BARBERVILLE, Fla. — Nick Hoffman has won a lot of races at Volusia Speedway Park in his career.
However, entering Saturday night, there remained one prestigious DIRTcar UMP Modified race he’d yet to win at the venue — the Emil & Dale Reutimann Memorial.
With some speed on the bottom and a good line in turns three and four, Hoffman swiped the lead from defending race winner Tyler Nicely in the early going and hold the field off the rest of the way for his first career triumph in Florida’s most prestigious dirt modified race.
“Everything they do – the Reutimann family, Volusia Speedway Park, everybody that puts this deal on – I can’t thank them enough,” Hoffman said. “This race has kind of eluded me. I’ve ran second, I’ve ran third… I’ve been close, just not close enough to win.”
“Tyler [Nicely] beat us up pretty good last year, but this year I was just a little bit more on top of my game.”
Starting fourth, Hoffman didn’t have to wait long for his shot at the lead. Nicely jumped to the early lead from the pole and led the opening circuits before the first caution was displayed with four laps complete. But Hoffman was all over him on the restart and drove it deep into turn three with speed and completed the pass coming out of turn four.
“[Nicely] was pretty good there at the beginning, and then I just kinda bided my time to get to second,” Hoffman said. “I was all over him on that restart, so I just figured I’d try and get the lead and control the pace.”
By this time, Strickler had cracked the whip on his No. 00eh, normally piloted by Longhorn by Loenbro head and former DIRTcar Nationals champion Steve Arpin, and followed Hoffman around Nicely to take second. Now only a second behind Hoffman, Strickler pinned the throttle.
“This place – when it widens out like that, you can pretty much go anywhere,” Hoffman said. “It was actually really fun to maneuver through lapped traffic. I was having a pretty good time just picking lanes and trying to carry as much speed [as possible].”
The chase soon reached a fever pitch, bringing spectators to the edge of their seats, until Strickler lost the handle on his car in turns three and four and looped it by himself to bring out the yellow.
He had just tapped the inside retaining wall, which sent him around in a spin and left him with nose damage.
One lap later, Nicely – who inherited Strickler’s runner-up spot – slowed suddenly on the backstretch and brought out caution again. He took his No. 25 to pit road with an apparent air cleaner issue and was back out for the restart, but dropped out one lap later, done for the night.
Hoffman drove the remaining 26 laps unchallenged and led the field back to the checkers to collect the $7,000 check and his first tractor trophy as winner of the eighth annual Emil & Dale Reutimann Memorial.
“This is pretty unbelievable, the whole year we had,” Hoffman said. “From Summer Nationals, DIRTcar Nationals, everything we’ve done to get the DIRTcar national championship again… To get that ride with Scott [Bloomquist] and learn from him and run really well in the Late Model, that’s gonna catapult my career, I feel.”
Though he hadn’t raced at Volusia in 20 years, Victor Lee was thrilled to bag $3,000 for a runner-up finish to the No. 1-ranked driver in the country.
“We’ll take that as a win, for us,” Lee said. “There haven’t been too many people to beat Nick this year. He’s been phenomenal, he’s on his game, so hats off to him and his crew.”
Kenny Wallace crossed the line in third, improving on his best finish of 10th from his debut in the event last year.
“It was a great race for us,” Wallace said. “We started ninth and really didn’t know what to expect. This is my first year with an Elite Chassis, and I feel like I’ve been getting better all year long.”
The finish:
Feature (50 Laps) 1. 2-Nick Hoffman[4]; 2. 4L-Victor Lee[3]; 3. 36-Kenny Wallace[9]; 4. 99W-Chris Arnold[7]; 5. 72-Todd Neiheiser[12]; 6. 67- Garret Stewart[25]; 7. 7G-Seth Geary[8]; 8. 99-Justin Haley[17]; 9. 00D-David Reutimann[20]; 10. 13P-Rich Pratt[11]; 11. 80D-Rich Dawson[1]; 12. 24B-Dillon Buhr[16]; 13. 8A-Austin Holcombe[27]; 14. 205-Travis Varnadore[15]; 15. 18-Eric Moon[23]; 16. 44-Jeff Parsons[26]; 17. 16C-John Clippinger[18]; 18. 00-Buzzie Reutimann[21]; 19. (DNF) 33C-Cody Overton[14]; 20. (DNF) 1A-Steve Meyer Jr[19]; 21. (DNF) 33M-Jeff Mathews[13]; 22. (DNF) 2J-Troy Johnson[22]; 23. (DNF) 25-Tyler Nicely[2]; 24. (DNF) 11Z-Zane Oedewaldt[28]; 25. (DNF) 00EH-Kyle Strickler[5]; 26. (DNF) 39W-Brandon Wells[6]; 27. (DNF) 84-Ryan Toole[10]; 28. (DNF) 88-Cody Thornhill[24]