DirtonDirt Dispatches
Dispatches: Hoffman on fire after Hendry victory
Nick Hoffman (9) battles with Bobby Pierce. (Mike Butcosk)
Among the latest notes and quotes from Late Model action, primarily focused this weekend on World of Outlaws Late Model Series action in the tour’s debut at Hendry County Motorsports Park in Clewiston, Fla. (look for Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series coverage from All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla., elsewhere):
He’s for real
The proof of Nick Hoffman’s status as a bona fide co-favorite for the 2026 World of Outlaws Late Model Series points title alongside two-time and defending champion Bobby Pierce came Saturday at Hendry County Motorsports Park in Clewiston, Fla.
Starting the season on a roll at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla. — a track he knows so well from his dominant days in the modified division — is one thing. Continuing the sizzling streak at an unfamiliar and entirely different type of track like Hendry County is quite another.
But Hoffman, 33, of Mooresville, N.C., showed his talent behind the wheel and the strength of his Tye Twarog-owned team with a $20,000 victory in the 60-lap finale of Hendry County’s inaugural WoO-sanctioned Swamp Cabbage 100 weekend. And notably, he outdueled Pierce to do it, taking the lead from the Oakwood, Ill., star on lap 14 and swapping it once more with him late in the distance before beating his 29-year-old rival by 0.369 of a second.
The victory came after Hoffman won back-to-back WoO events (plus a 20-lap DIRTcar-sanctioned semifeature) the previous week at Volusia, which he admittedly figured would be the highlight of his Georgia-Florida Speedweeks. His vibes weren’t great about his chances for similar success Hendry County, a third-mile, paper-clip oval with a sandy surface that’s nothing like the sweeping, high-speed Volusia half-mile.
“I did not have this on my bingo card, I can tell you that,” Hoffman said in victory lane, shaking his head in amazement over his third win in the last five WoO events. “I had to resort back to some of those s---holes I’ve been to on the (DIRTcar Summer Nationals) Hell Tour, and this place was, you know, really good. I had my doubts, I will say, but tonight’s track, the racing surface, was great. It had a little bit of character, but I felt like that’s what evened it out a little bit.
“I just … I didn’t plan on this. I just thought if I could just get through this weekend with a couple of decent points nights … but man, it’s badass.”
The triumph gave Hoffman the personal validation that his ascension in the Dirt Late Model ranks after his years as the scourge of the UMP modified world is continuing. He’s improved each season on the WoO tour since becoming a full-fender regular with Twarog in 2023 — from fifth to third to second in the final points standings — and seems to be taking yet another step this season.
While this year is the first time in Hoffman’s stint as a WoO regular that his Speedweeks schedule has included WoO races away from Volusia, it’s clearly been the best start he’s ever had. He’s finished outside the top-five just once in his eight starts (a ninth in Jan. 24’s Sunshine Nationals finale at Volusia after starting 20th), tallying finishes of second and fifth in the two other Sunshine Nationals features; first, first and fourth in last week’s Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals; and fifth and first at Hendry County. The consistency has him headed home leading the WoO standings by 12 points over Pierce. (The standings were determined with drivers dropping their two worst finishes over the eight-race season-opening span.)
In Hoffman’s three previous years on the WoO tour, he ended his Volusia-only Speedweeks sitting in a tie for fifth in points in 2023 (after one top-five in four starts); sixth in ’24 (a victory being his lone top-five in four races); and fourth in ’25 (one top-five in five features).
Hoffman’s ever-growing experience has certainly fueled his growth, but he credits much of his superb break out of the ’26 starting gate to what he considers the strongest three-man crew he and Twarog have assembled for a season.
“It just says a lot about my guys,” Hoffman said. “I finally got a really good team behind me here. It’s kind of what I've needed, I feel like, and these guys have done a great job with Scott (Fegter), Brayden (Sebenoler) and D-Train (Darin Townsend) on the tires.” — Staff and series reports
Winning groove
Bobby Pierce just needed a little time to hit his stride on the 2026 World of Outlaws Late Model Series.
After going winless but creeping ever-closer to his usual form over the first six races of the national tour’s season — all at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., during two separate visits three weeks apart — the 29-year-old superstar from Oakwood, Ill., broke through with a convincing victory in Friday’s 40-lap Swamp Cabbage 100 opener at Hendry County Motorsports Park in Clewiston, Fla.
