Volusia Speedway Park
At Volusia, ‘everything’s just clicking’ for Hoffman
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Nick Hoffman in the Volusia pits. (joshjamesartwork.com)
BARBERVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 14) — The Dirt Late Model world is finding out what everyone in the modified division has long known about Nick Hoffman and his prowess at Volusia Speedway Park.
With Mooresville, N.C.’s Hoffman registering his second straight World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory and third consecutive triumph overall in the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals in Friday’s 35-lap feature, he’s transferring his open-wheel mastery of the half-mile oval outside Daytona Beach to his new racing discipline.
“It’s pretty unbelievable,” Hoffman said after his second $12,000 win in as many nights. “It’s a surreal weekend, a surreal week. I’ve had these multiple times in the modified, and you don’t ever expect them, or at least I don’t, to happen in the Late Model.”
But it’s happening, and it’s bringing back visions of Hoffman’s dominant modifieds years at the DIRTcar Nationals — he won an event record 22 features and seven big gator points titles from 2014-22) — for both the driver and his full-fender rivals.
“Right there, the way the racetrack was,” Hoffman said, “I felt like my modified days.”
That means full control of the action, piloting a machine that just looks different on the track than everyone else’s. He’s won three or more DIRTcar Nationals features five times in a modified (three in 2018, ’21 and ’22, four in ’16 and ’17) and is flashing that same vibe in his fourth full-time season in a Dirt Late Model.
“Everything’s just clicking,” said Hoffman, who recorded single DIRTcar Nationals Late Model triumphs in 2024 and ’25. “My pill draws are going good … so many things have to go right. I’ve said it multiple times, like everything has to go perfect to win these races. Our race car’s really good and that helps, but everything’s gotta fall my way.
“To win three in a row is unbelievable for me. Just get rolling and everybody’s clicking. The race car’s good and balanced. You know, I don’t have to adjust much. It’s kind of like my modified days. What I qualify with, I adjust it on the right-front, right-rear and just ship it for the feature.
“I feel like once your balance is good enough, you ain’t gotta do much,” he added. “Make it idiot-proof, and it’s up to me to not screw it up.”
Hoffman, 33, actually won Thursday’s WoO 35-lapper by a larger margin (5.270 seconds vs. 3.523 seconds Friday), but he said he never truly felt comfortable in his Thursday run. That wasn’t the case Friday. He had his Tye Twarog-owned Longhorn Chassis humming, cruising smoothly through the middle of the track in the turns while everyone else was blasting into the corners but losing ground to him every lap.
Handling that middle lane is essentially Hoffman’s objective. He knows that’s a key to consistent success.
“I just focus on that so much at most of the places that I go,” Hoffman said. “We go to the crown jewels at Eldora and stuff, you almost gotta be good right through the middle of the racetrack. We pull some of those notes (for Volusia), and then things we learn from here that’s a little bit different characteristics.”
Friday’s track conditions were slightly improved from Thursday, putting Volusia even more in Hoffman’s wheelhouse.
“With them smoothing out that bump in turn one a little bit, getting that better, it opened the racetrack up more,” Hoffman said. “We can move around now. I felt like last night you were doing everything you could just to miss that hole, and then you would turn down the racetrack after that.
“But tonight, with the hole being better, you can bounce through it a little bit and still make speed through the center of the corner. As long as they’re smoothing that out, it just opens the racetrack up so much where you can maneuver more. They did a great job again tonight.”
Hoffman also hit his tire choice.
“Tonight was a little bit of a tire game because the track had more moisture,” said Hoffman, who started fourth and was in command for good by lap 11 when he passed Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz. “There was guys on 2’s (second-softest Hoosier) — I think that’s what (runner-up) Brandon (Overton) said he had on — so it kind of opened it up a little bit, which is cool, it’s good. You had a guy like Timmy (McCreadie) come from 22nd last night on a 4 (hardest tire), and he was the only guy in the field on a 4. So tonight I just did what I did last night — I didn’t want to screw myself on changing something there, and it obviously worked out again.”
And Hoffman left his competition scratching their heads. Evans, Ga.’s Overton and third-place finishers Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., could only hail Hoffman’s performance.
“He’s just in a different part of his racing than I am, especially here,” Overton said. “He’s really good here. He shines here. He's been shining at a lot of the big tracks like Eldora and stuff.
“He’s just got a good balance. He’s not too tight or too loose. He can run the right line and just carry speed. And you know, we’re having to put different tires on. Like, he probably has the right tires, where if we put ‘em on, we either go like hell for a minute and then we fade or they come in and we start getting way too tight or whatever.
“He’s fast. What else are you going to say?” he continued. “He’s hauling ass, so we'll take our second and keep working on it.”
While noting he doesn’t “know how we’re going to beat him” at Volusia, Pierce, 29, succinctly broke down Hoffman’s strength.
“Well, this track is very tricky,” said Pierce, who came from the 21st starting spot to tally his second straight third-place finish. “You gotta have a car that runs the middle well because the bottom gets so slimy, the top gets so far out there and the middle becomes a good spot. And when you go in there, you either get tight, or you get loose, so I feel like he has the balance of, he’s not tight, he’s not too loose. He's like … perfect. And he’s a great driver that knows how to drive around this track.
“All that goes into the equation, right? I mean, that’s like (the late) Scott Bloomquist at Eldora when he ran the bottom-middle, so it’s just like really hard to beat. The track’s going to have to be a certain way for us to be able to compete with him.”
For Hoffman, learning that Pierce compared his Volusia’s abilities to those of a GOAT like Bloomquist at Eldora was heady stuff. But it’s also his goal when running at Volusia, a track that holds a special place in his heart.
“It’s pretty wild to me,” said Hoffman, who enters Saturday’s $20,000-to-win DIRTcar Nationals finale leading the miniseries standings by 48 points in search of his first Dirt Late Model big Gator trophy. “I said it yesterday, if I didn’t come out and win Late Model races (at Volusia), my gator pond really wouldn’t mean s---.
“To be this good here … it really fits my style. It always has. I built my race cars, my Elite Chassis (modified) cars, for this type of racetrack, and I feel like being here all last week (working with modified customers) helped me for this week.”
