Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: Storybook? Yes. But is it end for Twarog?
Words were flying around inside Tye Twarog’s head Saturday night as he stood on Eldora Speedway’s victory stage. Lots of words. Barely any of them, however, reached his mouth.
When FloRacing pit reporter Ben Shelton pulled Twarog in front of the camera to ask what the unassuming 46-year-old team owner was feeling after watching his driver, Nick Hoffman, win the 56th World 100 at the famed half-mile oval in Rossburg, Ohio, Twarog only managed a few short comments in between tears of joy.
“Speechless. I would’ve never dreamed this,” Twarog said almost in a whisper, his voice cracking with emotion. “I think I could walk away now. I don’t really need to race anymore now that I won it.”
And with that Hoffman, the 34-year-old talent from Mooresville, N.C., whom Twarog plucked from the open-wheel modified ranks to become a full-time national touring Dirt Late Model driver before the 2023 season, walked over and put his right arm around Twarog’s shoulders. The interview was over. Twarog simply couldn’t go any further.
Twarog’s reaction pointed to the monumental magnitude of the moment. A true Buckeye from Coschocton, Ohio, a blue-collar guy who built his team from a modest local effort into a powerhouse on the national scene, had captured the sport’s most prestigious event — and just days after the public announcement that Hoffman will leave Twarog’s seat at the end of the season to drive next season for Spire Motorsports, the high-profile NASCAR operation that coveted Hoffman to head their fledgling Dirt Late Model program.
How could Twarog go through the motions in victory lane?
“It was just emotional, you know?” Twarog said while standing near his No. 9 machine inside the ropes of the technical inspection area in the pit area shortly after the postrace celebration and picture-taking concluded. “You dream of winning this race. This is the Daytona 500 for us, you know?”
After some time to catch his breath, Twarog admitted that he was swept up in the thrill of victory when he walked up on that stage and saw Hoffman emerge from the car with the twin World 100 globe trophies — one for the driver and one, of course, for the car owner — just a few feet away.
“It was very emotional on the stage for me, because a lot of things are going on, you know?” Twarog said. “I had to get my composure here (at postrace tech). Now I can think about it, you know, but when you’re in the moment up there, it’s all you think about and you just break down.
“I’m not a big baby,” he continued, recalling the whimpering he did during his initial interview with Shelton. “But at the end of the day, that’s how much it meant to me, you know what I mean?”
Twarog didn’t need to explain the personal significance of winning the World 100. His background in racing makes it perfectly clear why he couldn’t hold back the waterworks from flowing out of his eyes. He’s the quintessential rags-to-riches racing story, a man who started right at the bottom and worked his way to top of the sport through grit and determination.
“It’s just crazy to take a small-town team that I had and bring it up to this,” Twarog said, shaking his head in disbelief over the quarter-century he’s spent fielding Dirt Late Models. “I ran local all my life until 2015, then I had Steve Casebolt drive for two years and Devin Moran drove for me and then Nick took over in ’23 … and here we are.”
Twarog’s car-ownership history dates back to when he was 21 years old and obtained his first car. He scratched and scraped to come up with the funds for that machine, mowing grass, doing side jobs — anything to accumulate some cash for his endeavor.
“I bought a Rocket car that needed a front clip and D.J. Cline (of St. Clairsville, Ohio) was the first guy I had drive it,” said Twarog, who never had the urge to climb behind the wheel himself (and his starts in a few mechanics’ races let him know he “wasn’t very good” as a racer).
Twarog’s parents, John and Betty, who watched Saturday’s race from their home as they both battle cancer, were fully behind his efforts, but Twarog refused to ask them for financial backing.
“I could’ve took money from them but I never did,” Twarog said. “I just kind of did this all on my own, you know, made my own deals, got my own sponsors and stuff.”
Twarog spent nearly 15 years focusing on local competition, racing at such Ohio tracks at Hilltop, Muskingum County and Wayne County with an array of drivers that included Cline, Doug Dodd, Norm Aronhalt and Shane McLoughlin. He also launched his parts business, Tye Twarog Motorsports, in 2003 and steadily expanded it right alongside his race team.
In 2015 Twarog upgraded his Dirt Late Model program to tackle a more ambitious schedule with Steve Casebolt, the 2007 Dream winner, and that February became a World of Outlaws Late Model Series winner when Casebolt drove to victory at Screven Motor Speedway in Sylvania, Ga. The next year he went full-time on the WoO tour with Casebolt and has slowly-but-surely assembled a formidable national-level team. He did the WoO circuit with the blossoming Devin Moran in 2017-18, backed off to a limited slate with Moran in ’19 when the young standout left for Dunn Benson Racing, then reunited full-time with Moran for Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action from 2020-22 before Moran departed again for Roger Sellers-owned Double Down Motorsports and Twarog hired Hoffman.
Hoffman, of course, proved to be a perfect fit for Twarog as a hard-working, technically-minded competitor who was just waiting for his big Dirt Late Model opportunity. He’s improved every year he’s been with Twarog, which made the news that Hoffman was going to head to Spire Motorsports understandably difficult for the car owner.
Twarog gracefully accepted Hoffman’s decision, preferring to look at the bright side: his gamble on hiring Hoffman had elevated the driver to the point that he became a hot commodity for Spire, which could even offer Hoffman chances to run NASCAR Truck races or, perhaps, go higher.
