PEVELY, Mo. — The front of the field was the place to be Friday night at I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park, and that’s exactly where Michael “Buddy” Kofoid spent the evening.
In a race defined by chaos and carnage, Kofoid fired off from the pole, kept his nose clean, and never looked back. The pilot of the Roth Motorsports No. 83 drove a masterful race as crashes collected many contenders behind him on night one of the Federated Auto Parts Spring Classic.
Traffic made things interesting briefly on a couple occasions when Carson Macedo closed in, but ultimately, he had nothing for his fellow Californian.
Kofoid survived every restart caused by the many red and yellow flags. Even when he was half a lap away from victory, a Cole Macedo tip over led to one last green-white-checkered restart. But Kofoid didn’t flinch. He ripped away from the field and held on for his third World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car win of 2026.
“I feel like it’s really hard to lead a whole race, especially at a place like this where you can make speed and come from the back or the middle and get to the front and win,” Kofoid said. “I told Dylan (Buswell) I feel like it wasn’t the best race I’ve ran. It’s no discredit to them or anyone, just with how the track was I didn’t feel comfortable probably most of the whole day. When it gets like that, it’s really hard to run it in hard into (Turn) 1 and have to backpedal for the curb to (Turn) 2 because you kind of broad slide. It’s hard to get your car good for that, and it’s hard as a driver to run it in hard and pedal your way to it. Dylan, Nate (Knotts), and Gage (Tyra) just continue to give me good cars.”
The third victory of the year for Kofoid and the Roth crew equaled them with David Gravel and Big Game Motorsports for the most on tour in 2026. It also helped Kofoid climb into third in the standings as he continues his march back toward the top after some early misfortune dropped him as far as sixth.
Kofoid has now won back-to-back races this year as he topped 81 Speedway before the Easter off weekend, and he hoisted last year’s Ironman 55 dumbbell. At only 24 years old,
Kofoid becomes the 28th different driver to win 25 World of Outlaws features.
Carson Macedo came home second in the Jason Johnson Racing No. 41. That combined with Gravel having to settle for ninth after a flip forced him to the Federated Car Care Work Zone let Macedo trim Gravel’s point lead down to 34 markers.
Spencer Bayston rounded out the podium for the Stenhouse Jr./Marshall Racing No. 17’s first top three since topping the season opener in February.
Donny Schatz and Ryan Timms completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 83-Michael Kofoid[1]; 2. 41-Carson Macedo[3]; 3. 17-Spencer Bayston[2]; 4. 15-Donny Schatz[17]; 5. 10-Ryan Timms[22]; 6. 23-Garet Williamson[21]; 7. 18-Sheldon Haudenschild[4]; 8. 7S-Chris Windom[16]; 9. 2-David Gravel[7]; 10. 51-Scott Bogucki[10]; 11. 51B-Joe B Miller[23]; 12. 1S-Logan Schuchart[14]; 13. 12X-Landon Crawley[12]; 14. 21-Brian Brown[9]; 15. 1A-Ashton Torgerson[8]; 16. 8N-Kameron Key[24]; 17. 27-Emerson Axsom[18]; 18. 2C-Cole Macedo[5]; 19. 45X-Rees Moran[20]; 20. 7A-Will Armitage[15]; 21. 28M-Conner Morrell[19]; 22. 88-Austin McCarl[13]; 23. 17B-Bill Balog[11]; 24. 6-Kasey Jedrzejek[6]
