Volusia Speedway Park
Notes: Volusia's quirks right up Hoffman's alley
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Nick Hoffman dominates at Volusia. (mikerueferphotos.photoreflect.com)
BARBERVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 12) — Volusia Speedway Park’s surface can’t throw much, if anything at all, at Nick Hoffman that he hasn’t already experienced.
Thursday night provided further evidence of Hoffman’s Volusia mastery. As he felt like he was struggling and a “sitting duck” while otherwise seemingly leading the 35-lap World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature in dominant fashion, he drew on his vast knowledge of the half-mile oval to make everything right and get him to a $12,000 victory.
“I feel like I’ve won races here in every situation, in every condition, and that hole in (turns) one and two is, you know, no stranger to this place,” Hoffman said after adding his fourth career Super Late Model win to the 22 UMP modified triumphs he’s previously tallied during the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals. “I mean it happens a lot, so dealing with that characteristic … and then, man, it was like a sheet of ice out there, so you bounce through that hole and as long as you’re pointed in the right direction you’re just trying to regain your grip to get you down the back straightaway.
“I feel like being here all last week, you know, helping all the modified guys and tuning on their cars, definitely helped me for this week, too. Just to know that I can’t get myself too stuck where then I can’t turn in, and like tonight I was a little bit too stuck down the back straightaway where I couldn’t turn into three like I felt like I needed to.”
A winner for the second straight night in Tye Twarog’s Longhorn Chassis after capturing Wednesday’s final DIRTcar-sanctioned triple 20-lap semifeature, the 33-year-old standout from Mooresville, N.C., was never seriously challenged after outgunning Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., for the lead from outside the front row at the initial green flag. But he was concerned in his seat that he wasn’t circling the track like he needed to be, leaving the door open for a pursuer to step up and snatch the race from him.
The only rival who truly even sniffed Hoffman’s exhaust was Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., who drew close enough to Hoffman when the leader entered lapped traffic after the feature’s midway point to make observers think the battle for the top spot might become interesting. Hoffman ended that possibility by stepping up his game.
“Sometimes (entering turn three) would wash me out and then I was really bad through the center of the corner,” Hoffman said. “Late in the race I started just wheel-spinning to get me into three, just like being in the straightaway and just pick up a bunch of fuel and try and get me bent and then just regain traction after that. Once I kind of figured that out, then also judging off them lapped cars, I moved myself down a little bit in one and two and that definitely helped. I felt like that picked me back up as far as the pace I needed.
“So, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I led all 30. I think I had a decent lead at one point. It just, to me, I still felt like I needed to do some work to get a little bit better.”
An improved Hoffman over the final two nights of the DIRTcar Nationals would be bad news for his competition. It would also extend his legacy in the event to the headline Super Late Model class, which is a primary personal goal.
“I’ve said it a couple of times, if I didn’t come out here and win Late Model races and be competitive in the Late Model side, I feel like all my modified gators (DCN win trophies) wouldn’t mean s---, you know? It wouldn’t mean nothing,” Hoffman said. “And so to be as competitive and have success here … now I have four gators with a Late Model, man, it just, it puts my whole pond together, you know, my whole collection. I’m still aiming for that big (week-long championship) one on Saturday. That’d be really cool.
“I love this place,” he summed up. “It just fits my style.”
Great charge
Marching through the field from the 22nd starting spot to a runner-up finish in the 35-lap feature was certainly satisfying for Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y. He just wished he didn’t have to make the advance in the first place.
McCreadie’s qualifying effort — 21st-fastest in his 29-car group — put him into a serious hole. He had to play catch up all the way to the evening’s final checkered flag.
“I went into (turn) one and actually made it through one and two,” McCreadie said of time trials. “And then in three and four I just got in there above the cushion for some reason. I messed up the money lap and put us way behind it. Then it’s you can’t pass in the heats because of the cushion — I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass, but the cushion was really dominant until they got it moved all the way up.
“It’s got a good curb. It’s just, the issue is, it was way lower earlier, and it just made it hard to pass early in the night. I guess on a positive side it gave us a chance to work on setups, because I changed stuff every time I went on a track. It gave me a better idea of what I think made me feel good for the race … so, you know, I’ll take it. I mean, I want to win, but I’m not disappointed.”
The 51-year-old driver of the Briggs Transport Longhorn Chassis qualified through a B-main and then found his footing in the headliner at the half-mile oval he’s been tackling for nearly three decades came to him. Early in the distance he migrated to the extreme inside lane around the track and ran what he called the “Earl Pearson groove” to the front.
“I went into one on the first lap and tried to go through the middle because (Ethan) Dotson actually went through the middle and I was trying to follow them,” McCreadie said, noting that the 20th-starting Dotson shot through the pack to gain nearly 10 spots in the first couple circuits. “But as he went by them, they’d go where he was so it kind of forced me to the infield, and then I noticed guys were having struggles down the backstretch a little. It took only for that little strip of brown (down low) to get wet enough. It wasn’t wet early. It was kind of dry, drier than it’s been. It’s usually there, and it wasn’t wet (at the start of the night), and as it got cold it kind of bled and helped me out.
