Fast Talk presented by MD3 and Five Star Bodies
Fast Talk: Recapping Hoffman's World 100 victory
With Nick Hoffman notching his first Dirt Late Model crown jewel at Eldora Speedway’s 56th annual World 100 our roundtable checks in for the weekly feature presented by MD3 and Five Star Race Cars Bodies (edited for clarity and length):
Put a bow on Nick Hoffman’s Eldora triumph.
Kevin Kovac, DirtonDirt senior writer: With Hoffman’s recent strength in Eldora crown jewels (and other events) and his continued rise to national stardom this season, it seemed like a major win was inevitable. On Saturday, he proved it. Hoffman made a classic Eldora run to victory, masterfully combining patience and skill to rise through the field and virtually completely erase a 10-second deficit to leader Ryan Gustin without the help of a caution flag. His focus and careful study of Eldora’s best, including Jonathan Davenport and Dale McDowell, was on full display. And the fact that he won the world biggest’s Dirt Late Model race for Tye Twarog — the man who gave him his full-time shot in the division and an Ohio native as well — provided one of the most emotional scenes you’ll ever see.
Todd Turner, DirtonDirt managing editor: Reviewing our reactions to Hoffman’s four consecutive top-five finishes in crown jewel events at Eldora heading to the World 100, Hoffman was arguably the best bet as the next first-time World 100 winner. Despite being Thursday’s big news in joining Spire Motorsports, Hoffman’s weekend didn’t necessarily scream “World 100 favorite” — especially when he slipped from ninth to 12th a third of the way through Saturday’s 100-lapper. But he made all the right moves with his methodical low-groove rally to victory on a night with a record World 100 crowd and record World 100 purse.
Kyle McFadden, DirtonDirt staff reporter: The victory will go down, of course, as Nick Hoffman’s Eldora breakthrough. The way I see it, though, it was an inevitability finally fulfilled. As Todd highlighted, four consecutive top-five finishes in Eldora 100-lappers — with a combined 36 positions gained — proved Hoffman’s time was coming. His ability to mount charges through these fields was never in question. The difference Saturday was that his rally didn’t run out of laps. Hoffman patiently conserved his equipment along a mud-splattered line against the infield wall, then erased more than nine seconds of Ryan Gustin’s advantage from laps 59-88. Even without Gustin’s demise, Hoffman appeared destined to win it all. Add Sunday’s Baltes Classic victory, Thursday’s Spire Motorsports announcement and the significance of delivering Tye Twarog a World 100 before their partnership ends, and you couldn’t script a more meaningful week. Hoffman has spent a decade learning how to unlock Eldora. Now that he has finally finished one of those trademark charges, I doubt this will be his only globe.
Bryan Ault, DirtonDirt contributor: It’s just hard not to love this win. Nick Hoffman paid his dues in the modified ranks, building his own cars, and had to earn his stripes before entering the full-fendered division. A ride wasn’t just handed to him right away; he had to work for it. Given how some drivers can struggle to make that modified-to-Late Model transition, the fact that he’s gone from a relative division newcomer to World 100 winner in such a short span shows he always had the goods. Between Thursday’s announcement that he’s joining Spire Motorsports in 2027 and capturing the 100-lapper on Saturday night, the weekend simply could not have gone any better for Hoffman and his current car owner Tye Twarog, who earned a well-deserved owner’s globe after funding so many of our sport’s current stars.
Answer the unanswerable question: Would Hoffman have overtaken Ryan Gustin had Gustin’s car maintained its driveline?
McFadden: Yes, though Gustin deserved the opportunity to make Hoffman prove that. Hoffman erased 9.197 seconds of Gustin’s lead from laps 59-88, shrinking the gap from 10.129 seconds to 0.932 while advancing from eighth to third. He had turned his fastest lap on the 91st circuit. On the lap-88 restart before Gustin broke, Hoffman launched into turn one and reached his inside door before his driveline busted. Now, the unknowable variable is how much did Gustin have saved in case he was truly pressured, because he really wasn’t challenged until the part failure. I still believe that with Hoffman’s preserved tires, convincing late-race pace and ability to maneuver anywhere Gustin wasn’t, he would have overtaken him regardless. I only wish we could have watched them settle it naturally.
Turner: I sense my colleagues on the ground at Eldora will say yes. I’m less certain. I think impartial fans all would’ve like to have seen it play out, see if Gustin had another gear, see if Hoffman’s pressure would’ve wilted the 88-lap leader, see if a restart where Gustin’s driveshaft remains attached changes the race’s outcome. I will say Gustin’s heartbreaking loss ranks among the toughest to swallow I’ve seen in the World 100, perhaps the most grueling since Shannon Babb’s 2005 disqualification. Starting on the pole and dominating 90 percent of the race is not a position Gustin will likely find himself in again.
Ault: First, the ending of this race reminds me of Kyle Strickler’s flat tire during the Intercontinental Classic in 2020 won by Jonathan Davenport. In both cases, a driver who wasn’t in a single betting pool was leading by a sizable margin and had a chance to have the biggest victories of their career at Eldora, only to see their hopes dashed in heartbreaking fashion. It's so crushing for Gustin to end the way it did. To answer the question, I think the answer is no. The lap times don’t lie as Kyle wrote in his piece after the race: Hoffman’s fastest lap was on lap 91 at 17.143 seconds, while Gustin’s fastest lap was more than a full second slower with 20 to go. Hoffman soared in the race’s closing stages thanks to managing his tires better than anyone in the field. Still, I feel like we were robbed of what could have been a great finish.
Kovac: The logical answer would be yes considering how Hoffman ran down Gustin and was on the verge of challenging the leader before the lap-88 caution tightened the field, but it’s so unfortunate Gustin didn’t have the chance to change that narrative due to his driveline failure on the restart. Perhaps Gustin could have turned up the wick; he hadn’t, after all, been pressured for the entire distance. Or perhaps Gustin could have blasted the top and hit it just right — he’s fully capable of doing it — over the final short stretch to stave off the low-riding Hoffman. But like Gustin’s car owner Todd Cooney said: “We’ll never know, will we?”
Mention another World 100 driver.
Turner: I’ll tackle five-time race winner Jonathan Davenport. Just like a driver isn’t a World 100 driver until he’s won one, there’s no clear timetable for when a driver has won his last one. I clearly remember when Billy Moyer won his sixth World 100 in 2010 at 52, he’d been counted out by plenty of folks (me included, perhaps). Davenport arguably remains in the prime of his career at 42, but he’s in his longest stretch (four races) without a crown jewel victory at Eldora. He’s also abandoned his former Eldora-specific car. And he finished outside the top five in this year’s Dream and World 100. No one would be surprised if J.D. returns to Eldora in June to add another Dream to his ledger (and his record-tying 12th crown jewel victory at Eldora), but there are also chinks in the armor for a driver who’s hinted that he won’t stretch his career as long as others.
Ault: Three of the weekend’s heavy hitters — Bobby Pierce, Josh Rice and Devin Moran — getting sidelined by mechanical problems was certainly surprising, especially Pierce, who had two powerplants break in one weekend. I don’t think anyone foresaw him failing to make the feature on Saturday, especially coming off back-to-back Eldora wins at last year’s DTWC and June’s Dream. I thought it was in poor taste for fans to cheer after the second blown motor on Saturday: instead of racing for a six-figure prize, the Pierces left Eldora with what’s potentially a six-figure engine bill.
Kovac: Bobby Pierce appears to be developing into the new Scott Bloomquist at Eldora — a perennial, and prolific, winner, but also the center of attention for seemingly innumerable reasons whether he wins or loses. The late Bloomquist was well known for always being in the spotlight at Eldora, whether it be with victories or becoming embroiled in sometimes controversial, sometimes unbelievable situations. Pierce hasn’t lost a crown jewel to weighing in light at the scales like Bloomquist — and hopefully that never happens — but he was disqualified from competing in the Thursday portion of 2021’s double World 100s for the late-night actions of a crew member. Definitely a strange, Bloomquist-like deal. And he was a DNQ for Saturday’s World 100 after detonating an engine in a huge cloud of smoke during heat action after previously losing a motor during prelim action. With Pierce turning 30 in November, there are plenty of Bobby Pierce stories to come at Eldora.
McFadden: Tyler Erb is becoming quite the Eldora contender. He challenged for a podium in June’s Dream before a wheel failure, then backed it up in the World 100 with, well, a podium finish from 17th. At first, Eldora didn’t seem like a place that would suit Erb’s gung-ho driving style. Winning a 100-lapper there typically requires a tactician who’s masterful in the slick and capable of maintaining elite race pace. Erb is truly developing the skills needed to contend in Eldora’s biggest events. He’s calmed down, put in the work to make his car perform across the racetrack — not merely on the cushion — and suddenly finds himself on a Hoffman-like trajectory. Whether he can put it all together one day, who knows? But he's sure in the hunt.
