DirtonDirt Dispatches

Dispatches: Joy and pain for Senoia contenders

March 28, 2026, 2:56 am

From series, staff, track and other reports

Bobby Pierce (center) with Ashton Winger and Nick Hoffman. (Emily Schwanke)

Among the latest notes and quotes from Dirt Late Model action, including this weekend’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series doubleheader at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City and Senoia (Ga.) Raceway (look elsewhere for Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series coverage from Indiana’s Brownstown Speedway and Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio):

Pulling one out

Bobby Pierce’s modest history at Senoia Raceway had him doubting his chances of winning Saturday night’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series-sanctioned Billy Clanton Classic. A track surface that took rubber around the inside lane during the 50-lap feature, though, dulled his outlook even more.

But the 29-year-old from Oakwood, Ill., ended up with a $20,000 victory, once again proving his superstar status. Even when his prospects look dim, he can find a way.

“What a race it was,” Pierce said after sneaking past his prime WoO rival, Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., for the lead on lap 36 en route to his fourth triumph of 2026 on the national tour. “I mean, of course, it rubbered there on the bottom, but when we had that caution (on lap 26), it’s like the rubber went away for a second, at least a couple laps, at least off of (turn) two there, and that’s what allowed me to get the run, get to second.”

Indeed, Pierce found the grip to overtake Ashton Winger of Hampton, Ga., for second on the mid-race restart. Then he seized an opportunity amid slower traffic to steal the top spot from Hoffman, who had appeared to be cruising to his second win in as many nights after passing Winger for the lead on lap 22.

“Once we caught the lapped cars, it was like, ‘Man, it’s either risk it for the biscuit or settle in for a second,’” said Pierce, who had one top-five in his five previous starts at Senoia (second in a 2024 FloRacing Night in America feature). “And I noticed how bad he was bunched up there, Nick was, behind the lappers, and I sent it in there (on lap 36).”

After Pierce slipped past Hoffman, who was slowed on the bottom by a lapped car, there was a hairy moment for Pierce as he cut off Winger to maintain command.

“By that time my tires were kind of shot and I just drifted for a second, and that let Winger in the door,” Pierce said. “I really gotta appologize to him. I mean, I chopped his nose off. I mean, plain and simple, I chopped it off. But that’s what it took to get the win. It was either that or finish third or fourth, so thanks to him for racing me clean.”

Winger, 26, didn’t seem to be dwelling on the close racing with Pierce after settling for a runner-up finish. He was frustrated more by his inability to stay in front of a race that he led for the first 21 laps off the pole position.

“Just too dumb for my own good, you know?” said Winger, who won the previous two WoO stops at Senoia in 2021 and ’25. “I got out to such a lead there (early) and was just rimming the top, and I wasn’t really driving that hard. It was just go where I felt like the racetrack was better. Once I had to start moving off the top down here in one, I felt like I was probably in a little bit of trouble because I’d slide so much and lose so much center of the corner speed, and typically when I feel comfortable here, I can just carry a ton of speed to the center of the corner and I just didn’t really have that.

“(But) you know, the racetrack was cleaned up, and I was just probably one of the last ones to find (the rubber) when I needed to. It’s a good night, just really disappointed in myself. It just sucks when you don’t do your job, you know?”

Added Winger: “I think it rubbered pretty early, and I mean, honestly, I should have picked up on it when me and whoever got together down here in one (on a lap-12 restart) got as good of a start as they got. I don’t really know what happened getting into one. I haven’t seen anything. I hope that wasn’t my fault. I hope I didn’t tear anybody's stuff up.”

Winger was referring to his lap-12 scrape with Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., who restarted third on the inside behind Winger and rocketed off the fourth corner to pull alongside Winger passing the flagstand. But contact between the two ensued, sending Davenport spinning backward up the track in turn one. He avoided especially hard contact with the outside wall but was clipped by the passing cars of Tim McCreadie, Tyler Erb and Tristan Chamberlain, eliminating him with a broken front bumper and significant body damage.

When asked by DirtonDirt what happened with the incident, Davenport, 42, didn’t have a concrete answer.

“Honestly I’m not sure,” Davenport related. “Either Winger saw me and tried to chop me off or block me, or he didn’t know I was there and was going to run a slider line. I wasn’t expecting him to come down that low that fast and we hit wheel-to-wheel and it knocked the steering wheel out of my hands.”

Hoffman, meanwhile, expressed relief that he was able to escape involvement in Davenport’s accident and continue on to finish third. But the 33-year-old also was disappointed that, after grabbing the lead on lap 22, he couldn’t hang on to back up his victory in Friday’s WoO feature at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City.