Nevertheless, Sept. 10’s press conference in Eldora’s media center revealing Hoffman’s association with Spire produced a rather awkward situation for Twarog. He offered his public words of support to Hoffman in an interview with DirtonDirt before the media gathering, but he opted to stay out of the spotlight at Eldora with Hoffman attracting so much attention.
“I stayed low Thursday and Friday,” Twarog said. “We pretty much came straight to the races, went to the suite (in the tower outside turns three and four). stayed low. Today (Saturday) I came to the pits for the first time and hung out for about an hour and I just went back up to the suite.
“I’m just not ‘that’ guy. I don’t want to answer all the questions, you know? I mean, I want to do what I got to do, and I got to think about what I got to do. So at the end of the day, that’s what I did, and I mean, it panned out for me. I know Nick had a plenty of questions this weekend, but I mean, right now I don’t care. Everyone can ask me whatever they want now, right?”
Twarog had a panoramic view of Hoffman’s drive to Dirt Late Model immortality from his tower room. He experienced some anxious moments during the race’s early stages, but his driver eventually came through.
“Listen, we were close to one in the World 100 last year. We had a fast car all weekend and we ran third,” Twarog said. “This year, at one point, I’m sitting there thinking, Man, this guy’s back here running 13th or 14th. I’m like, ‘What do we got going on here?’
“Then once about lap 35 came and he was like … he was the fastest car on the racetrack. Ryan Gustin was leading the race and I was watching lap times and I saw Nick’s lap times were way better than him. (Gustin) broke (on a lap-88 restart leading over Hoffman), which was unfortunate — I would have liked to seen them race it out — but I feel like Nick got up on wheel the last 15 laps or whatever. He actually got in the middle of the racetrack and he was very smart. He drove straight but he picked it up. I mean, he picked it up and did what he had to do as a driver.”
Twarog watched Hoffman flash under the checkered flag first. He hugged his wife, Dusti — the couple was just married last month in Jackson Hole, Wyo. — and everyone else in the suite and then headed down to the track for the celebration.
The dream had come true. He had proven that an Ohio guy could go from towing a Dirt Late Model to local races on an open trailer could someday become a World 100 winner.
“You just gotta believe, you know?” Twarog said through a stupendous smile. “I mean, I got a lot of good people around me to make this happen. It’s just not me. You gotta put the whole team together. You gotta have good sponsors, gotta have a good engine, you gotta have good cars. That’s what builds a World 100 team, you know?
“Everyone just needs to believe and this thing could happen, but I know I’m very fortunate this happened to me. There’s a lot of other people out here who deserve this too, but, you know …”
Twarog paused. He glanced around for a moment, toward the fans listening to him from beyond the tech area’s ropes and then past his car and the track itself.
“It’s the greatest feeling ever,” Twarog said.
As Twarog spoke, the cell phone in his pocket kept going off with congratulatory messages. He pulled it out to take a quick look.
“I don’t think my phone’s quit vibrating, to be honest with you,” Twarog said. “Oh, it’s blown up. We’re at 206 (messages) right now.”
That was further evidence of how huge winning the World 100 is.
“This is a big deal for a team,” Twarog said. “Like, this here, my team, forever, is a World 100 champ, so at the end of the day it helps with sponsors, it helps everything across the board. If it’s products or whatever … and hey, if I want (to continue) to race, you know, I’m sure every driver in the pit area says, ‘Hey, this Tye Twarog won the World 100 with his car so we can come drive for him.’ ”
Twarog said before the start of Eldora’s weekend that he’s been having so much fun racing with Hoffman that he seemed to be leaning toward hiring a new driver to roll on in 2027. But he also mentioned that the equation might change if he won the World 100.
Right there in the tech area, Twarog was asked if could really sell out the entirety of his racing program and walk away as a car owner.
“I can,” Twarog asserted. “Honestly, I mean, like, I can. There’s a lot of (possible driver) situations coming up right now, but, like, if I had to make a decision today, honestly, I could be done. I know I made Nick Hoffman a better guy, helped get him in a better situation. I made Devin Moran get in a better situation.
“So at the end of the day, if it ain’t the right situation, I could walk away in a hurry.”
Twarog still has a couple months of racing to go with Hoffman through Nov. 13-14’s FloRacing Night in America weekend at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway. He could still even win the WoO championship with Hoffman if everything would break right for Hoffman to catch Bobby Pierce.
But it’s Saturday and the World 100 success that looms so large in Twarog’s mind. He confirmed that he's had preliminary talks with potential drivers for ’27, but now he has to weigh the merits of starting anew with someone else behind the wheel of his car — someone who would hopefully pick up where Hoffman left off — or leaving the stage on an ultimate high note.
“It sucks that we can’t try to win this again together,” Twarog said of Hoffman. “But at the end of the day, you know, I’m thankful what we got and we’ll see what happens.
“Storybook ending, right?” he added. “Hometown Ohio boy. Sold-out crowd. World 100 I can walk away and that could be it.”
No matter Twarog’s future, winning the World 100 is forever.
“Yeah, I mean, I can go home every day now, I can sit on my couch, and me and Dusti can look at this World 100 trophy,” Twarog said with a sense of wonder. “We could watch movies together. We can do whatever we want, and we got this World 100 trophy.”
Twarog even has the place he’s putting the iconic trophy in his home.
“Living room,” Twarog’s wife Dusti noted. “He said it — if he wins the globe, it’s going in the living room. It’ll be the centerpiece.”
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