DirtonDirt Dispatches

Dispatches: Chad Simpson back in victory lane

June 15, 2025, 8:02 am

From series staff, team, track and contributor reports

Chad Simpson wins at Mason City. (Mike Ruefer)

Among the latest notes and quotes from around Dirt Late Model racing the weekend of June 13-14, including the DIRTcar Summer Nationals among other weekend special events (look for coverage of Selinsgrove Ford Appalachian Mountain Speedweek action elsewhere on the site). Also find a listing of live-streaming video from specials around the country:

Breaking through

Chad Simpson didn’t begin the 2025 season intending to chase the championship of the Malvern Bank East Series. But he still has perfect attendance and leads the points standings after capturing his first feature win in the tour’s seven events this year on Sunday at Mason City (Iowa) Motor Speedway, so who knows?

While the 46-year-old driver from Mount Vernon, Iowa, remains uncommitted to running the remaining 13 races on the Malvern Bank East schedule, entering Mason City’s action — and winning to build his points lead — keeps alive the possibility that he could go after his 15th regional touring series title since 2007.

“I really didn’t decide to come here until yesterday, and we decided to come up here and give it another whirl,” said Simpson, whose weekend plans to run the Masters event at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., were wiped out by wet weather.

Simpson unloaded at Mason City with a superb performance record in the first six Malvern Bank East shows of the season, including four consecutive runner-up finishes to start the campaign and third- and fourth-place results in his latest appearances. He finally reached victory lane with a flag-to-flag run out front in the 30-lap feature.

“The car was really good tonight,” said Simpson, who earned $3,000 for his first triumph of any kind since he claimed a Lucas Oil MLRA event on Sept. 1, 2024, at Moberly (Mo.) Motorsports Park. “We were too tight early and had the carburetor stumbling in time trials, so we kind of had a handful of things and I really didn’t know what to do for that feature. We’ve been running a different motor package and I just really wasn’t confident going into this feature here tonight. But as soon as we fired off right away, I knew we were going to be good.”

Simpson was only briefly challenged early in the distance by eventual runner-up Jason Hahne as he mastered lapped traffic to triumph going away.

“(Promoter) Todd (Staley) and all his staff did a great job,” Simpson said. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious looking at the frontstretch here they had quite a bit of rain yesterday. So hat’s off to them for just being able to get this show in for us so we can come up here and race and have a good weekend.”

Coming off a disappointing trip last week to Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, where he failed to qualify for the FloRacing Night in America event and both features in the Dream XXXI portion of the weekend, Simpson’s victory sends him into a very busy portion of his schedule on a high note. He’s planning five starts over an eight-day span from June 20-27, including four Malvern Bank East events in Iowa and a home-state World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series program on June 23 at Independence Motor Speedway.

“Confidence is going to be key going into all those (tracks),” said Simpson, who doesn’t currently have June 25’s Malvern Bank East stop at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa, listed on his schedule. “Winning this race here and going in there with a little bit of a (points) lead, it definitely helps more confidence and stuff like that. We tried a couple of new things with the car tonight and I definitely think there’s potential there.

“I’m excited to get going next week and see what happens.” — Staff and series reports

Satisfying victory

Brian Shirley seemed to emerge from the black cloud that swallowed him during this year’s Georgia-Florida Speedweeks when he was victorious in his first start upon returning home on Feb. 28 at Springfield (Mo.) Raceway.

But as over three months passed by without another checkered flag for the 44-year-old veteran from Chatham, Ill., his $5,036 MLRA Throwback preliminary success at Springfield began looking more like just an aberration. Yes, he started avoiding Speekweeks-level bad luck and tallying solid finishes — including five top-fives in 10 starts on the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series — but couldn’t crack victory lane.

Until Saturday night at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway. After appearing to have let a shot at glory slip through from his grasp when he ceded the lead to the low-running Jason Feger of Bloomington, Ill., racing through lapped traffic on lap 29, Shirley rebounded with authority following a lap-37 restart, slinging his Bob Cullen-owned Longhorn Chassis around the extreme outside of the quarter-mile oval to regain command on lap 38 and march on to a $10,000 triumph in the 50-lap DIRTcar Summer Nationals feature.

