Story By: BEN SHELTON / TYE TWAROG RACING – MOORESVILLE, NC – Nick Hoffman claimed the richest payday of his young career over the weekend with Friday’s World of Outlaw (WoO) Case Late Model Series victory at Mississippi Thunder Speedway (Fountain City, Wis.) aboard his Tye Twarog Racing / NOS Energy Drink No. 9 C&W Trucking / Longhorn Chassis / Clements Racing Engine Super Late Model.
The Mooresville, N.C., native led the final 45 laps to claim the $25,000 top prize and his third WoO win of the season.
“This is my type of racetrack here, this momentum, slick and slow,” Hoffman said. “Those first couple laps were obviously ‘get it on,’ so (I) knew for me it was pretty important to get the lead there .. cause I knew (Brandon) Sheppy and Bobby (Pierce) were gonna be coming pretty hard, especially when it was fast like that.”
With Mother Nature forcing series’ officials to condense the three-day event to a doubleheader weekend, Nick Hoffman returned with the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series to Mississippi Thunder Speedway (Fountain City, Wis.) on Friday for the Dairyland Showdown.
In a field of 33 cars, Hoffman topped his 16-car group in time trials before picking up a flag-to-flag victory in his heat race. Starting on the front row of the opener, Hoffman overtook Brian Shirley on the sixth circuit and paced the remainder of 50-lapper to capture his third win of the season and the $25,000 top prize.
He earned the richest payday of his career ahead of Bobby Pierce, Brandon Sheppard, Ryan Gustin, and Chris Madden.
Back for another $25,000-to-win A-Main on Saturday, Nick raced into the redraw with a runner-up showing in his heat race. Pulling the five for the 50-lap finale, Hoffman climbed three positions to register a runner-up finish, which came behind Ryan Gustin.
“I knew I wasn’t gonna pass Bobby and Ryan on the cushion,” Hoffman said. “I made a little bit of speed in the middle of the track when I needed to get back to fourth at that point. Once the top began to slow down and getting right against the wall, that bottom-to-middle came back into play. That’s how I won last night and that’s what we were set for tonight. The racetrack had a little more grip with the rain we had, and the (track crew) did a fantastic job to give us a track where we could race all around.”
“When they started sliding each other, it got me back to them. I was gonna settle for third, but Bobby hit the fence on the last lap. I tried biding my time, stayed in fifth for a while battling with the guys and it got the tires hot, but I had enough left towards the end and if we got a caution with a few laps to go, we could’ve won again. To win once and run second the next like Farmer City is badass.”
On the heels of a stellar weekend, Nick jumped into second in the latest World of Outlaws point standings.
Hoffman now turns his focus to the third annual Illinois Speedweek, which is set for this Wednesday – Saturday. Action opens with a pair of $20,000-to-win Castrol FloRacing Night in America events on Wednesday and Thursday at Spoon River Speedway (Banner, Ill.) and Lincoln (Ill.) Speedway. Then on Friday and Saturday the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series (LOLMDS) sanctions the action with a $25,000-to-win event at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway and a $30,000-to-win program at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway.