Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: Driver departs, but Twarog's fire burns
People might think Tye Twarog would be downtrodden after losing his driver, Nick Hoffman, to Spire Motorsports, the high-profile NASCAR team that Thursday afternoon announced Hoffman’s hiring as the pilot for its fledgling Dirt Late Model program. Doesn’t it have to be an emotional gut-punch for the 46-year-old car owner from Coshocton, Ohio, who plucked Hoffman from the open-wheel modified ranks and watched him blossom into a national full-fender star?
Not from Twarog’s perspective. Speaking on Wednesday of Hoffman’s impending departure from his No. 9 machine’s seat at the end of the 2026 season, Twarog offered nothing but positive vibes about the 34-year-old Hoffman moving on to a well-funded, NASCAR-affiliated operation and his own racing future.
“I gotta be proud, right?” Twarog said. “I mean, NASCAR is where he wants to be. That’s what his childhood dream is, you know? I feel like this deal here allows him to try to do a dream, maybe have an opportunity to run some Truck races or something with (Spire). I can’t blame him for doing it. I’m proud that I was able to help him get a chance with a big team like that, you know what I mean?
“And I’m just excited for whatever I do, which, I don’t think I'm done. I think I got a fire in me now and I want to race.”
There’s the key comment from Twarog — he no longer has the driver who over the last four seasons has grown into a bona fide contender for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series championship and crown jewel trophies, but he’s not ready to pack it in. He said his team is in “free agent status” and he seems genuinely enthused about finding the right deal with another driver to press on.
What Twarog stressed is he’s built a Dirt Late Model program that he will proudly put up against the best in the business. He’s not an independently wealthy owner with unlimited funds — he’s a blue-collar guy who runs a racing parts enterprise while also spending the early portions of his days fulfilling the duties of his consulting business with the state of Ohio in which he makes rotating visits to seven water treatment plants within a 75-minute radius of his home and tests the water for the proper chemicals — but he’s put together an effort that takes a backseat to no one.
“Some people think, ‘Oh, Nick’s Late Model deal’s going to get better and better now (with Spire),” Twarog said. “But listen, it’s not about that. Tye Twarog Racing isn’t a low-level operation. I mean, I picked the program up over the years.”
Twarog pointed out that he currently has nine engines and five race cars in his stable, which is far from a modest team fighting to keep up with top-tier competition. All of that equipment will come back to his shop from Hoffman’s in Mooresville, N.C., after they finish out their ’26 campaign together with Nov. 13-14’s FloRacing Night in America weekend at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway. Who slides into those cars — well, if Twarog decides to name a new driver and continue in ’27 — is to be determined, but Twarog certainly has a sought-after program.
“I feel like I’ve become a bigger player in the sport,” Twarog said. “I got a lot of big customers and bigger teams are dealing with me (at the parts business), so it’s a lot different shape than four, five years ago.”
Twarog is referring to the last time he had a talented, promising driver leave his fold, in 2022 when Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, ended his second tour of duty with Twarog to accept a ride with Roger Sellers and Double Down Motorsports. He seriously contemplated selling his team following the ’22 season, but he ultimately opted to bring in Hoffman.
Choosing Hoffman wasn’t a slam-dunk move. He was an accomplished open-wheel modified driver and chassis builder but had limited Dirt Late Model experience, though he did flash plenty of ability in 2021 during a stint filling in for the ailing Hall of Famer Scott Bloomquist. Twarog went all-in, however, not only putting him on the WoO tour full-time right out of the gate in ’23 but also entrusting Hoffman to maintain all of his equipment.
“I took a chance when I hired Nick obviously,” Twarog said. “He’s a mod guy — he had some Late Model experience, but not a lot. He wasn’t even medically clear to race yet” following a head injury he suffered in a September 2022 highway accident with his rig.
Hoffman has rewarded Twarog’s gamble. Over the past three-plus years he’s won 31 features with 17 coming on the WoO circuit, including a career-high six this season highlighted by a $100,057 triumph on May 30 at Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway. He’s improved each season in the WoO standings (fifth, third, second) and currently sits second behind Bobby Pierce in the ’26 points race. His nine victories overall this season include two at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio (June 3’s FloRacing feature and Sunday’s Baltes Classic) and he enters this weekend’s World 100 with a streak of four straight top-fives in the track’s crown jewel finales dating back to last year.
“Taking a chance on a guy and, like, seeing him develop, it’s been fun,” Twarog said of Hoffman. “He showed that he had talent right from the get-go I felt like, but here in the last two years he’s been consistent. He might not win the big races, but he’s consistent. He’s right there.
“It makes me happy that I feel like I was part of that (improvement). I am not saying I’m 100 percent because obviously he has to drive the race car, but it feels good to be part of that, give him that chance, and see him get better.
“Just like Devin Moran, you know?” he continued. “I brought Devin Moran up. Now I brought Nick Hoffman up. I did what I was supposed to in life — I made people better. I made Devin Moran better, I made Nick Hoffman better.”
He paused, and then added with a laugh: “Devin Moran won a Lucas Oil (Late Model Dirt Series) championship (in 2025 with Double Down), so now Nick Hoffman should win a Lucas Oil championship now, right?
