]; 11. 74X-Ethan Dotson[17]; 12. 99B-Boom Briggs[5]; 13. 49-Jake Timm[14]; 14. 0-Jake O’Neil[22]; 15. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[24]; 16. 3S-Brian Shirley[9]; 17. 09-Michael Leach[21]; 18. 19-Dustin Sorensen[2]; 19. 2-Cody Overton[23]; 20. 76-Blair Nothdurft[16]; 21. 9T-Tim Isenberg[15]; 22. 32S-Chris Simpson[20]; 23. 22-Nick Panitzke[13]; 24. 1X-Aaron Marrant[19]