CONCORD, N.C. — At the top of the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models points for the first time in his career, Nick Hoffman looks forward to showing he has what it takes to claim his maiden late model title in 2024.
Through 12 of the 44 races in the 2024 season, Hoffman eclipsed his rookie numbers with three wins (Volusia Speedway Park, Farmer City Raceway and Mississippi Thunder Speedway) and 87 laps led while tying his stats in podiums and heat race wins with five for both.
Hoffman’s confidence has never been higher in a late model program with team owner Tye Twarog giving him full trust to drive the car like he wants and get the most out of what his No. 9 NOS Energy Drink Late Model brings to the track on race nights.
“This is the most confident I have ever been with any Late Model program,” said Hoffman. “I’ve been super fortunate to race other late model programs, but this is the most I’ve ever gotten to work on the race car and control my destiny. I know the car the best I ever have with a late model, and then Tye giving me everything and letting me control all the people, parts and things that go in and out of a race night.
“If I wanted to run 120 races this year, he’d let me do so and put the ball in my court. It’s the best situation you could ever want out of a car owner. It’s made things super easy for me not to have that pressure, and we can take a bad night with a grain of salt and move on to the next race.”
The early journey Hoffman endured in 2024 has seen its fair share of challenges for him to overcome on race nights, including a broken left front at Path Valley Speedway and a chain-reaction pileup at Ultimate Motorsports & RV Park.
Despite that, he is happy to see the strides made in the program and how his conservative driving style with his Longhorn Chassis has paid dividends in the results.
“Luckily, we dodged some bullets this year, especially with the incident at Ultimate,” Hoffman said. “Going back to Path Valley, in any other situation if we weren’t racing for points, I would have pulled off the track. Sometimes, you gotta salvage an OK night and luckily we ended up in seventh. And that’s what it takes to points race is overcoming those challenges. We’re still early in the season so I’m not getting hopes up or get too interested until we get towards the end of summer.
“Right now, you go into every night trying to win which we’ve been able to do three times now. Our car’s been phenomenal. It’s just about not trying to be dumb or do anything to put myself in a bad position. There’s a couple of times where I could have been more aggressive or push the boundary, but it’s a risk of taking myself out of the race, so it’s just about being smart.”
When the World of Outlaws CASE Late Models return to the race track, the June Summer Sizzler boasts a grind of eight races in 10 days. Knowing all too well about racing at different tracks every night from his time racing the Summit Modified Summer Nationals, Hoffman will need to work extra to continue contending for wins and stay in the points hunt by the end of the stretch.
“The new tracks will definitely throw a challenge at us,” Hoffman said. “The biggest difference is on the modified side, I could race every night and did the hell tour by myself with no crew helping and my dad would come help on the weekends. But the weekdays, we’re all me, myself and I. I’m used to that grind, the late model side is probably three times as much work to get ready. Between maintaining the car every single night, getting tires ready and everything else that comes along with it.
“Competition-wise, the modified was easy from night to night how we we’re doing it to win a bunch of races and that makes every day feel a little bit easier. The late model has a lot more competition and the work you have to put into it is far more than before. I’m looking forward to get going with the stretch and not get plagued by Mother Nature.”
Out of the tracks on the Summer Sizzler schedule, Hoffman looks most forward to getting started on the right foot with familiar tracks in Ponderosa Speedway and Brownstown Speedway on June 22 while trying to outperform his previous showings in the midwest in 2023.
“Brownstown is one of my favorite tracks in the country to go race at,” Hoffman said. “I’d mark that on my list of places to really look forward to. The new tracks we’re going to like definitely throw a curveball because we don’t know what to expect, and Ponderosa is definitely an elbows-up bullring and pretty fast for its size, and Brownstown is slow and slick but has a lot of momentum and that’s what I’m good at, so that’s why I look forward to there. The Iowa tracks haven’t been particularly great for me, so hopefully what I learned last year will help me going forward into next month.”
