The driver that swept through last year’s Sunoco North-South 100 action at Florence Speedway with three consecutive Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series wins won’t be sweeping this year’s crown jewel weekend, but Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., was a single position shy of Thursday’s second semifeature victory in an eventful 25-lapper that saw him fall back as far as 18th.

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After finishing second to Ricky Thornton Jr., who led Pierce by five seconds in the late stages but took the checkers just 2.080 seconds ahead, Pierce is confident he’ll be in contention for Saturday’s $75,000-to-win event at the track where his parents met — and where he’s got plenty of fans.

"They bring a lot of energy for the event Saturday,” Pierce said, “so I'm looking forward to it.”

Pierce was everpresent in the semi, starting ninth but falling back to 18th on the second lap after slamming the cushion. Pierce’s lap-nine collision with Jason Jameson spiced the action (combined with Jameson’s penalty-triggering retaliation against Pierce) along with a scrape with Cory Hedgecock. And he finally got rolling late — “once I started driving it right,” Pierce said — to secure a second-place finish.

In the second-lap bout with the cushion "I freaking hit it so hard,” Pierce said. “Felt like hitting a curb and I jumped, got stuck up there.”

Pierce quickly recovered and was about the break into the top 10 on the 10th lap when his slide job on Jameson ended up with the drivers coming together in turn two. Jameson slowed to draw a yellow and, after getting checked out by his crew in the infield, came back on the track and swerved at Pierce as he pulled away from a turn-four stop to have an official check on his car. Officials sent Jameson pitside.

Jameson blamed the turn-two contact on Pierce, while Pierce wished Jameson had chosen a different tactic.

“He did it. Absolutely he did it,” Jameson said. “It’ll be the last time he touches the 12 car though. He done it to me every time we raced around each other and the 12 never ran into him, but he's ran into the 12.

“He knew where I was running. He was behind me. He wasn't in front of me. I wasn't trying to pass him. He was behind me. I mean, he's raced long enough, he knows what he did. He does it to everybody. Evidently he done it to more people out there after he did it to me.”

Jameson also questioned his penalty, saying he didn’t truly retaliate. “If I was gonna retaliate,” he said, "he wouldn’t have finished the race.”

Pierce suggested Jameson could’ve avoided the contact.

“There's a hole sometimes when you're getting slid and sometimes there's not a hole — and that time there wasn't a hole. And he tried to fill it,” he said. “Just cross over. Just cross over. Pass me (back) and we'll race it out again down the backstretch. You don't always got to run into the guy that's sliding you when he's trying to slide you as clear as possible. Just cross under.”

Pierce said he hated Jameson wasn’t able to finish and apologized for contact with Hedgecock in a three-wide frontstretch battle. But his focus is ahead, not behind.

Pierce said he was "pretty satisfied with the run to get back up to second and be tracking Ricky down. It's not always about the win. Sometimes it's just about knowing whether or not you got a good car or not for when the race is how it's going to be Saturday.”

Positive Longhorn Debut For Josh Rice

In Thursday’s opening 25-lap semifeature won by Jonathan Davenport, Florence’s favorite son Josh Rice didn’t feel so great in his new Longhorn Chassis. How bad? He described it as “the verge of disaster,” which is saying something for a high-flying racer who has never met a cushion he didn’t attempt to conquer.

And while his car’s handling was too tight, his fifth-place debut of a Longhorn Chassis was promising enough to have the 26-year-old feeling pretty good about his prospects the rest of the lucrative weekend. The Crittenden, Ky., driver has driven a Rocket Chassis virtually his entire career, but made the switch to Longhorn with assistance from Vinny Guliani of VG Performance, who provided remote support for Rice Brothers Racing.

"I'm happy we ran fifth, but we definitely overadjusted. I was just way too tight. If I could hit it right, I was really good, but it was hard to hit it right,” he said. “I knew it was a matter of time before we pushed the right-front off as tight as we were. And once we got going there, I mean, I can make it work for a little bit, and then once I lost that right-front I was just trying to hold on as long as I could.”

The setup on the unfamiliar car for the feature simply didn’t fit the conditions, Rice said.

"I feel like we got a good starting point for tomorrow and I think the track was a little bit faster than what we thought and I think we just went a little too far, but I mean, hell, we gotta be happy with that. It's in one piece. Fifth with all these guys, we’re happy with it.

“We just went straight, straight feature setup and I think it was a little too fast for that. But hell, we're happy. Like I say, all them Longhorns up through there and I'm just glad to be in a group of them.”

Rice made certain his new race car survived the 25-lapper.

“The one time I jumped (the cushion) there, I was like, 'I'm gonna be easy on it now.’ There ain't no sense in wrecking it. Fifth is still perfect to be in points. I mean, hell, we're still in the good graces. Like I said, we got a good starting point for tomorrow,” he said. "I was on the verge of disaster. I'd have the wheel (turned) left and was wide open. I'm like, ‘It's just a matter of time.’ And then I jumped (the cushion) and I was like, ‘Well, there ain't no sense in wrecking this thing.’ So I moved down and just tried to hold on.”

Revival For Drake Troutman

Drake Troutman of Hyndman, Pa., has mostly struggled since winning a June 21 semifeature at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., and finishing fifth in Lernerville’s Firecracker 100 the following night, and he wasn’t expecting much starting in 14th in Thursday’s first semifeature at Florence.

