Bobby Pierce thought he missed the mark twice in Saturday’s opener of the Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts at Vado Speedway Park.

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The Oakwood, Ill., superstar first gambled on his tire selection, a compound combo that “one other driver in the field was on” that made him “a little worried.” Then, when front-row starter Garrett Alberson grabbed hold of the leader early and paced the opening 28 laps, Pierce “knew it was going to take either a restart or lapped traffic” to race for the win.

But the 28-year-old has been so good over the last few years, none of those hindrances appeared to matter as Pierce turned up the wick down the stretch of Saturday’s 50-lap, $25,000-to-win feature for the miniseries opening round victory. In total, Pierce led the final 30 laps for his seventh win over his last 10 races at Vado dating back to the 2022 Wild West Shootout.

“I thought it was time to go earlier in the race,” Pierce said in victory lane. “There was one of the restarts I chose the bottom, and I really charged hard on him. I was trying to get the lead early so I can lead my pace and hold onto the front.”

"I hated seeing that caution (for third-running Mike Marlar on lap 29) right when we caught the lapped cars again. I was like, ‘Well, you know, 21 to go, we have to go now.’ I was worried which lane to pick, and when we went down the straightaway, even (Cade) Dillard was right there with us. And we were almost kind of three-wide.

“Last second, Alberson dipped to the bottom and he gassed it back to the top. Luckily I had a heckuva corner and the car hooked up right there in the apex, and I got a good launch. Right then, it was just hang on to the race, don’t do anything stupid, hit your marks, and try to keep a good gap. It’s pretty nerve-wracking when that second-place car is catching you when you’re struggling.”

Pierce may have felt vulnerable from his vantage point, but once he took command following Alberson’s bobble off the turn-two cushion on lap 30, he paced the final 21 laps rather convincingly, stretching his lead up to 2.2 seconds with eight laps remaining.

Alberson did pull within 0.933 of a second at the finish, cutting into Pierce’s lead as they navigated traffic. In hindsight, Pierce “honestly (thought) we could’ve been better on some different tires.”

For Alberson, the $25,000 payday would’ve been the richest of his career. The Las Cruces, N.M., driver with plenty of family and friends in attendance this week looked mighty strong when he took the early lead from pole-starting Chase Junghans and led Pierce by 1.6 seconds before Marlar’s caution on lap 28. Alberson admitted to messing up on the lap-29 restart.

“I don’t know what it is about these restarts, I have to figure it out. It costs me every time, I guess,” Alberson said. “Yeah, our car is good enough to win the race right there. It’s on me. Congrats to Bobby, he did what he needed to do, and (third-finishing Brandon Sheppard). Yeah, we got a good enough car to win the race, we just have to put it there. It hurts when you’re that close and you have a good car, you have a good crew.”

Brandon Sheppard, meanwhile, rounded out Saturday’s podium in third, which gives him three straight top-three finishes since reuniting with Rocket Chassis in last month’s Gateway Dirt Nationals at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Mo. On Saturday, he qualified fourth in Group B, started second and finished second in the fourth heat, and couldn’t challenge for the win from the eighth-starting spot.

“I had a blast, honestly, the track was awesome. It’s the first night out on this XR1.2, so gotta thank everybody at Rocket Chassis and FOX Shocks. … It was a dream to drive tonight, we gotta work on starting a little farther forward,” Sheppard said. “We went harder on tires than them guys did and we were able to hang on to pass some cars to get up through there, so super happy the way the car was.

“Like I said, we’ll try to start up front, especially to be able to run with Bobby and Garrett. They’ve been super fast in practice and super fast today. I just gotta step up the program a little bit and see what we got.”

Notes: Clover, S.C.’s Ross Bailes, piloting the Austin Kirkpatrick-owned No. 69 AK Race Car, was the race’s first retiree, slowing out of 17th on the lap-two restart. … Ham Lake, Minn.’s Don Shaw pulled his damaged No. 42 pit side running 17th on lap 12. … Four cautions slowed the 50-lap feature that lasted 28 minutes: On lap two for a four-car incident involving sixth-running Ethan Dotson, who when trying to save his No. 74x machine from spinning off turn clipped Garrett Smith, collecting Chad Mahder and Jack Riggs; on the lap-two restart for Bailes, who slowed out of 17th, and triggered another multi-car pileup involving Smith, Michael Hucovski and Clay Stuckey; lap 13 for pole-starting Chase Junghans, who slowed out of fourth; and lap 29 for third-running Marlar. … Saturday’s event paid tribute to the late Scott Bloomquist prior to the 50-lap feature as all 25 feature starters paced four-wide parade laps with Bloomquist-themed flags emblazoned with the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Farmer’s hallmark skull and crossbones logo. ... Mitch McGrath of Waukesha, Wis., saw his night prematurely end when clobbering the wall on his first qualifying lap. ... In a late battle for transfer spots second consolation race, polesitter Preston Luckman spun after contact with Sammy Mars, who dropped out with a flat left-rear tire. In a two-lap dash to the checkers, Mahder got rolling on the high side to steal the final transfer position in the race won by Stuckey.