“When that deal happened in turn one (on the lap-12 restart) I could have had a junked race car right there,” Hoffman said. “So just to finish, I feel like I got lucky to even escape that deal. I seen J.D. spin around, and I kind of gassed it up and went out to make sure I didn’t hit him, but it was pretty close for my vantage point.”

Hoffman called losing the lead to Pierce “bad racecraft by me.”

“I obviously knew it was rubbering down there, and you know these guys (following) are all over you,” Hoffman said. “But I just felt like them lappers were setting such a slow pace that somebody was going to come rolling by me at some point.

“(Pierce) pulled up beside me into entry at (turn) one, and so I felt like I needed to go, and I didn’t feel like I could follow that (slower) guy the entire race. But obviously it worked out for (Pierce) because Bobby was able to get by me when I did that screw up. It was just my fault.

“And then I tucked back in line and (Pierce) was able to follow that same car for the entirety of the race there, the rest of it. So just a bad job by me,” he added. “It sucks to hang your head on a third, but we expect more and these (Tye Twarog Motorsports) guys are doing a great job for me and I just felt like I let that one go.” — Staff and series reports

Just perfect

Cade Dillard’s 2026 season has largely been unspectacular — except when he unloads at Arrowhead Speedway in Colcord, Okla. Then he becomes otherworldly.

After winning Saturday’s Fujita 50 finale to complete a convincing $20,000 sweep of the track’s weekend doubleheader co-sanctioned by the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series and Nutrien Ag Solutions Revival Super Dirt Series, the 34-year-old driver from Robeline, La., ran his Arrowhead performance record this season to 3-for-3. He also won a non-point Comp Cams event at Arrowhead on Jan. 3, giving him a cool $25,026 in earnings over his two trips to the Sooner State.

Dillard’s output in his other 14 Super Late Model starts this season? One top-five and four top-10 finishes along with five DNQs, making it clear that he’s very happy to have Arrowhead and Comp Cams Series owner Willie Gammill running lucrative shows at the track.

“Just excited for the races that Comp and Arrowhead have been putting on,” Dillard said. “You definitely like to support (Arrowhead) when somebody’s sticking their neck out doing that.”

Dillard was absolutely on another level from his competition throughout Arrowhead’s twinbill. He drove Shane Sprinkle’s Longhorn Chassis to fast-time honors both nights and led all 100 circuits of the two 50-lappers that each paid $10,000-to-win.

Following a dominant march to a 1.530-second margin of victory over Timothy Culp of Prattsville, Ark., on Friday, Dillard was even more powerful on Saturday in winning by 3.734 seconds over Kyle Beard of Trumann, Ark. He beat solid fields both nights with 45 cars signed in Friday and 46 on Saturday.

“Oh, it’s awesome,” said Dillard, whose lone top-five this season away from Arrowhead is third in Jan. 10’s Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout opener at Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande. “We’ve been working hard at it. We struggled a little bit early in the year, but there’s some extremely good cars here and really good guys in this area. And these top three every night, it’s been really stacked, so just excited to have the speed we do right now.” — Staff and series reports

Wonderful debut

Nick Hoffman admitted that he had some doubts heading into Friday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series-sanctioned Chattahoochee Clash at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City.

“This one was circled as a question mark for me,” Hoffman said. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve never been here before.”

But the 33-year-old driver from Mooresville, N.C., made circling the 3/8-mile oval look like old hat. After he overtook race-long pacesetter Daulton Wilson of Fayetteville, N.C., for the lead with two circuits remaining in the 40-lap feature, he rolled on to celebrate a $12,000 victory in his first-ever visit to the track.

Hoffman’s fourth WoO triumph of the young 2026 season provided more evidence of his growing stature in the Dirt Late Model world. He’s bursting with confidence and came to an unfamiliar facility with a great mindset.

“I just went back to, you know, Scott Bloomquist was the best at new racetracks,” Hoffman said, referring to the late Hall of Famer whom he drove for briefly during the 2021 season. “He had, like, some 75 percent win percentage at brand new racetracks for him, and for me, I’ve raced at so many racetracks across the country I don’t know what to expect as far as perfect, but here you just kind of go back to your notebook and look at places that are similar and try and circle those.”

Hoffman spent much of the race’s second half chasing Wilson, the 28-year-old WoO newcomer seeking his first career win on the tour. Wilson grabbed the lead off the pole at the initial green flag and appeared primed to hold on for his breakthrough after turning back Hoffman’s lap-31 slider bid for the top spot with a brilliant crossover move off turn four.

But Hoffman, who gained control of second from Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., on a lap-15 restart after swapping the spot on lap-12 and -13 restarts, stayed close to Wilson in the hope that an opening would present itself. It finally did on lap 38 when Wilson slipped over the cushion in turn four and lost momentum, allowing Hoffman to shoot his Tye Twarog-owned Longhorn Chassis into the lead.