Despite having Moran and now Hoffman move on, Twarog doesn’t feel like he has a steppingstone team. The interest drivers showed in his ride even before Hoffman’s Spire Motorsports deal was revealed publicly — yes, rumors of a Hoffman-Spire connection rumbled across the Dirt Late Model landscape — made him realize he’s in demand.
“I will tell you the difference now to when Devin Moran left me to go with Roger Sellers — my phone is ringing two times more,” Twarog said of the inquiries he’s fielding. “It’s crazy, but that’s what’s going on right now. I’m extremely, extremely happy with what I built. Now my team is on the radar.
“I’m excited for my future, whatever it is, whether it’s in racing or, you know, with my wife or watching my boy grow up in sports or whatever it is.”
The enthusiasm that remains in Twarog now is such a dramatic juxtaposition from ’22. His new wife does fuel that — Dusti is a dirt-track girl through and through with her family’s ties to operating Portsmouth (Ohio) Raceway Park and her own stint as a Miss Eldora Speedway — but the success he’s enjoyed with Hoffman is a big part of it as well.
“When Devin left, like, the only thing I really knew was to give up and quit,” Twarog said. “I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t think anything was out there. And I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t a major money operation. I wasn’t a major player. But now, obviously, I worked really hard, my businesses are going super well, and now I’m a major player. I guess I got a little mojo in my life now. My life is pretty fun right now.
“So, I mean, the next step is just what do we do, how do we attack it? Do we race or do we not race? Do we wait for a year and see who’s available or find somebody now?”
Twarog understands it won’t be easy to find a driver who brings the special attributes of Hoffman, who proved a perfect fit with Twarog thanks to his driving talent, technical knowledge and work ethic. Things just clicked so well with Hoffman.
“Our relationship isn’t like a lot of owners and drivers,” Twarog said. “I mean, I classify him as a friend, but we don’t sit there and have conversations every day. I let them guys kind of run the team and go race whenever. I mean, he’s had an open door to do whatever he wanted to do, whatever he wanted to buy, whatever he wanted to race, that was all up to him.
“I ain’t calling him after he did a dumb-ass move or something and saying, ‘Hey, man, why’d you do this or that?’ That’s just not who I am.”
There was speculation that Spire Motorsports would simply buy out Twarog’s team, but that wasn’t the case. Hoffman will take over Spire’s current Dirt Late Model program that has fielded a car on a limited basis for its NASCAR Cup Series driver, Carson Hocevar, and operate it out of his own shop that’s a few miles from Spire’s headquarters. Twarog said Spire might purchase some of his equipment, though, when Hoffman goes full-bore with the team after finishing off ’26 with Twarog.
“I promised Nick that Spire would have first chance on buying anything I sell,” Twarog said. “I just want to be a man of my word, you know? I got a local guy right now, he’s coming Saturday night (to Eldora) and wants to buy one of my motors if we don’t use it (during the World 100 weekend), but I called Nick first and said, ‘Hey, do you guys want this motor before I sell it?’ That's how much I respect that situation.
“And Nick said, ‘Hey, listen, don’t forget about me.’ He’s going to buy all his parts through me, so I’m still going to be kind of a factor in that deal, you know?”
Twarog is quite certain Hoffman will be a force with Spire next year, whichever national tour they decide to chase.
“You still gotta drive the race cars. You still gotta set ‘em up,” said Twarog, who noted that his chief mechanic, Scott Fegter, will move on to Spire Motorsports with Hoffman. “There’s a lot to do, but Spire is gonna have a helluva team with Nick. Is that what Nick Hoffman needs to beat Bobby Pierce on the Outlaw deal, or whoever else if he runs the Lucas Oil Series? It could be what he needs, that little juice.”
Twarog is also confident that his four-year run with Hoffman holds as dear a place in Hoffman’s heart as in his own.
“I’m sure when someone says, ‘What did Tye Twarog mean to you?’ he’s gonna say something,” Twarog said.
And Hoffman did just that, remarking during Thursday’s press conference in Eldora’s media center that “everything he’s done for me has been unbelievable.”
“I wouldn’t have been on these (Spire) guys’ radar with him,” Hoffman of Twarog. “If we could win Saturday night (in the World 100), that would put a cherry on Tye Twarog’s racing career.”
Twarog is eyeing the possibility of World 100 glory. He had a meeting scheduled for Thursday at Eldora with a “top-tier driver” and is considering plenty of other options for 2027 — all, of course, with the hope that he can hire a racer who is capable of picking up where Hoffman left off — but as positive and upbeat as he is about the future, he admitted that standing on Eldora’s stage as a World 100-winning owner could change everything.
“I want to race, but I got to do it the right way,” said Twarog, who plans to watch the weekend’s action from a suite outside turns three and four that he obtained from Mason Zeigler, who isn’t entered in the World 100. “And who knows? This weekend could be it. I told Dusti … actually, I texted her and her mom both, I said, ‘Listen, I’m just telling you, you heard it right here first: if I win Saturday night, I’m done.’
“If I won the World 100 with Nick, I’d just make my decision right there. I’m retired. I’m done with racing. I can just look at the globe trophy the rest of my life, right?”
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