The breakthrough came after Shirley skipped last weekend’s Dream XXXI at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, to regroup by building a new Longhorn machine. He returned to action Tuesday in the Hell Tour’s opener at the Brownstown (Ill.) Bullring but immediately experienced misfortune (lost power steering in his heat and scratched the new car for the night), then followed with a third-place run Wednesday at Kankakee (Ill.) County Speedway and a Thursday heartbreaker at Peoria (Ill.) Speedway (flat tire while leading the feature).

Peoria’s disappointment left Shirley restless overnight about his 2025 fate, but he gained some inspiration to press on for better days ahead when he was “sitting in bed” and read a quote.

“It said something about, ‘Don’t be disappointed in what wasn’t given to you, because God has a better plan for something better,’” Shirley said.

The four-time Summer Nationals champion related those words after capturing Saturday’s feature. They helped push him to a satisfying victory in which he needed to get his elbows up to overcome Feger’s bid.

“Feger was just really good on that hub again, and then I just didn’t realize I needed to slow down and just try and get by them (slower) guys (to lap them),” Shirley said, describing how he lost the lead to Feger. “Like he just had a little better patience being behind me and not seeing, you know, where everybody was. But once we went down there, I felt like we wasn’t as good as him on the bottom, but boy, when we got on top (after the restart), the old right foot (expletive) went.”

Indeed, Shirley sailed past Feger and never looked back. He beat his friendly rival by 1.807 seconds for his first five-figure winner’s check since he earned $12,000 for claiming the finale of last October’s MARS FALS Frenzy weekend at Fairbury (he also won the previous night’s opener).

The victory was the 43rd of Shirley’s career on the Summer Nationals, ranking him fourth on the all-time Hell Tour win list behind only 101-race winners Shannon Babb and Billy Moyer and 49-time victor Bobby Pierce. It was, however, his first on the circuit since July 7, 2023, at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway, though he had only made six winless starts (three last year, three earlier this week) since that victory.

Also notable: Shirley recorded his fourth career Summer Nationals win at Fairbury, where he previously captured tour races in 2012, ’19 and ’20.

“It just feels good, you know, to get a win,” said Shirley, who plans to continue running the Summer Nationals events through June 20-21’s WoO/Summer Nationals co-sanctioned weekend at Federated Raceway at I-55 in Pevely, Mo. “We’ve had a tough week. I had speed, and you know, last night (at Peoria) was a bummer, but all in all, with the support of Bob and Lisa (Cullen), we just keep going.

"So, just thank the good Lord, thank the fans that came out tonight, think (track promoter) Matt Curl and Fairbury and everybody here … the staff, man, they're awesome. We love them, and they’re good to us even on our bad days. Luckily, today was just a good day and we’ll move on to tomorrow.” — Staff and series reports

Hoffman headed ‘home’

Nick Hoffman might be “The Thrill From Mooresville,” but Pevely, Mo., will always feel like home.

And his return “home” for June 20-21’s World of Outlaws St. Louis Firecracker Faceoff at Peavey’s I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park couldn’t come at a better time. He’s coming off a career-best third finish in June 7’s Dream XXXI at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.

Prior to relocating to North Carolina, Hoffman spent his childhood summers tagging along with his father, Darrell, as he traveled the Midwest chasing checkered flags. A native of Belleville, Ill., he spent plenty of time at every dirt track in the St. Louis area but none more than Pevely’s I-55 Raceway.

“My dad raced there every Saturday night for the first 10 years of my life,” Hoffman said. “I don’t know how many nights I stood on the front straightaway there and was a junior flagman — I would stand right behind the flagstand and flag races. Pretty much sat in the same spot every week right before the flagstand, right in front of the tower, that’s pretty much where I grew up. There were three or four tracks that my dad raced at all the time, but Pevely was the main one.”

