Illinois driver repeats as Gopher 50 champion

(Editor’s note: This story will be updated later tonight with more details.)

SPRING VALLEY — The Gopher 50 charity Late Model race has been held in southeastern Minnesota for the past 42 years.

Only three times prior to Saturday had a driver won the prestigious race — promoted since its inception by the Blooming Prairie Lions Club — in consecutive years.

Make that four times.

Oakwood, Ill., Late Model driver Bobby Pierce left the 3/8-mile high-banked dirt track on Saturday night the same way he left it a year ago — $50,000 richer.

Saturday, Pierce beat a star-studded and talented field to win the Gopher 50 A Main and join Steve Kosiski (1981-82), Billy Moyer (2000-01) and Darrell Lanigan (2013-15) as the only drivers to win the main feature at the Gopher in consecutive years.

Brandon Sheppard (the 2019 Gopher 50 champion), Tyler Erb, Ryan Gustin and Nick Hoffman rounded out the top five finishers.

Rochester native Dustin Sorensen finished 11th, after starting 17th.

• Jake O’Neil captured the 35-lap USRA Modifieds A Main on Saturday night.

Hayfield’s Brandon Davis finished as the runner-up, while Jake Timm (Winona), Joe Chisholm (Osage, Iowa) and Rodney Sanders (Happy, Texas) rounded out the top five in the 30-car field.

Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.