BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Michael “Buddy” Kofoid steps up his game when it’s time to race in front of the home state fans.
Last year the Penngrove, Calif., native embarked on his rookie World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series campaign and won half of the six races during the California swing.
The 2025 west coast trip appears to be shaping up similarly with just one night in the books.
The Greatest Show on Dirt rolled into Bakersfield Speedway at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway on Friday and it was a dominant victory for Kofoid and the Roth Motorsports team.
The 23-year-old went unchallenged from green to checkered in the 30-lap feature to complete a perfect night. Kofoid set Simpson quick time, won his heat, claimed the dash, and put the punctuation on perfection with a flawless finale.
“Happy to be home and start out the west coast swing right like last year,” Kofoid said. “Hopefully, this can be the trend for these next couple weeks now. That was tough with the amount of restarts, but I feel like my car was good enough to where I could restart kind of early around the top and, I think, get away in case I missed the bottom just because it got super narrow. Dylan (Buswell), Nate (Knotts), and Gage (Tyra) gave me a phenomenal race car. I could move around anywhere.”
Kofoid upped his win total for the season to 11, giving him sole possession of the second most this year. He’s now topped World of Outlaws Features at five different tracks in his home state – Placerville Speedway, Stockton Dirt Track, Bakersfield Speedway, Merced Speedway and Bakersfield Speedway at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway. He also won a prelim feature at Silver Dollar Speedway, but it doesn’t count as an official win since the field was split.
A wild battle for the runner-up spot was won by Sheldon Haudenschild, who survived a pair of near crashes and wheeled his way to second in the Stenhouse Jr.-Marshall Racing/NOS Energy Drink No. 17 for his 11th podium of the year.
“We had a hard race that whole time,” Haudenschild explained. “I went from fourth to sixth and battled the 15 (Kerry Madsen) and the 17B (Bill Balog). Me and the 41 (Carson Macedo) got into it down there just racing hard. That was pretty fun just making consistent laps, and honestly the 41 just tried the bottom down there and lost his run down the frontstretch. I think the 83 had the best car all night probably.”
Carson Macedo and the Jason Johnson Racing team took the final spot on the podium.
“I felt like the bug there a little bit and not the windshield,” Macedo said of his race. “I got an extremely good start. I felt like my car was really sporty. I thought when we got to traffic, I’d be able to more around and make some moves, but when we did get to traffic I kind of stalled out and didn’t feel that great. It felt like every time we got to thick traffic the yellow would come out. I tried to get super aggressive on that next start thinking there was some grip we were throwing across. I should’ve known it was just dirty when I went in there and tried to run the top and just slid up to no man’s land and fell back to fifth at one point.”
Logan Schuchart and Bill Balog completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 83-Michael Kofoid[1]; 2. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[4]; 3. 41-Carson Macedo[5]; 4. 1S-Logan Schuchart[2]; 5. 17B-Bill Balog[3]; 6. 15S-Kerry Madsen[6]; 7. 7S-Chris Windom[9]; 8. 2C-Cole Macedo[14]; 9. 18-Emerson Axsom[12]; 10. 41S-Dominic Scelzi[8]; 11. 10-Dominic Gorden[23]; 12. 23-Garet Williamson[11]; 13. 99-Skylar Gee[20]; 14. 121-Caeden Steele[22]; 15. 0-Tim Kaeding[15]; 16. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[18]; 17. 2-David Gravel[7]; 18. 21-Spencer Bayston[19]; 19. 88N-DJ Netto[13]; 20. 28M-Conner Morrell[24]; 21. 2K-Gauge Garcia[21]; 22. W-Donny Schatz[10]; 23. 6-Zach Hampton[17]; 24. 3-Kaleb Montgomery[16]