Those days as a wannabe flagman wouldn’t be the last fond memories Hoffman has of I-55. Years later, the five-time DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals champion was attempting his first Hell Tour campaign on the Late Model side in 2018 when the circuit rolled into Pevely for the co-sanctioned event with the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series.

Late Model racing was still new to Hoffman at the time, and his operation was beat down by weeks on the road with the most grueling tour in racing. Against the odds, Hoffman introduced himself to the Late Model world that night by scoring his first World of Outlaws top 10 at his home track.

“I was driving a Rocket car. That was my first Late Model opportunity that I had ever gotten, driving for the Jones Oil Company, and I was the Marathon car,” Hoffman said. “It wasn’t my first full-time year, but my first year running over 30 Late Model races. We decided we were going to try and run the first two weeks of the Hell Tour. So that’s where Pevely ended up playing in, since it was part of the Hell Tour then too.

“Pevely was so miserable, because it was like 100 degrees outside, I had knocked the nose off the night before wherever we raced. The pit area is all asphalt, and so we were sweating, pissed off at life that we’ve got to change this nose and race against these Outlaw guys. It was a pretty long and grueling day, it was a reminder of why they call it the Hell Tour.

“I ran 10th, and I just remember that whole race I ran right around the bottom of the racetrack. I don’t remember who I was battling; I want to say it was [Chris] Madden or one of those guys. I ran right there with him the entire race. It was like I couldn’t get separated from him. At that point, it was a pretty good run for us as a smaller team, and it was cool for me just because it was Pevely.”

Plenty has changed in the seven years since that breakout performance. Hoffman has gone from a Late Model rookie to a regular winner and WoO championship contender. But up until last week, there was still one legacy-defining place Hoffman had yet to find success at: Eldora.

Prior to 2025, Hoffman’s best crown-jewel result was a ninth in the 2021 Dream. But on June 5, a 16th-to-fourth charge in his 50-lap feature put him on the outside of the front row of his heat race on Saturday; while he came up one spot short of a transfer, his prelim night points total was enough to earn him a provisional into the big dance.

Not long after the 100-lap finale went green, Hoffman tagged the wall and bent the spoiler, and he soon was a lap down. But during a lap-22 caution period the Tye Twarog Motorsports crew went to work getting the No. 9 back into raceable condition, and on lap 33 he received the Lucky Dog pass back onto the lead lap.

Then, when the checkers flew, Hoffman found himself in a career-best third behind Jonathan Davenport and Bobby Pierce. Suddenly, the driver best known for his Modified resume was standing on the podium alongside two modern-day legends of Late Model racing on one of the sport’s biggest nights.

“Now I’ve gotten myself to the point where I feel like our program’s where it needs to be, our cars and everything, that it really wasn’t a surprise,” Hoffman said. “I was pretty confident going into that 100-lapper, it was just a matter of putting myself in the right spot. My head r didn’t go the way you would plan, but then luckily got the provisional instead of having to run the B. But still, Bobby’s proved that it doesn’t matter where you start in that 100-lapper, you can win it.

“I just wish when I fixed my spoiler 20 laps in that I would have took a right-rear tire or something at the same time, but I didn’t. I feel like that wasn’t going to be a deal that was going to win me the race, but it probably would have secured me to run second.”

That Eldora showing, combined with his streak of five-straight top-six runs on the WoO trail, gives Hoffman a head of steam entering a weekend at one of his favorite tracks. Peavey’s doubleheader will mark Hoffman’s first start at Pevely as a touring member of the Outlaws, creating a full-circle moment for the former junior flagman.

“I remember when Summer Nationals would come into town and how big of a deal it was,” Hoffman said. “Then, the early years of the Outlaws coming to town, seeing all those guys come in, it was a huge deal for me. To be on that side of the fence now and be the driver that some of these kids maybe look up to, or the fans think it’s a huge deal that we come into town is really pretty surreal.” — Spence Smithback