And pick another World 100 topic.
Ault: I’m tempted to vent about the inverts and Wheel of Misfortune, but I’ve done that already and it seems like a lost cause. Instead, I’ll touch on a positive note: Freddie Carpenter’s 9/11-themed car. Has there ever been a wrap like that ever before? So many fans posted online how emotional they were when the Carpenters revealed the ride on a video. I was in sixth grade on 9/11 and remember it well, and I’ve been to the 9/11 Memorial in New York City and United 93 Memorial in Shanksville. Pa., two must-go-to places to really understand what happened that day. For him and his wife, Jima, to go out to Eldora with no sponsors on their fenders and to honor the victims on the 25th anniversary was exceptionally well done.
McFadden: I’ll hit three. First, as I wrote in After the Checkers, there needs to be a rule requiring any driver who has a flat tire under caution to leave the racing surface. Get off the dang track. Enough said. As for the inverts, the best cars and drivers have long found ways to overcome the format. Does it unfairly screw some? Absolutely, and for that, you wonder if there's a better way. I remain stuck in the middle about what, if anything, should change, so I’ll leave that decision to Eldora’s officials. On a fluffier note, this felt like the biggest World 100 yet in terms of fan engagement and overall buzz. I encountered so many people attending their first World 100 because they felt compelled to experience it for themselves after watching the event through streaming. Even Thursday’s traffic began building roughly 30 minutes from the track — I know because I followed the same line of cars the rest of the way to Eldora. Streaming has unquestionably expanded this event’s reach, and this year’s atmosphere reflected it.
Kovac: There was undoubtedly an unusual feel to Saturday’s World 100 for one primary reason: the number of serious contenders who missed the feature field was staggering. There was Pierce, of course, but other big names on the DNQ list included Dale McDowell (ending his streak of 18 straight World 100 starts!), Devin Moran, Josh Rice, Chris Madden, Mike Marlar (left Saturday to attend his niece's wedding) and Brandon Overton (raced home for the birth of his son). It seemed so strange for that many notable drivers to be on the sidelines for the feature, but it also opened the door for eight first-time World 100 starters — over a quarter of the field had never before run the 100-lapper. That’s a remarkable stat in its own right.
Turner: We’ve heard (and I’ve written) many stories about the exhaustive lengths drivers will go to for their unabashed love of racing. So it was refreshing and compelling to follow the stories of Brandon Overton and Justin Duty as they caught quick flights home from Eldora for births of children which, especially for Overton, cost him a real shot at $100,000. But family comes first, and Overton’s Facebook shot of his growing family — “My world” he wrote, using a globe emoji — was super sweet.
Preview Knoxville or another upcoming event.
Kovac: I always look forward to Knoxville. It offers a different feel coming off the hoopla and mass of humanity that is the World 100, sort of a laid-back atmosphere for a crown jewel event. There’s still a big-show feel to the Knoxville Nationals, especially because the track is so famous and the racing usually very compelling. Nevertheless, even with the crowd probably larger, or at least comparable, to crown jewels not contested at Eldora, the vastness of the facility makes it seem smaller. You feel like you have some room to breathe while still at a major deal, which I like about Knoxville.
McFadden: I really think Ricky Thornton Jr. will be the driver to beat at Knoxville. First, it’s safe to say he’s rounding back into his 2024 Lucas Oil championship form. His car is exceptionally strong on half-miles, few drivers know Iowa’s black dirt better than Thornton, and now that he lives in Indianola, he’s based only 30 minutes from Knoxville Raceway. Everything seems to align for him entering the weekend.
Ault: Hudson O’Neal has to be the Knoxville favorite, especially after last season’s victory at the half-mile track. O’Neal had a solid top-five showing at the World 100, including an appearance on the victory stage during a preliminary event. With Knoxville and Brownstown next on the Lucas Oil docket, I’m wondering if he can narrow Brandon Sheppard’s lead in the series standings.
Turner: I’ll look at the weekend's big picture as I noticed there were more than a dozen Late Model races scheduled this week with five-figure paydays. For context, the same weekend three years ago had three such races. It’s a reminder of the new era we’re living in and that, while drivers probably would like even bigger purses, we’ve come a long way baby.
Correction: Fixes Tyler Erb's World 100 starting spot to 17th sted 19th.
