World of Outlaws Battle at the Border

New car or not, Bobby Pierce knows exactly how to get to the front at Sharon Speedway.

In his first night behind the wheel of his new Longhorn Chassis he named “Nitro,” Pierce looked like he had some of that in the tank as he dominated the Friday Feature at the Battle at the Border for his seventh win of the year with the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision.

“This is what we do it for, to get these wins,” Pierce said following his 20th overall trip to Victory Lane of 2025. “Lots of long hours in the shop this week for sure. This car, it did have a deck and some of the body on it from Longhorn, a lot of the suspension, so they made it pretty easy on us, but it still took a few days to get it ready. It’s just awesome to take a brand new car out and be fast with it.”

After drawing the Bilstein Pole Award, Pierce shared the front row with local star Jared Miley and didn’t waste any time taking sole possession of the top spot. Third-starting Ryan Gustin got around Miley on the opening lap to slot into second before Miley’s promising night came to an end when he pounded the Turn 1 wall and slowed to bring out the caution on Lap 2.

Drake Troutman was running third at the time of the yellow, giving him the outside of Row 2 on the restart. That put him in position to ride the cushion around Gustin in Turns 1 and 2 to get to second and go to work on getting around Pierce.

The “Smooth Operator” pulled away to a lead of nearly a second in clean air, but the gap evaporated once he caught the tail end of the field. Troutman got his chance at the lead when Pierce got caught behind a slower car on the inside, leaving the top open for Troutman to get side-by-side off Turn 4. That battle didn’t last long though, as Pierce quickly put a pair of lap cars between himself and Troutman and checked out from the field.

Two laps later, the margin between Pierce and Troutman was up to two seconds. By the halfway point, it was nearly four seconds. The only thing that could have stopped Pierce would have been a caution, and it never came, as Pierce took the checkers by over five seconds at the end of the 40-lap contest.

The win cemented Pierce’s status as the man to beat at Sharon after he swept the weekend last year and stood on the podium twice in three years in 2023. Despite the success, he admitted that the Hartford, OH facility has been an acquired taste.

“Honestly, two years ago here, I didn’t really like the track a whole lot,” Pierce said. “It was pretty hard to get a hold of. Not that I didn’t like the track, it was just hard to get a good setup for it. It was a good track, just kind of had to build a notebook. Last year we came here and won both races, it kind of took me by surprise. Coming in, I had a lot of pressure on myself to outperform that, and the only way to do it is to match it.”

Troutman’s runner-up effort was his first podium appearance since he won his first World of Outlaws race at I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park three weeks ago, extending his lead atop the MD3 Rookie of the Year standings.

“I think we’ve got a really good balance on the car, obviously Bobby, he’s on a different level for sure,” Troutman said. “I feel like there at the beginning we could pace him there a little bit, but once we got into lap traffic, I just couldn’t move around quite like he could.”

Brian Shirley made his way from seventh to third for his fourth podium of the year as he continues to chase his first World of Outlaws win since Rocket Raceway Park last October.

“It was a good step forward,” Shirley said. “First you must finish to figure out how to finish first. We haven’t been doing that lately, some bad luck, some of my own doing. We’re going to just try and get back to the basics, and we’ll hopefully get there eventually like we did last year.”

Gustin brought his No. 19R home fourth for his fourth-straight top five, while Nick Hoffman matched his Sharon career-best in fifth.

RACE NOTES:

Nick Hoffman set the Dirt King Simulators Fastest Hot Lap.

Nick Hoffman won the Simpson Quick Time Award.

Ryan Gustin won Real American Beer Heat 1.

Jared Miley won STAKT Products Heat 2.

Drake Troutman won Keyser Manufacturing Heat 3.

Bobby Pierce won Jarrett Rifles Heat 4.

Bobby Pierce won the Bilstein Pole Award.

Dustin Sorensen won the FOX Factory Hard Charger Award.

Drake Troutman was the MD3 Rookie of the Race.

Drake Troutman won the WELD Racing Second-Place Finisher Award.

Ryan Gustin was the ARP Fourth-Place Finisher.

Nick Hoffman was the MSD Fifth-Place Finisher.

Tim McCreadie was the Swift Springs Sixth-Place Finisher.

Dennis Erb Jr. was the VP Racing Fuels Eighth-Place Finisher.

Mason Zeigler was the Lifeline USA Ninth-Place Finisher.

Dustin Sorensen was the COMP Cams 10th-Place Finisher.

Chub Frank was the Cometic Gaskets 12th-Place Finisher.

UP NEXT: The World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision wraps up the weekend at Sharon Speedway with the 50-lap, $15,000-to-win, Battle at the Border finale on Saturday night. Get your tickets in advance by clicking here.

Feature (40 Laps): 1. 32-Bobby Pierce[1]; 2. 22*-Drake Troutman[3]; 3. 3S-Brian Shirley[7]; 4. 19R-Ryan Gustin[4]; 5. 9-Nick Hoffman[6]; 6. 9M-Tim McCreadie[18]; 7. 74X-Ethan Dotson[9]; 8. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[5]; 9. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[16]; 10. 19-Dustin Sorensen[23]; 11. 96-Tanner English[10]; 12. 1*-Chub Frank[8]; 13. 157-Mike Marlar[12]; 14. 99B-Boom Briggs[14]; 15. 111-Max Blair[20]; 16. 2-Cody Overton[11]; 17. B1-Brent Larson[15]; 18. 49-Jake Timm[17]; 19. 555-Brock Pinkerous[22]; 20. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[13]; 21. 55-Chris Schneider[19]; 22. 33-Josh Ferry[24]; 23. 10M-Jared Miley[2]; 24. 66-Justin Kann[21]