Pierce picks up career wins #1 & 2 at River Cities
By Mike Spieker
GRAND FORKS, ND (July 11) - Coming in to the PDQ Sanitary Services Mid-Season Track Championship night at River Cities Speedway, Austin Pierce was sitting on top of the NOSA point standings and had a feature win to his credit. By the time the night was over, however, he would add a couple more credentials to that list.
The first feature on the agenda for the NOSA Sprints was the June 13 make-up feature. When the green flag dropped, Jade Hastings took the lead, but was soon chased down and passed by Tee Young. Young led the pack until Pierce drove by him on the sixth lap. Once he was in the clear, Pierce didn't look back and cruised to his first-ever career feature win at RCS, and third career NOSA win.
"The car was set up perfect in that first feature," said Pierce after the races. "I could run the top and bottom. We took the lead about eight laps in and just had to fight off a couple hard charges from Nikitenko and after that it was smooth sailing."
The regularly scheduled feature saw the same result, but had a story line to get there. It came down to Chris Shirek's #1 battling Pierce's #2A for first and second in the closing laps of the 25 lap feature. On lap 20, Pierce drove his car to the inside of Shirek, slid up the track, and barely cleared Shirek to take the lead on the front straightaway. That's all Pierce needed as he checked out from the field and took his second checkered flag of the night.
"I knew I had enough room, it was just whether (Shirek) would lift for me," said Pierce of the battle for lead. "I kind of had a little bit of a run coming off of turn four and I knew it was good down there, but I didn't want to show it to Shirek until I really needed to."
Pierce now leads both the River Cities Speedway and NOSA point standings. The NOSA Outlaw Sprints will be back in action tonight at Devils Lake Speedway.
"The car was set up perfect in that first feature," said Pierce after the races. "I could run the top and bottom. We took the lead about eight laps in and just had to fight off a couple hard charges from Nikitenko and after that it was smooth sailing."
The regularly scheduled feature saw the same result, but had a story line to get there. It came down to Chris Shirek's #1 battling Pierce's #2A for first and second in the closing laps of the 25 lap feature. On lap 20, Pierce drove his car to the inside of Shirek, slid up the track, and barely cleared Shirek to take the lead on the front straightaway. That's all Pierce needed as he checked out from the field and took his second checkered flag of the night.
"I knew I had enough room, it was just whether (Shirek) would lift for me," said Pierce of the battle for lead. "I kind of had a little bit of a run coming off of turn four and I knew it was good down there, but I didn't want to show it to Shirek until I really needed to."
Pierce now leads both the River Cities Speedway and NOSA point standings. The NOSA Outlaw Sprints will be back in action tonight at Devils Lake Speedway.
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