KNOXVILLE, Ill. — The Blue Deuce has done it yet again. This time, on a big, half-mile.
Nick Hoffman led every lap of Tuesday’s DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals debut at Knox County Fair Raceway, bringing him up to a still-perfect 240-for-240 consecutive feature laps led.
He’s started 10 events and won every single one of them so far.
But this time, the three-time and defending champ actually felt a little pressure early on from a skilled, young up-and-comer – Drake Troutman.
“I definitely didn’t want Drake to get out front and control the pace because that kid will hammer on it and he’ll be good and really hard to pass,” Hoffman said.
Troutman did, in fact, have the hammer down as he chased Hoffman through the opening circuits. However, a cluster of yellow flags appeared early on and broke-up Troutman’s momentum, as Hoffman was able to pull away in the longer green-flag stretch.
The Elite Chassis builder led the field back to the checkered unchallenged and collected the $2,000 top prize for the 48th time in his career.
“It’s really cool, we just gotta keep digging here. I want to get to at least 15 or 16 [wins] is my goal,” Hoffman said.
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. 2-Nick Hoffman[1]; 2. 7-Drake Troutman[2]; 3. 24Z-Zeke McKenzie[5]; 4. 77-Ray Bollinger[3]; 5. 59R-Jacob Rexing[4]; 6. 9-Charles Baker[8]; 7. 19-Travis Thrasher[6]; 8. 3C-Richard Vela[13]; 9. 87-Blake Woodruff[16]; 10. 57-Tim Hamburg[9]; 11. 05-Dave Wietholder[7]; 12. 613-Dan Hahn[11]; 13. 08-Michael Claeys[10]; 14. (DNS) 25-Tyler Nicely; 15. (DNS) X19C- Matt Ramer; 16. (DNS) 242-Brandon Bollinger