Florence Speedway
Notes: Dohm shines in top-five at North-South
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Zack Dohm in the Florence pits. (mrmracing.net)
UNION, Ky. (Aug. 9) — Zack Dohm would have been just fine with making the North-South 100, pocketing the $3,500 start money, and pulling into the pit area instead of grinding out the 100-lapper won by Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill. The part-time Cross Lanes, W.Va., driver knew capturing the $75,000-to-win crown jewel against such a strong field of competitors was unlikely. | RaceWire
Posting a fifth-place finish was definitely not something Dohm had in mind when he pulled into the Florence Speedway pit area this week, yet that’s precisely what happened for the 36-year-old driver.
“If I'd have just made a race, I'd have probably been happy,” said Dohm, who has competed just eight times in 2025. “But we did real good Thursday and Friday and today, so I started to feature with the mindset, like, it's the farthest up I've ever started. And I normally make it to about fifth-ish and maybe this will be my chance to get a top-three or maybe even a win. And it seemed like maybe I was taking care of my stuff. I wasn't driving hard, I was just following (runner-up) Ricky (Thornton Jr.).”
That isn’t to say Dohm’s finish, which matched his best in seven North-South starts, was easy. On a mid-race restart, Dohm fell back to as far as 16th as he was stuck in the high line with tires that struggled to find grip. Dohm glanced over at his brother Nick — who was running signals — in the pit area and thought about pulling in.
“He's telling me, ‘Come on, dude, you got it.’ Like, trying to give me hand signals that it's going to be all right,” Dohm said. “And I'm like, ‘Can I go to the f------ trailer?’ This is like, we've had such a bad year. I want to just take my $3,500 and call it quits.”
“And we drove back up to fifth, and I swear if I didn't hit the left-rear at my right-front on that last restart,” he added, wondering if he could have finished higher if not for late-race contact with sixth-place running Jason Jameson. “Hell, fifth’s good. I probably could have got fourth. But fifth's good. I'm tickled with it. Seeing those four on the board in front of me, that makes me feel good. My goal’s to be the guy that has to work all week and can still come and race with the big dogs. So, we can still do it.”
The good news is that family obligations will be slowing down for Dohm as school gets started, hopefully giving him more time to race. He has certainly been studying his competition.
“We do so much basketball and soccer and work, and I don't get to race as much as I like to,” Dohm said. “I watch a lot of races, though. Like, we got DirtOnDirt, we got Flo, we watch Hunt the Front, we watch all that (stuff). So, I got a lot of time to sit in my recliner and watch these guys and think about how I'm going to drive the next time I get to drive.”
Jameson’s strong run
Jason Jameson gave it everything he had.
The local fan favorite, former Florence Speedway track champion, and Lawrenceburg, Ind., wheelman for JRR Motorsports overtook Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., late in the final heat for a prelim victory. Things appeared to be on the upswing for the veteran driver to potentially win the 100-lapper.
When Jameson passed Marlar, the Florence crowd erupted in cheers.
“Mikey always races me clean,” Jameson said. “I don't think I've ever ran over him, so we've always raced clean and that's what racing is about. They said (the crowd) got crazy. But anytime a heat race like that, you know, two guys fighting for the lead sliding each other, it's awesome when you race like that.”
Jameson, known for his high-side, cushion-pounding style, climbed as high as third in the 100-lapper before fading late in the race to finish sixth. He stayed patient in the race’s opening stages instead of using up his tires. Like most of the field, he was content to run the middle grooves and save his equipment.
“I waited about, you know, halfway, 30 to go, and I was like, ‘It's time to get up on the wheel and get her done,” he said, punctuating his comments with strong language we removed. “And then we started moving back up through air and then that yellow came out, and I knew when that yellow came out, I was in trouble cause that left tire was all (messed) up.”
Yet in spite of his efforts, Jameson was hardly pleased with himself after finishing the 100-lapper in sixth.
“Oh, I've always wanted to win. I mean, that's why we're here, but every time the yellow came out towards the end, it (hurt) me every time,” Jameson said of a lap-93 caution for Hudson O’Neal’s flat right-rear tire. “That's part of it, I guess. I knew that yellow was gonna kill me and my left was gone.”
“I always wanted to contend to win,” he added. “And I'm going to give it 100 percent, and that's why they hired me. (Car owner) James Rattliff put me in a ride, you know. He believed in me, and he gives me the equipment to get it done. So, if I don't perform, I'll be on the streets.”
Nobbe’s bright night
Dustin Nobbe, the Batesville, Ind., driver who competes regularly at Florence, isn’t accustomed to starting up front in crown jewel events. The driver standing fifth in Northern Allstars points is winless on the tour and competes on a shoestring budget without a massive hauler.
Yet by managing to stave off challenges from Lucas Oil heavy-hitters Carson Ferguson and Hudson O’Neal, the Batesville, Ind. driver managed to win the fifth heat race to the cheers of the Florence crowd.
He didn’t have much time to celebrate. After the heat race, the team scrambled to get to work as his starter was malfunctioning.
“We were thrashing doing that,” Nobbe said. “I kind of just threw some stuff at it, not really thinking through it the way I needed to. Hey, I don’t have experience with 100-lappers. It's my third 100-lapper, so still trying to learn how to do that. So yeah, just missed it a little.”
He battling with a loose-handling car.
“I just couldn't get into the corner good, through the center good,” Nobbe said. “I just felt like I was loose off. I couldn't really do anything. I was more focused on keeping the thing out of the wall and just trying to go. I figured ( buddy) Hudson (O’Neal) was going to be coming. I was joking with him before (the heat race). I said, ‘Just don't wreck me when you pass me.’ I was just trying to trying to keep the thing going.”
Nobbe thinks with more time and less to fix, he would have been able to put more thought into his setups ahead of the main event. Unfortunately, mistakes on prerace setups caused him to fade from his third-row starting spot to finish 17th. Still, just making the race was his primary goal heading into the weekend.
“It’s a pretty fast-paced program, being in Heat 5, we only have four races in-between,” Nobbe said. So trying to trash get all that done, and then get tires ready and all that other stuff. We still got some things I got to adjust on, obviously, we weren’t any good there in the future, but yeah, overall, big win.”
