Bobby made history Sunday night, becoming the winningest driver in Wild West Shootout history after a dramatic last-lap pass earned him the $10,000 top prize. Starting third in the 40-lap feature, Bobby showed determination and strategy in a race filled with twists and turns.
Early on, Bobby ran in second place, hunting down the leader. After a caution on lap 10, he made a bid for the top spot but was unable to complete the pass. As the race progressed, he dropped back to fifth at the halfway point but remained in contention, as the top five cars battled fiercely in a thrilling race.
With 18 laps to go, Bobby rallied back to second and set his sights firmly on the leader. He briefly took the top spot with seven laps remaining but couldn’t hold it. Undeterred, he regrouped and made his final push on the white flag lap. Diving low into turn one, Bobby pulled alongside the leader as they barreled down the backstretch. The two entered the final corner side by side, but Bobby surged ahead to cross the line first in an electrifying finish.
“It was kind of like a Hail Mary, in a way,” Bobby said of his dramatic last lap. “It wasn’t a slider, but like a Hail Mary in the sense that he was about five car lengths ahead of me coming to the white flag. I was like, ‘Well, this is it. It’s going to stick down there or not, and we’ll just see what happens.’ I went down there, and it stuck. When it gets that grip right there at the apex and you’re still in the traction line pointing off the corner, you can just mat it to get off that corner. It’s a good feeling. We went down the backstretch side by side—I knew I had him then.”
Reflecting on the race as a whole, Bobby added, “The whole race was interesting, really from like lap five on. Heck, we were like the top six, all right on top of each other, and I didn’t know who was going to win or even be there at the end. I definitely didn’t think it was going to be me for a long while. I was struggling, you know. I was up to second, about to take the lead. The caution comes out, and the next thing I know, I’m in fifth, almost falling back to sixth. I’ll definitely be excited to watch a replay of that race.”