Pierce might have been making his first-ever start at the third-mile oval but he looked right at home as he blasted around the top of the track from the third starting spot to sail past Drake Troutman of Hyndman, Pa., for the lead on lap eight. His edge swelled to nearly 6 seconds until the feature’s lone caution flag on lap 36 shrank his final winning margin to a more modest 1.381 seconds over Ethan Dotson of Bakersfield, Calif.
There was some anxiety that swept over Pierce as he prepared for the final restart, but he handled the final circuits with aplomb.
“I didn’t know I had that big of a lead,” Pierce said. “But you start thinking of that stuff towards the end of the race, and it’s like, ‘Man, I haven’t had one caution this whole thing. It’s pretty wild if it goes caution-free.’ And then there was a caution.
“I was really nervous because the track was really getting … I feel like the bottom and the top was the same speed. The lapped cars, I was just staying right there with them. I wasn’t really passing them, so I was pretty nervous on the restart.”
When Dotson ducked underneath the leader through turns one and two when the green flag returned, Pierce couldn’t afford to stumble. Not surprisingly for the two-time and defending WoO champion, he didn’t.
“Luckily I got a good exit off of two (to maintain command) and then from there on it was just hit my marks, hit my marks, don’t jump the cushion,” said Pierce, who only previous victory this season was a rich $51,500 score in Jan. 18’s Wild West Shootout finale at Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande. “It got to the point where you had to get up on (the cushion) to really get any traction because it got a black-slick lane below it, so pretty hard track to drive … but fun track.”
With Dotson unable to stick with Pierce — the sophomore WoO regular said his right-rear tire had gotten too hot before the caution and “kind of went away on that restart” — there was no drama in the closing laps. And with Pierce returning to victory lane in WoO action to the tune of a $12,000 top prize, all seemed right again.
“Oh, it’s a big relief,” Pierce said of his rebound from two winless WoO tripleheaders at Volusia to start the season. “I think that throws out a ninth (place- finish) for this Florida swing (during which drivers drop their two worst finishes in eight races). So now I gotta throw out a sixth — if we can kind of repeat this tomorrow (in Hendry County’s $20,000-to-win finale), we’ll come out of Florida looking pretty good.”
Regardless whether Pierce closes his 26-point gap to leader Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., in Saturday’s program, he’ll head home feeling much better about his direction thanks to his checkered flag. The victory snapped a 15-race winless streak in WoO competition for Pierce dating back to his last of 11 victories in 2025, on Aug. 23 at Arrowhead Speedway in Colcord, Okla. His dry spell stretched over the last nine events of ’25 through the first six this season at Volusia, where he logged consecutive finishes of ninth, 10th in last month’s Sunshine Nationals before regaining some momentum during Feb. 12-14’s DIRTcar Nationals with three podium runs (third, third, second).
Fifteen WoO races without a triumph is, of course, an extremely lengthy span for Pierce. It took him 74 feature starts to score his first career series win on April 3, 2021, at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway, but since then he’s won 42 times in 153 feature starts through Friday. That amounts to roughly one victory every 3.6 starts. — Series and staff reports
Hendry storylines
World of Outlaws Late Model Series publicist Spence Smithback breaks down five storylines of the tour’s $12,000- and $20,000-to-win events on Friday and Saturday:
• Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., rolls into Hendry County as the series points leader after the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., with three victories, five top-fives and a 3.1 average finish in six nights to earn the Big Gator trophy.
• Thursday’s practice will present a new track for most WoO competitors although Boom Briggs, Tristan Chamberlain, Ryan Gustin, Eli Johnson, Brent Larson, Matthew Larson, Tim McCreadie, Trey Mills and Drake Troutman practice at the track last month. Hoffman will lean on Elite Chassis customers, many of whom were at Hendry County’s modified events last month.
• A few drivers have been on the track earlier this season in Crate Late Models, including Daulton Wilson, Sam Seawright and Cody Overton. Wilson finished third in a Crate Racin’ USA event and Seawright was fourth.
• Hometown driver Eli Johnson also has Crate Late Model experience at the track near the home base of his family’s business, Clyde Johnson Contracting & Roofing. The WoO rookie will have home-track advantage for the only time this season at a track where he won six times in 2023 and once more in 2024 before venturing out in 2025 in preparation for his WoO run.
• The Swamp Cabbage 100 has seen the series partner with the Hendry County Tourism Development Council for a Wednesday fishing tournament and Thursday's post-practice party. The Swamp Cabbage Festival takes center stage in downtown LaBelle, Fla., about 20 minutes from the track, on Saturday and Sunday. Events include live music, an air show, car corrals, as well as a 10 a.m. Saturday parade that will feature Late Models rolling through town.