“(The surface) just had quite a bit of a ledge down there so you had to get back to the top in three and four,” Hoffman said. “And I knew down here (in one and two), if I could get (Wilson) to search a little bit … and there late in the race after that last restart (on lap 32), I got him to where he committed to that top and I just kept bombing it in there, just showing my nose in one in two and thinking maybe he would peel off that top a little bit in three and four and he never did.

“I just pressured him enough to have him make a mistake there. I knew he was pretty good here. This track is really similar to, like, Fayetteville, which is what he grew up on, and he was pretty damn good.”

Wilson just wasn’t flawless all the way to the checkered flag in Big Frog Motorsports Longhorn machine. His one bobble left him with a disappointing runner-up finish.

“Me and Nick raced hard there, and clean,” Wilson said. “I was leading going down the back straightaway (heading to lap 38) and all my warning lights (on the dashboard) come on, so, like, I just lifted and went out there and missed the racetrack. We gotta figure out what’s going on there, that kind of sucks.”

Wilson could take some consolation in running his streak of consecutive top-10 WoO finishes to five with a run that was his career-best on the circuit. His previous best WoO finish was third, achieved four times: in 2021 and ’22 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., ’24 at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway and last month at Hendry County Motorsports Park in Clewiston, Fla.

Hoffman, meanwhile, regained the WoO points lead by three markers over two-time and defending champion Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., who finished eighth in his second career start at EAMS. His fourth win in 13 WoO features this season also has his one victory away from matching his single-season career-high win total of five, which he reached in each of the last two seasons. — Staff and series reports

Anxious for EAMS

When East Alabama Motor Speedway appeared on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series schedule for the first time in two decades, no one was more excited about it than Tyler Erb.

And for good reason. The driver called Terbo has been fast at the Phenix City, Ala., track ever since his debut there seven years ago. He finished second in his first two National 100 starts behind Chris Madden in 2019 and then Brandon Overton in 2022. His worst finish in the track’s signature event came in 2023 when he ran fifth, but he’s been lights out ever since, winning the last two editions in 2024 and 2025.

Erb isn’t known as someone who wins everywhere he goes in the Southeast, but EAMS has been an exception.

“Just the nature of how you run the racetrack, you have to drive really hard and kind of use the banking to carry speed and race around it,” Erb said. “I really don’t have a rhyme or reason why, it’s just a place that, since Day One, I’ve always felt comfortable at and obviously have run really well at.”

Both of Erb’s victories in the event have come under a unique set of track conditions. In 2024, the groove appeared to be narrowing through the middle until Erb found enough traction on the bottom to wrestle the lead away from Jimmy Owens. Then last season, the race took on a much faster pace that allowed Erb to trade sliders with 2025 track champion Dalton Cook for the top spot.

“It’s fast. You don’t have a lot of time to contemplate your move, you just kind of go in there, make a split-second decision and have to be the aggressor most of the time,” Erb said. “You’re obviously going really, really fast for the shape of the track and how big it is. You can go around there fairly fast for being a bigger racetrack. It just produces good racing, a lot of slide jobs. The top is kind of where you want to be, but it’s tricky to get around there and not fly out of there or do something crazy.

“Like last year, I pitted because I thought I had an issue and was able to start at the tail and drive back to the lead in 20, 30 laps. It’s just a place that you can pass cars, and any place that you can pass cars, I really enjoy racing.”

One big difference is Friday’s Chattahoochee Clash will be 40 laps, 60 fewer than usual for the track’s biggest events.

“Phenix City has always been a place that’s hard on tires,” Erb said. “You have to manage your tires in a 100-lap race. But the last couple years, they’ve had some prelim races before the 100-lapper on Sunday, and those races tend to be even more aggressive. You want to get the lead, get out front and try to set a really good pace.

“Forty laps, I don’t think tires ever really come into play, 50 is where it gets a little tricky. Then anything after that, sometimes you plan a pit stop, sometimes you base it off of, ‘Well, I start last, I need to just go as fast as I can.’ The racing will definitely be a little bit different, but still, watching races there, it’s one of the most exciting places to watch a race.”

East Alabama opens the two-race weekend for the World of Outlaws that continues on Saturday at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway, where Erb was a Schaeffer's Southern Nationals winner in 2018.

“We’ve been fast all year, it’s just you’ve got to get in a little bit of a rhythm and have some momentum,” Erb said. “Right now, I feel like things are definitely headed in that direction, that’s what you’ve got to do to contend all year. I’m super excited to continue racing. We haven’t been home in a couple months, but I’m just excited that we have some momentum going into two tracks, Phenix City and Senoia, that I really, really enjoy racing at and have won races and had success at. We’re excited and ready to rip.” — Spence Smithback