Bobby continued his recent hot streak Monday night, winning the Land of Lakes Classic at Ogilvie (MN) Raceway and collecting the $12,000 top prize in World of Outlaws Late Model Series competition.
Starting from the pole position, Bobby quickly found himself in the thick of a battle for the lead. After slipping back to second on the opening lap, he settled into a fierce fight among the frontrunners while chasing down the race leader.
By lap three, Bobby had secured second and immediately began reeling in the leader. Just three laps later, he erased a 1.4-second deficit and slid into the top spot entering turn three.
The battle was far from over.
On the following lap, the lead changed hands again as Bobby was slid entering turn three. What followed was one of the most entertaining stretches of racing of the season, with the lead swapping back and forth through a series of sliders and crossover moves.
Between laps nine and 10, the frontrunners traded sliders seemingly every corner before Bobby finally gained a small advantage on lap 11 and stretched his lead to a couple of car lengths.
Lapped traffic soon brought the field back together, however, and Bobby surrendered the lead on lap 14 while working through slower cars.
The race’s first caution on lap 18 reset the field and changed the complexion of the event.
On the ensuing restart, one of Bobby’s biggest challengers got too high and made contact with the wall, ending his night. Moments later, Bobby slid into the lead entering turn one before another caution waved, but he was scored second when the field was reset.
The cautions continued throughout the second half of the race, repeatedly shuffling the running order and interrupting momentum.
Bobby briefly grabbed the lead again on lap 29 with a slide job entering turn three, only for another caution to immediately freeze the field. After a side-by-side battle for the lead on lap 30, yet another yellow on lap 31 found Bobby scored as the leader. A final caution on lap 33 again reset the field, but this time Bobby would not be denied.
Over the closing laps, he pulled away from the competition and crossed the finish line 2.1 seconds ahead of the field to secure his 12th series win of the season.
“That was so much fun,” Bobby said in Victory Lane. “JD, we had a heck of a race. Hoffman, Gustin. That was probably race of the year for those first 30 laps. Thanks to those guys for racing me clean. Just going at it.”
Bobby credited the multi-groove racing surface for producing the thrilling battle.
“It’s great to have a race track to do that on,” he said. “Ogilvie tonight was so wide. Bottom, top, middle—everything allowed us all to race around multiple lanes.”
Despite the numerous cautions, Bobby felt he had one of the fastest cars on the track throughout the night.
“Every time I got it rolling, the caution would come out,” he said. “It seemed like on a restart, I had to get a couple laps going to really get my momentum back under me. For every caution that got me, the one that helped me out was when I picked the top and Gustin was on the bottom and he beat me on the restart and that caution came out for debris. All the unlucky cautions, we got one lucky caution.”
“The car was good,” Bobby added. “It was good all night.”
The victory marked Bobby’s sixth win in his last seven starts and continued an impressive run of success.