Photo Credit: Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images
On a night where dirt ringers were expected to run well, many of them did, but couldn’t cap off the night with a good result at Rossburg, Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
Jake Griffin led the charge for the dirt ringers during Wednesday night’s Aspen Dental Eldora Dirt Derby 150 with a career-best fourth-place finish in his fifth career start. Griffin was chosen to drive the Red Horse Racing No. 11 Backlotauctions.com Toyota in the race. The 17-year-old driver from Illinois had previously only run for small teams such as the Mittler Bros., but used his dirt racing experience to run inside the top-10 all night.
While Griffin scored a solid top-five finish, several other dirt ringers who ran well throughout the night, ran into problems and finished deeper in the field.
After leading 102 of 150 laps, Bobby Pierce was forced to settle for a disappointing 25th-place finish. Pierce, who finished second to Christopher Bell in this race last year, looked to be on his way to a win in just his seventh career start. With just over 20 laps to go in the race, Pierce was running second to eventual winner Kyle Larson. Larson slid up the track, and hit the wall, so Pierce saw it as his opportunity to retake the lead from the Sprint Cup driver. Pierce went in for the slide job, and slammed the right-rear tire against the wall. The damage from Pierce’s accident was enough to end his chances at a Cinderella Story win for the Mittler Bros.
“The carburetor was flooded and I couldn’t get off the corner at all. Larson drove a great race,” Pierce said post-race. “When that happened on the restart, I caught him a little bit, he hit the wall and I tried to slide him. I went in there a little too hard, it was super-slick and I got the wall and knocked the right-rear off the rim and that was that.”
Coming into the night, not a lot of NASCAR Camping World Truck Series fans knew of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario’s Stewart Friesen. However, after the 32-year-old put in a debut run that had him inside the top-five for a lot of the night, fans will know him now. The Canadian’s strong run was cut short by a blown engine with 40 laps to go while running in sixth.
J.R. Heffner suffered issues early in the race, but was able to rally back to finish 15th. Heffner ran the No. 44 A Colarusso & Sons and Park East Sales Chevrolet Silverado in a partnership with full-time Trucker Tommy Joe Martins. Heffner started the race from fourth, and ran inside the top-10 until the exhaust fell off his truck early in the event. Heffner then stopped on track, which NASCAR deemed as intentional to cause a caution, and held him a lap. He lost a lap early, but was able to work his way back on the lead lap to finish inside the top-15.
