Farmer City Raceway
Notes: Expectations high for title-hunting Hoffman
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt managing editor
Nick Hoffman at Farmer City. (joshjamesartwork.com)
FARMER CITY, Ill. (April 11) — It’s a back-and-forth points battle on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series and it stayed tight at Farmer City’s Illini 100 weekend.
While Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., salvaged a seventh-place finish after getting caught up in two tangles Friday, then added a $25,000 victory from 10th in Saturday’s finale, title contender Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C., was steady with a pair of podium finishes (third on Friday, second on Saturday). | RaceWire
Hoffman leaves Farmer City with a two-point lead on Pierce, and don’t think the reigning series champ didn’t notice that Hoffman isn’t going anywhere.
“The bad thing is, every time I win these races, Nick's like second or third,” Pierce said. “We can't get away from each other.”
The pair have run 1-2 in four of the previous nine series events, and Hoffman has found that he’s raising the bar on expectations in his fourth WoO season for Tye Twarog Racing.
"I feel like I'm getting closer to my modified days where you run second and you're pissed off. You’re not happy, you know? And last year if I would have ran second in this race, I'd be jumping for joy. I'd be pretty pumped up,” Hoffman said after taking second from Brandon Sheppard on the race’s lone restart. “It's the way my mentality has gotten. I'm focused on trying to win these races, and when it doesn't happen, you just get frustrated, but you can't win them all. It's just part of it.”
Second on back-to-back nights to Brandon Sheppard and Pierce, who have dominated the Illini 100 finale over its last six runnings, is solid.
“Just Sheppy was quite a bit better than we were last night, and then Bobby was really good tonight,” said Hoffman, who said he struggled steering his car early in Saturday’s 60-lapper. “I worked on it, did a couple of different things tonight to try and get a little bit better, and we knew we were gonna be on a little bit different tire compound tonight vs. last night, but you take that in consideration and still just missed it just enough — just a little bit — you gotta be almost perfect to win these races and that just wasn't the case.
“If we didn't get that caution, I wouldn't have got by Sheppy, so happy to get to second, but yeah, I just gotta jot that down on my notes of what I feel like I needed like early in the race.
“I got to run in the middle of the racetrack and felt pretty good,” Hoffman continued. “I just couldn't keep up with that cushion quite yet and it just never kind of came to me. So then I started having to hit the wall and run that fence and just Bobby was able to carry more speed than I did. Yeah, I mean, happy to run second.”
Red flag flies
The lone stoppage in Saturday’s feature came on the 49th lap when Tristan Chamberlain’s decision to move into the higher groove went awry. The 18-year-old Richmond, Ind., driver ran in the top five the first 24 laps, and he was still hanging in there in seventh place in the late stages when he decided to abandon his inside groove.
“I just charged the corner a little too hard and stubbed the right front into the wall and it broke the rack or something and locked the wheel up and I just spun down right in front of the field,” Chamberlain said. "I feel bad for everyone that got involved, so it’s my fault. Just a mistake on my end.
"I was running the bottom and, I saw (Shannon) Babb and I think (Tyler Erb) started getting around me around the outside, so that next lap I went out there (to the high groove) — and hadn't ran up there the whole race — so I just misjudged it. It is what it is.”
Chamberlain came across the track and collected Brian Shirley, whose car ended up on its side with Tim McCreadie joining the pileup between turns three and four. It took a few minutes for officials to put Shirley’s car back on its wheels. Shirley was OK, but it ended a poor weekend for the Chatham, Ill., driver that included a penalty that started him on the tail of a heat race because he didn’t show up on time.
“It's been a tough couple of days here for being at one of my better racetracks that you thought you would come into and have a decent weekend,” said the Bob Cullen Racing driver who hasn’t been better than ninth in a race since late February. “It’s just how the year’s been. It’s just been a struggle to find the balance in the car and everything that I'm feeling and needing. I'm just struggling a little bit to find it right now.”
No sweep for Sheppard
Friday’s dominating winner Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., overtook race-long leader Drake Troutman on the 25th lap Saturday — the same driver he passed in winning last year’s Illini 100 finale — but he couldn’t hold off Bobby Pierce’s winning charge.
The Rocket Chassis House Car team didn’t leave Farmer City “hanging our head” after first- and third-place finishes and a recent four-race stretch of top-five finishes, including three races he led.
“The track just got a little bit slipperier than yesterday, a little crummier, and we just got to where we couldn't keep our speed up quite as good as we could yesterday,” Sheppard said. “We were just a little off. Overall a solid car again tonight. Just the (No.) 32 (of Pierce) was a little better. I probably — could’ve, would’ve, should’ve — picked the top on the restart and ran second, but it is what it is.
“Overall, it was a solid weekend for us again. Keeping the consistency up, that's what it's all about. You've got to be competitive and be up there, up front so you can battle for the win. Sometimes it's going to go your way and sometimes it's not. As tough as this sport is right now, you can be just barely a little bit off and one mistake on the racetrack and it will cost you a win.”
Sheppard wondered if handling lapped traffic differently might’ve changed the outcome, but Pierce pulled away convincingly once he took command.
“Maybe if I don't move out in (turns) one and two in lapped cars and Bobby don't get around me, maybe I can hang on, maybe not. I don't know. It just got to where I couldn’t steer quite as good and made it harder for me to pass lapped cars,” Sheppard said. "It's just a little balance issue, maybe a tire, maybe, I don't know. It's hard to say. You just go home and check everything over and see what you come up with and try again next week.”
Sheppard was among several drivers who praised the track conditions.
"They did a great job with the racetrack all weekend. Some will say, ‘Oh, it could race better in (turns) one and two, blah, blah. Well, it could, but that's Farmer City and that's how it races, and all things considered, it's pretty good,” he said. "The guy could get out front and lead every lap or you know you could see a bunch of lead changes, but through the field there's always good racing.”
Odds and ends
Drake Troutman of Hyndman, Pa., led significant laps at Farmer City for the second straight Illini 100, but a softer tire combination contributed to him fading to sixth after leading the first 21 laps. "We're happy we're running good, obviously,” Troutman said. “It just sucks that we don't have more results to show for it.”. …. Daulton Wilson of Fayetteville, N.C., posted impressive fifth- and fourth-place finishes at Farmer City, his first top-fives at the track, and he’s a solid fourth in WoO points. He was 10th in the point standings leaving Georgia-Florida Speedweeks. His key to Saturday's performance: an impressive seventh-to-second rally in his heat race.
