The Dirt Track at Charlotte
Hoffman gives Twarog a Charlotte sendoff
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Nick Hoffman with car owner Tye Twarog and Dusti Twarog. (joshjamesartwork.com)
CONCORD, N.C. (Nov. 6) — Nick Hoffman had a vision of how he hoped to close out his four-year run driving for Tye Twarog. But was his ideal actually possible? He wasn’t exactly certain, but he sure was going to put the full force of his being into giving the man who provided him the first full-time Dirt Late Model ride of his career a memorable sendoff before heading to the Spire Motorsports team.
“When I announced that Spire deal (in September), I didn’t want people to think I was just giving up on this deal, just moving on,” Hoffman said. “I wanted to end it as best as I could. I wasn’t just trying to get to the last race and be done.”
How has reality lived up to Hoffman’s imagination? After the 34-year-old driver from Mooresville, N.C., won Friday’s 35-lap Dave Smith Motors World Finals feature at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, he stood in the pit area flashing a smile that showed he could scarcely be more satisfied with the final chapter he’s spun for Twarog.
“It’s just been awesome the way it’s gone,” Hoffman said.
A monumental $100,000 victory in Sept. 12’s World 100 at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. A sweep of the Sept. 25-26 World of Outlaws Late Model Series doubleheader at I-55 Federated Raceway Park in Pevely, Mo., a track close to Hoffman’s native Belleville, Ill. And now a WoO triumph on the huge World Finals stage.
Yeah, Hoffman is capping his pairing with Twarog, of Coshocton, Ohio, with a spectacular flourish.
“I mean, I don’t know if there's a better way to draw it up other than possibly getting that (WoO) championship, but it just was out of reach at that point, you know?” said Hoffman, who will finish second in the tour standings after being eliminated from contention when Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., clinched the title on Friday. “I’m very excited how our whole journey has went, me and Ty. It’s been great since day one, and to end it like this, I mean, it's a Cinderella deal, very surreal.
“So just really cool. I know he’s excited, very pumped up.”
Hoffman gave Twarog plenty to savor on Friday. He was absolutely unstoppable for the entire program, winning his heat, drawing the pole position and leading the entire feature distance for his ninth WoO and 13th overall triumph of the 2026 season.
“It was awesome,” Hoffman said. “I felt like I gave one up last night (while finishing fourth on Thursday), and to come back and and get it done was really cool.
“I drew the pole, so that was very beneficial to get out front in clean air and control the pace of the race. But I just was able to save my tires enough for those late-race cautions so I was able to hammer it pretty good (after the restarts on lap 21 and 31).
“I don’t know what I could have done different to my race car to be much better,” he added of his Longhorn Chassis. “I felt very balanced and could kind of go wherever I needed to (although) some of those lapped cars were hairy.”
Hoffman called it “a fun race for me” because the layout of the 4/10-mile Charlotte oval virtually eliminates crew signaling from the equation.
“Once we got to lapped traffic I didn’t know how far back them guys were,” Hoffman said. “That’s the beauty of this place — you can’t really have a (signal) stick guy, and I enjoy that. Put it in our hands. We gotta feel it out and figure it out, you know, whether we’re making speed or not.”
Hoffman beat his pal Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., to the finish line by 1.684 seconds to check another box off his to-do list — not only for his stint with Twarog, but also for himself. He’s always wanted to win during World Finals, a blockbuster event that he’s been attending pretty much since its launch in 2007.
“I’ve had quite a few memories of sitting in those grandstands and watching Scott (Bloomquist) and Jimmy (Owens) win and stuff like that,” Hoffman said. “I’ve just watched all of them and you just dream of doing that.
“To win here is very special. To win at Pevely was special, but yeah, it’s just really cool … and that trophy is badass. I seen it on Facebook or Twitter yesterday. It’s pretty damn heavy, so pretty cool to take that back to the bar (at his home).”
The triumph came in the 15th World Finals feature start of Hoffman’s career. He made one A-main in 2016 (finishing 13th) and one in ’17 (21st), plus two in ’21 (20th and 25th), while dabbling in Dirt Late Model racing and running open-wheel modifieds regularly. Since ’23, he’s been in every World Finals feature, finishing as high as fourth on three occasions before Friday’s win.
All of Hoffman’s World Finals appearances since ’23 have come, of course, with Twarog, who brought Hoffman into the Dirt Late Model world full-time. Winning at Charlotte prompted Hoffman to reflect on his stretch as Twarog’s hired gun.
“So I posted on Facebook earlier this week, I won the modified race here (during the 2022 World Short Track Championship) and right after that is when we announced this deal with Tye,” Hoffman said. “And then it all went really fast. Like, I quit being a modified racer and went full-time Late Model, and, like, everything flew by. It’s been four years and it’s all went by so fast.”
Racing a Dirt Late Model for the NASCAR-affiliated Spire Motorsports will offer a new challenge for Hoffman. He’s anxious to get started with the team, which he’ll focus on after making his last appearance with Twarog in next weekend’s FloRacing Night in America doubleheader at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway.
But on Friday, Hoffman was still living in the moment as Twarog’s driver.
“I mean, the World (100) is like no other feeling, obviously. It’s unreal,” Hoffman said. “But here, just the grandstands and everybody’s basically on top of you when get out of that car … and to have my kids there, it’s just a wild feeling.
“And that was what I wanted before I was done with Tye,” he added. “(Saturday’s), you know, a bigger check (the $25,000-to-win finale), but at least to get one of them out of the way here … $15,000-to-win and we’ve got 74 of the best drivers in the country. I’m super excited for (Saturday), but it’s very difficult to win these races and to do it here is very special.”
