Bobby thrilled the crowd Saturday night at Farmer City (IL) Raceway, charging from 10th to capture the $25,000-to-win Illini 100 with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series.
The victory was Bobby’s third career Illini 100 triumph and the 47th World of Outlaws win of his career. It also came at the same track where he scored his first full-field World of Outlaws victory in 2021.
Starting 10th in the 60-lap feature, Bobby wasted little time moving forward. He slipped to the inside entering turn one on lap seven to take over eighth, then pulled off one of the race’s best moves six laps later.
Running seventh on lap 13, Bobby split the fifth- and sixth-place cars entering turn four, charging through the middle groove to jump from seventh to fifth in one corner.
By lap 20, Bobby was up to fourth and had joined the battle at the front. One lap later, he was just a couple car lengths behind the top three as they raced three-wide in front of him.
Bobby moved into third on lap 26, then took over second three laps later with a move to the inside down the backstretch. With the leader just five car lengths ahead, Bobby quickly began to close the gap.
As the race entered heavy lapped traffic, Bobby pulled alongside the leader on lap 34. Eight laps later, he completed the winning pass, getting a strong run through turns one and two before sliding in front entering turns three and four on lap 42.
From there, Bobby never looked back.
The race’s first caution did not wave until lap 49, erasing his advantage after a lengthy green-flag run. Bobby remained calm on the restart, however, and steadily pulled away once again, stretching his lead to 2.6 seconds by lap 55 before driving away for the victory.
“What a race it was,” Bobby said in Victory Lane. “Hats off to everyone here at Farmer City. The heat races weren’t a lot of fun, but that’s what it took to get the feature to be awesome. Hats off to the track prep crew. To be able to come through the field — one and two was all over the place for a while until it went to the bottom. But they got three and four dialed in and we were making passes on the bottom. I don’t know the last time we’ve done that here. Really good racetrack.”
Bobby said he felt comfortable after the caution despite the field being bunched back together behind him.
“I was pretty comfortable,” he said. “I was in a good groove there. I didn’t know if Sheppard’s tires would cool off because he was softer and what might have happened there. But I just knew to play it smooth, hit my marks. I saw they pushed the tires out there in one and two and just made sure not to hit a uke tire. Didn’t want that.”
“Luckily, we held on. Car was awesome.”
Bobby also credited the team for their work throughout the night while noting there is still room to improve.
“Thanks to my crew. Can’t do it without all their hard efforts,” he said. “We’ve got to get better. We’re falling behind at the beginning of the night a lot of times. At the end of the night, we’re fine. We’ve just got to get better in the beginning, but we’ll work on it and see what we’ve got to do.”
The win was especially meaningful for Bobby at a track he grew up racing.
“It’s awesome to come get the win tonight,” Bobby said. “I love coming to Farmer City. It’s the closest race track. I was fortunate to come home every night, sleep in my own bed. We don’t get that opportunity much.”