FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. — Nick Hoffman couldn’t have asked for a better 34th birthday present than the one he gave himself.
Entering Friday’s portion of the Dairyland Showdown at Mississippi Thunder Speedway, Bobby Pierce had won the last three races on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision trail, and Hoffman was at risk of letting Pierce pull away in the points battle. He needed a momentum shift, and that’s exactly what he got.
Pierce had already made headlines before the Feature began, as a tight battle with Ethan Dotson in his heat ended in contact that knocked Pierce out of a redraw spot. Meanwhile, Hoffman went wire-to-wire in his heat to lock in a top-four starting spot.
With Pierce mired back in the pack, Hoffman was putting on a show at the front of the field. The opening laps saw him in the middle of a three-wide battle for second alongside Tyler Erb and Ryan Gustin, which Hoffman came out on top of before setting his sights on Dotson out front.
A caution for debris six laps in allowed Gustin to get back to second on the restart, but Hoffman quickly moved back ahead two laps later. As Hoffman began putting the pressure on Dotson, the No. 74x jumped the cushion and smacked the wall in Turn 1, giving Hoffman all the space he needed to take the lead.
That turned out to be the last battle Hoffman had to fight, as he went unchallenged the rest of the way to score his fifth World of Outlaws win of the season and his third at Mississippi Thunder.
Most importantly, with Pierce unable to climb any higher than ninth, Hoffman climbed back to the top of the points table by six markers ahead of Saturday’s program.
“Woke up this morning, and I was like, ‘Man, I’m tired of screwing around,” Hoffman said. “This car’s been up in the trailer, I think it’s win percentage has been around 75 percent now. It hasn’t raced since Volusia [Speedway Park], just wanted to bring it back out, see how good it was again since I planned on racing it in a couple weeks in Delaware. This thing was just really good.”
Gustin was on the podium for the second time in as many nights in second, while Erb got around Tim McCreadie for third in points with his third-place run. Fourth went to Dotson, while Brent Larson was fifth for his best result of the season.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 9-Nick Hoffman[4]; 2. 19R-Ryan Gustin[3]; 3. 1-Tyler Erb[2]; 4. 74X-Ethan Dotson[1]; 5. B1-Brent Larson[5]; 6. 22*-Drake Troutman[7]; 7. 58V-Daulton Wilson[6]; 8. 14-Trey Mills[11]; 9. 32-Bobby Pierce[10]; 10. 9M-Tim McCreadie[8]; 11. 13-Dallon Murty[9]; 12. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[14]; 13. 15-Clay Stuckey[13]; 14. 19-Dustin Sorensen[16]; 15. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[17]; 16. 1Z-Logan Zarin[19]; 17. 15D-Justin Duty[20]; 18. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[12]; 19. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[22]; 20. 97-Cade Dillard[24]; 21. 49-Jake Timm[21]; 22. 55E-Eli Johnson[23]; 23. 09-Michael Leach[15]; 24. 38T-Dylan Thornton[18]
