Brandon Pierce becomes iron man and conscience of the CARS Tour

In many ways, and he may never fully accept the compliment, Brandon Pierce is the conscience of the CARS Late Model Stock Tour.

The 30-year-old from Oak Ridge, North Carolina has competed in CARS Tour every year since 2017 and is set to break the starts record currently held by 2016 champion Deac McCaskill on Saturday night at Dominion Raceway.

113 starts.

While the longevity has pros and cons, what is undeniably universal is his way of always having the right approach and the right thing to say about the health of the discipline when addressing big picture topic every year. Pierce loves this discipline with the entirety of his heart and soul, and it shows in all the ways his family pours into it.

His debut race with the series came at South Boston Speedway in 2017, a race won by McCaskill, appropriately. Since then, he has competed for Nelson Motorsports, Lee Pulliam Performance, Carroll Speedshop and now Kevin Powell Speed Motorsports.

And again, even with a victory over Josh Berry in 2019 at Southern National, his immediate legacy is for his leadership behind the scenes navigating big picture topics for the series and platform.

“I’ve always been eager to not just be a driver who sees things from my vantage point, but also someone who considers how my competitors see things or how the series sees things,” Pierce told Short Track Scene on Wednesday. “I think that helps with sponsors but also how you get respect from your peers.

“What I mean by that is just trying to give opinions on not just things that will help me, but common ground when something comes up. It’s important that when I do voice my opinion, that I have facts to back them up too.”

For example, when CARS Tour was navigating the transition from the Hoosier F45 tires to the ST2s and then to the 45 Stars, Pierce’s level-headed headed approach was lauded by his peers and series leadership.

“If there’s something I feel passionate about, like a rule change or ruling issue from the tower, I’ll take it to up the proper line of communication,” Pierce said.

But he’s also candid, in a thoughtful way when asked for publishable quotes from Short Track Scene, or on his weekly Big Time Auto Racing podcast with Dylon Wilson. They always walk a fine line between being honest but also additive to any conversation.

That’s frequently hard to do.

“I don’t mean to pat myself on the back or pump out my chest but I do try to be an asset,” Pierce said. “And really, what it comes down to is how much I care. I think, if you’re doing this, you need to care. It comes back to what we talk about all the time, appreciation, and how much I appreciate having these opportunities.

“I know it’s easy sometimes in motorsports to lose sight of what a privilege it is to drive a race car at the highest levels because there’s a lot of people that want to do it that can’t or aren’t able to.

“There are plenty of people who are talented enough to do it that can’t do it. And if I’m going to be here, I want to be the best version of myself, and hold myself to that standard on and off the track. If you don’t approach it that way, I don’t want to say you’re wrong, because you can have success doing it another way, but I just think I want to be a more complete package every day.”

And that’s the double-edged figurative sword, here. In setting this record, it means Pierce has appropriate longevity built from doing things the right way but every Stock Car driver wants to be racing in NASCAR. For a multitude of reasons, that hasn’t happened for Pierce.

But this is his home and he wants to grow it.

“I want to continue racing here, and I want to grow with it, and for it to continue growing,” Pierce said.

And right now, that growth is coming with a relatively new Late Model Stock team in Kevin Powell Speed Motorsports, which has enjoyed a lot of success with Brandon Ward in Tour Type and Stadium Modified competition but is still finding their footing in CARS Tour.

They missed the season opener at Southern National in qualifying but then responded with a fourth-place at Wake County. Since then, there’s been a lot of bad luck but that is also a byproduct of their qualifying performance.

In other words, it’s all part of the process.

“It is a new team, but one thing that I learned for why they approached me, is that they needed a veteran who would take care of their equipment,” Pierce said. “Like we’ve talked about, they wanted someone with a positive outlook, because we all anticipated these growing pains — someone who is a competitor but can also reflect and recognize the realities of where we are with a new car, new team and driver.

“We are a group of people working together for the first time, learning each other, all while trying to race in the toughest short track tour in the country. I feel like I’m holding up my end of the bargain there.

“Last weekend at Langley was unfortunate because I thought we had a good car and that’s one of my better places. We had a good night going, but in the CARS Tour, late restarts inside 25 to go, there’s a 50-50 chance of getting caught up in something and we did.”

Pierce said they are just continuing to build their notebook right now. He’s pleased that they haven’t DNF’d this year and that helps them continue to build on it.

“If you’re inside the top-10 inside of 50 to go, there is a lot that can happen where you can find yourself in victory lane at the end of the night,” Pierce said. “So that’s our goal right now, trying to have top-10 runs just to give ourselves a shot. I want us to keep building this momentum and put ourselves in position to have a better position in the owner’s points.

“That’s what bit us at Southern. We outqualified some cars that had more points than we did, and that was just the luck of the draw. That’s how it’s supposed to be. So I’m focused on making sure that we are in the best position possible next year to be in a better position in every facet.

“And I can promise you, we are definitely putting in the work to do that. And I’m optimistic on what we’ll be able to achieve here moving forward.”

But for now, CARS Tour will celebrate the longevity and the thoughtfulness of one of its most thoughtful voices.

“I’ll be honest with you, I got to looking at it the other day because I was curious, and there have been 146 CARS Tour races, and I’ve only not been part of 33 of them,” Pierce said. “That’s a mix of emotions, because I am very fortunate and very grateful. It’s a big milestone and there is so much that goes into it – the people I’ve met and those I’ve driven for and learned from.

“I am so fortunate and grateful to be able to have done it for this long. Racing is expensive and there are highs and lows, and you’ll experience way more lows than highs, and I think that’s what tests people more than the financial aspect of it. …

“You have to take the bad, the slumps and pull a positive from it, and be able to switch gears and move onto the next one. If you don’t, you’ll just stay in a slump. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of that. It’s been 10 years, and I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love it. I care so much about short track racing and the CARS Tour.

“This is the pinnacle of this kind of racing and I am just so very fortunate and grateful to be part of it.”