Pierce Claims Victory at River Cities

GRAND FORKS, ND (August 9) – The Opp Construction #2A team only had one race on their schedule, but they made it count. Austin Pierce picked up the win Friday night at River Cities Speedway from his fourth row starting position.

“I always hope to get at least one win [at River Cities Speedway],” said Pierce in victory lane. “We’ve been running in the top five quite a bit, so it feels really good to get the win.”

Pierce charged into the top five by lap eight where he battled with the #8 of Casey Mack.
Over the course of the next 10 laps the driver of the Lithia Ford machine made passes on Chris Ranten and Jordan Adams to move into third.

From there, Pierce set his sights on the lead duo of Mark Dobmeier and Mack until Dobmeier suffered a flat right rear tire on lap 20.
The ensuing restart came down to Mack and Pierce and decided the outcome of the race. Mack drove to the moisture on the low side of the speedway, while Pierce hammered the cushion up top. Pierce’s momentum carried him around Mack and into the lead, which he held for the last three laps to score the win.

“It’s really hard to win here,” continued Pierce, the two-time and defending RCS track champion. “Just like what happened here tonight, it almost takes a misfortune [for Dobmeier] but we were able to capitalize on that tonight. I saw that Casey [Mack] was running the bottom and catching Mark and I figured if Casey was going to stick to the bottom, I could get a good run around him on the top. The track crew did a crew job tonight with the track, we had both a top and bottom to run on.”

The win was Austin’s second of the season, following his win July 21st at Norman County Raceway in Ada, MN.

Entering the night, Austin was sitting third in the NOSA point standings, just 21 points behind Wade Nygaard.

“After that one night we wrecked in the heat race, that put us behind the 8-ball,” said Austin of the 2016 NOSA points race. “We’ve been chipping away slowly night after night, and hopefully by the end of the season we’ll be in the number one spot.”

Season Stats:
Races: 22
Wins: 2
Top 5’s: 14
Top 10’s: 16
Heat Wins: 8

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