After leading most of the way, Bobby fended off a furious last-lap charge to capture Saturday night’s Hawkeye 100 at Maquoketa (IA) Speedway, earning $20,000 and his 40th career World of Outlaws Series victory, placing him sixth all-time.
Starting fourth, Bobby wasted no time: he grabbed third down the backstretch on lap two, then slid into second on lap three and immediately set his sights on the leader. Five laps later, the “Smooth Operator” fired a slider into turn one on lap eight to take command. His nearest pursuers never let him breathe, though, keeping the pressure on through the middle stages.
The intensity spiked late. With eight laps to go, Hoffman pulled alongside Bobby entering turn one—right as the night’s first caution flew. On the ensuing restart, Bobby put together a clean launch and opened a three-car-length gap until another yellow on lap 57 set up a four-lap shootout.
Bobby broke away to a 0.6-second advantage with two laps remaining, but Shirley came charging on the bottom on the final circuit. Off turn four, they sprinted side-by-side to the checkers, with Bobby prevailing by 0.056 seconds in a photo finish.
“If it was 61 laps, he (Shirley) probably would have got it,” Bobby said. “It was tough. I couldn’t run the bottom like that. I think something’s wrong with this carburetor, because it was almost shutting off every lap I went to the bottom, so I kept going to the top. That was kind of the only line I could run because of it. I knew I needed to pinch the corners off, but I just couldn’t do it because of that. We got pretty lucky tonight.”
Though the late cautions kept the pressure on, Bobby used them to his advantage. “When we had the caution with, I think, five laps to go or whatever it was, I kind of needed it because I felt like Hoffman was getting a run on me again. And I needed that restart to kind of— I felt like my restarts were good. I felt like I was pulling them down the straight and get that couple car lengths gap.”
The finish was as tight as they come. “I thought I saw a black nose on the screen, and I come off the corner and I see Shirley. I was spinning tires, but I was just gassing it. Hopefully make it to the line first. And we barely did. That was pretty cool.”