“Honestly, I figured we'd be running about top 10 tonight at best,” the 19-year-old Lucas Oil Series rookie said. “And that was gonna be about it.”

Instead, Troutman shrugged off a vibration in his car, favored the low groove and motored to a solid third-place finish behind race-dominating Jonathan Davenport and runner-up Devin Moran. He took the third spot from fellow seventh-row starter Tyler Erb on the final lap.

“It wasn't terrible,” Troutman said in understating his result on a night with 61 Late Models in the pits. “We've had a little up and down couple months here, so definitely nice to turn this around. We had a good weekend at Lernerville, and then since then we've kind of been running around top-10s or had some fluke stuff happen. So, it was a nice little break for us here tonight.”

In his Florence debut, "the track really cleaned up really nice — really, really nice,” he said. “It was one of the more racy tracks I say we've been on all year.”

In an event where preliminary finishes set heat race lineups on Saturday night, he hopes to perform well again in Friday’s semifeature action.

"I think we got a pretty good piece. We just gotta qualify a little bit better,” he said. “We struggled in qualifying tonight and a lot of that was my fault. So I just got to do better (in) the seat and hopefully put a little bit of a better night together tomorrow and get a good starting position for Saturday.

"I felt like I could really rotate around that bottom pretty good. I picked up a little bit of a vibration about halfway through there and I thought I chunked out of tire. So I started putting around that bottom. It was probably a godsend to us that we did. So I don't know, it's the first time we've ever been here and it’s a pretty good start off for the weekend.”

Nick Hoffman Not Feeling It

World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series interloper Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., led all eight laps of his heat race and nine laps of Thursday’s second semifeature, but he knew he had a losing car.

"I didn't feel very good leading,” he said. “I didn't feel very good in my heat race. I just got out front there and was able to kind of cruise around a little bit and I knew at some point that somebody was going to slide me. I just wasn't great.”

Indeed once winner Ricky Thornton Jr. overtook Hoffman with a slide job on the 10th lap, Hoffman quickly tumbled out of contention, slipping back to an eighth-place finish at the checkers. He didn’t seem surprised because a track that requires high-running cushion-pounding isn’t in his wheelhouse.

"I'm not gonna hammer that cushion like them guys can, they're just a lot better at it than I am. And so I just started falling back,” he said. "I didn't feel great. I haven't felt great all night but when it gets a big cushion like that, I'm just not good at that type of racing, so it's not my style.

“We know what we're gonna get when we come to Florence. It’s gonna end up being on the fence like that. I just got to get my race car better to move around a little bit more. Right now I just, I didn't feel very good all night and so I just got to go to work and try and get myself better, so I don't have to hammer that cushion even though this race will probably be won up there.

“(Bobby Pierce has) proven it so many times that he can run that fence like that for 100 laps and not knock the spoiler off of it. Those guys there will be tough in 100 laps no matter what. But when it gets treacherous like it was right there — and thin where it's pretty tough to run the cushion — that's what they're really good. And that's not what I'm not good at, you know?

"I just felt like I was just kind of hanging on the whole race. Luckily, you know, I led a couple of laps but,, I didn't feel good enough to really lead laps. I just was waiting for somebody to just drive by me — and they finally did.”

Positive Longhorn Debut For Josh Rice

Fourth-starting Max Blair was in the mix at the outset of Thursday’s opening semifeature, but issues forced him out an he ended up tangling with Dale McDowell in turn four. The Centerville, Pa., driver said he began losing power a half-lap before the contact. “The battery or something electrical; just lost all power,” Blair said. “It was cutting in and out down the backstretch and it completely died down there. I was trying to get to the opening coming out of (turn) four.” … In memory of Doug Lee, Slicker Graphics paid $1,034 to 34th quickest qualifier Zak Blackwood along with $534 to the night overall fast-timer Jonathan Davenport. “Man, this goes a long way right now,” Blackwood said in receiving his check. "We need all the help we can get.” Slicker’s Michael LeFevers, one of the night’s Late Model competitors, chose to give the larger payout to a driver deeper in the field to spread the wealth (34 was one of Lee’s favorite numbers). … Tyler Stevens of Searcy, Ark., struggled early in the night without rear brakes, an issue in his Category 5 Race Car. Stevens was assisted in the pits by Category 5 designers Jason Durham and Stormy Scott. Riding without brakes “makes me a little timed driving in there wide open,” Stevens said. “Jason will get it figured out." … Austin Lay of Union, Ky., piloted his father Jesse Lay’s car. … Dustin Linville of Bryantsville, Ky., is piloting the Campbellsville, Ky.-based Hatcher Motorsports ride; he finished 14th in the second semifeature. … Series rookie Clay Harris of Jupiter, Fla., had to go to a backup after what he believed was a cracked piston in his primary car. He unloaded his backup car but was unable to qualify because in the hurry to get to the track, the team forget to put in the left-rear axle they typically remove to ease loading of the car. He finished last in his heat and scratched from his consolation race … After topping his group in time trials, Garrett Alberson got into the wall, causing significant damage to his car’s decking and right side. “Life on the edge,” crew chief R.C. Whitwell said while making repairs before heat action, where Alberson finished second. “As long as he’s first (in his qualifying group), we can repair the body,” Whitwell said. “If he’d have been second, he’d be in trouble.”