Although Bobby Pierce’s scorecard is dang near perfect three races into the new year, his Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts hasn’t been free of disturbances.

On Saturday, the rare phenomenon happened where Pierce lost a race from the pole. The next night, Pierce had to evoke every ounce of willpower humanly possible to overcome a slow start and overturn Mike Marlar with three laps to go for the feature win. And on Wednesday, Pierce was awfully close to having his nose collapse upon the usage of the chrome horn during the 30-lap feature.

“Pretty close,” the Oakwood, Ill., driver said. “Like, I climbed the lapper’s left-rear there, and the wheel jumped out of my hand for a second. Normally when that happens, you bend something in the front end.”

Pierce didn’t realize until inspecting his race-winning machine late Wednesday night just how malformed his bumper had been. And how close his race would’ve been to going off the rails.

“Yeah, we got kind of lucky,” Pierce said. “The one time I dipped out of line to try and go around the lapped car, I thought I was going to get around him. Obviously that wasn’t the move. I got by and got down quickly. Then I realized I’d have to use the bumper to move some cars if I had to. It was so one lane out there.”

Just taking a nap 😴😆 https://t.co/tcXHe8vlRj

— Bobby Pierce (@BobbyPierce32) January 11, 2024

Pierce, who holds a 27-point lead over Cade Dillard atop the miniseries standings, said Wednesday he “felt better” than the win on Sunday, which isn’t a good omen for the rest of the field the rest of the week.

He was, however, taken aback by how his softer tires responded to the sandier-than-normal surface, especially against Shannon Babb’s harder compound when the two battled for the lead.

“That was surprising because he was on a 4 right-rear. And I was on a 3, and so were most people,” Pierce said. “So for him to pass me on lap two of the race, I was like, ‘Wow. That’s not right.’ Because he was on a hard tire. Got him back pretty quickly. He kind of slipped up off the corner and you’ll have that with the hard tire on lap three. So he missed the corner a little bit and that let me get back by him.

“Normally, you could get up there and pass cars. But (on Wednesday) it was so sandy, you couldn’t do that.”

Should Pierce win the final three races, he’d strike the Penske Racing Shocks Paydirt Jackpot bonus of $100,000 and boast $160,000 in race winnings only two weeks into the new season. A very nice thought to consider indeed. But not nice enough apparently.

“I’m going to be kicking myself in the butt if I do win the next ones because I got second the first night,” Pierce said, alluding to But there’s a lot of racing to go. Sheppard’s coming in. That’ll be another ringer to throw in there, another good car that’ll be tough to beat. If we can win the next three, that’d be something.

“I’ve never won more than three Wild West Shootout (races) in the same year. No one has. So if we can be the first to accomplish that, that’d be pretty cool.”