“I seem to need a mud ring a little bit. Even last year, at the end of the year, if I got a little mud ring, I’m OK. If I got a rough mud ring on the top, I’m OK. It’s when I don’t have either I’m in trouble, and this track kind of came our way.”
McCreadie, who reached second place with a lap-33 pass of Bobby Pierce, was pleased with the improvement in the track surface after it took rubber on Tuesday and was supersonic fast Wednesday.
“Once it slows down … like they had it so wet the other night, then they still had it really wet tonight — not as much as last night, though, and it actually shined up,” McCreadie said. “I’ve raced all over the country. The only reason it rubbered up the other night was because they tilled the track when it was dry. If they would have probably just took a breather and maybe spritzed a touch of water on it when it was getting dark, I doubt it would have did anything it did. But the minute they went out with a tiller, it instantly, the tire temperatures went from like, I think they were like 85 or 90 degrees, to like 170 for the heat races. And it was like racing on a gravel road the rest of the night.
“Well, you live and learn, right? They learned tonight. They got it where it shined up. We got it packed in where we can hot-lap on it, pushed the cushion where it needs to go, and the racing gets better. Now they know what they need to do, and hopefully I know what I need to do. I just need to get ‘er up front (in qualifying).
Tangle among Outlaws
Ryan Gustin of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, came together while battling for third place on lap 12 of Thursday’s feature in a scrape that sent Gustin spinning from contention. Neither WoO regular, however, was quite sure afterward about what had happened.
Both drivers expressed dismay over the incident, which saw them make contact in turn two, sending Gustin around. Erb went on to finish fourth while Gustin, who restarted at mid-pack thanks to the “blend” rule because his wheels never stopped turning, settled for a 12th-place result.
“I don’t know happened really,” Gustin said, before adding to his questioner: “I mean, you tell me. You’re the one watching.”
Gustin noted that he made a move to challenge Erb for third but “wasn’t trying to slide him.”
“I was just running in the middle, driving really hard off in there to try and catch that brown (moisture) and leave in the bottom to middle part of the racetrack,” Gustin said. “I don’t know if he went in there and spun out and come down the racetrack or what the f--- happened really. I don’t know, maybe it was my fault.”
The spinout topped a frustrating night for Gustin, who nearly met disaster on the initial start of the fourth heat when he absorbed contact to his car’s rear end from Ethan Dotson of Bakersfield, Calif. Gustin, who started outside the front row, made a superb save to avoid hitting the homestretch wall, but his shot at the win evaporated as he went on to finish third. That left him starting 14th in the feature.
“We shouldn’t have been starting that far back anyway and had to worry about (charging to pass Erb),” said Gustin, whose Todd Cooney Motorsports Infinity Race Car sported a caved-in right-side door from the contact. “I definitely feel like once we got going there we was pretty good. I don’t know if anybody had anything for Hoffman or not, but I feel like we had a podium car. It just sucks it happened that way it but it’s part of it.”
Erb viewed it as a racing incident.
“I was just trying to run a diamond line,” Erb said. “I did it two or three times, and I was trying to, like, find a better line in one and two. I didn’t feel like I was running a good line, so I was just diamonding. I had no idea (Gustin was there). I had finally got kind of a good run and pointed straight, and I just felt somebody, and I was like, ‘Holy s---.’
“I don’t think it was anybody's fault, really. I don't know. I didn’t know he was there at all. We must have met … I didn't even know anybody was right there on me like that.”
Erb said the contact bent his Best Performance Motorsports Rocket car’s left-side headers and bodywork and caused him to do “a terrible job driving” for about five laps, which allowed Bobby Pierce and Tim McCreadie to pass him.
“Then I kind of got my head back together and was able to get by (Chris) Madden at the end (for fourth),” he said.
Picking up steam
Six starts at Volusia this season without a top-five finish? That’s certainly an abnormal statistical line for Bobby Pierce.
But it’s also a run of modest results that fuels an ultracompetitive racer like the 29-year-old star from Oakwood, Ill. Keeping him down for an entire week of racing at a single track would be rare indeed, and Pierce demonstrated his determination Thursday with a mind-settling third-place finish.
Pierce might not have been at his best yet, but he wiggled forward from the 10th starting to climb as high as second before losing the position to Tim McCreadie with two laps remaining. Typically anything short of a checkered flag is disappointing to Pierce, who owns four career victories and the 2024 DIRTcar Nationals points title at Volusia, but this podium was good enough.
“We definitely got something to work with,” said Pierce, who started the DCN with progressively worse finishes of seventh, 10th and 16th. “I think I was getting a little snug in turn three, and then I was loose. So I just felt like the longer the race went, the more I struggled, but we got to get a little better at the end of the race. A third place, it’s like a win.”
Pierce remarked that the solid finish came after he put in some serious hours of work with his crew to right his ship.
“Today was like 110 percent focused,” Pierce said. “I couldn’t have tried any harder today. Being February and all, we’re training two (crew) guys at the moment, so there’s a lot going on back there, and they’re doing a great job. We’ve got (his father) Bob (Pierce) on the shocks and then helping us out … so just a lot going on today, and it took 110 percent focus, not on the racetrack, but just in the pits. It’s been a long day.”
