MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Bobby Pierce has made countless dirt-track starts in his career, thanks to the barnstorming nature of Late Model racing. But when asked how many appearances he’s made on paved speedways, the answer is also countless, but in a quizzical way.
“About four to five races,” Pierce says with a half-grin, recalling his handful of trips to asphalt tracks.
Pierce, best remembered among the NASCAR crowd for his dirt-slinging performance this summer at Eldora Speedway, will attempt to change his answer to “about five or six” with his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start on asphalt in Saturday’s Kroger 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM). He got his first taste of racing trucks on pavement in Friday’s two practices, placing 30th and 29th on the afternoon leaderboards.
“It’s completely different, especially for a dirt driver,” Pierce said after Friday’s first practice session. “There’s just a lot of things that you’re kind of molded into that you’ve got to throw out the window. I’m just trying to take all those experiences that I’ve had in other asphalt cars and apply it to this.”
Pierce first wowed NASCAR fans on Eldora’s dirt half-mile, taking his tattered No. 63 truck to a hard-fought, second-place finish in his series debut behind eventual winner Christopher Bell. He led 39 of 154 laps for underdog MB Motorsports, handing team owner Mike Mittler his best finish in his two decades in the series.
The 18-year-old Pierce — a native of Oakwood, Illinois — said he still has the race saved on his DVR for the sake of posterity. Though he didn’t hoist the golden shovel in Victory Lane, his feverish battle with Bell down the stretch raised the profile for both himself and the team.
“I don’t know, though — finishing second in a Truck race whether it’s dirt or asphalt, it’s still a NASCAR truck race and when I was a little kid, you dreamed of doing stuff like this,” Pierce said. “I don’t think it’ll really ever sink in to the full potential that it can, but I’ll try.”
For Mittler, it was only natural that he would turn again to the driver who nearly snared the MB organization’s first victory.
“That’s exactly what the feeling is with us that a guy that can drive, he can drive and it doesn’t matter if it’s dirt or asphalt,” Mittler said. “Did we have the home-track advantage at Eldora? Sure we did. He’s got tons of dirt experience, been driving dirt since he could almost walk, so we knew. We had no delusions that we were going to come here and run top-five right off the bat. By the end of the race, he’ll be good. I know he will be. Experience is all it is.”
The spotlight has shown brightly on Eldora in its three-year affiliation with NASCAR, but at Martinsville, Pierce has a chance to grab more time in the public eye on a shared stage with the Sprint Cup Series. It’s the next step toward potentially extending his relationship with MB Motorsports in 2016, a partnership Mittler hopes can continue.
“There’s nothing firm yet, but we’re absolutely looking at what the options are and we really like Bobby, his family, Bob and Angie,” Mittler said. “Just a great, great group of people who come from a parallel background in the Midwest with us — a hard-working family race team, so there’s just a lot of synergy between us. If we can figure out how to make it work, we’re going to do it.”