DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Nick Hoffman cleared to race Chili Bowl, and the difficulties of jumping dirt racing divisions | Daily 1-4-2023

Coming up we'll talk about Nick Hoffman's late entry to the Chili Bowl, plus what's ahead for him in 2023, and the difficulty of drivers jumping around to different car types. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, January 4th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

We are just a few days away from teams beginning to load in to the Tulsa Expo Center for the Chili Bowl, but we are still adding entries for the event. As of January 1st, the official count of entries is 360, but we will be north of that come Sunday for the practice day. Last night, Walkapedia tweeted that modified and late model racer Nick Hoffman will be back in the building for his third Chili Bowl Nationals. He'll drive a NOS Energy Drink sponsored 2H for RAMS Racing. This is notable for a few reasons, but mostly because Hoffman has been cleared by his doctors to officially return to racing following that terrible crash he was involved in with his dad and crew member Mason. Back in early September, the trio was injured in a highway crash with their toterhome while en route to Illinois. Hoffman did race just a few weeks after that, and won, but I'd heard he hadn't been officially cleared yet, and his doctors weren't thrilled by him getting back in a car. So he ended up sitting out the rest of 2022, helping out his modified customers and appearing at events like the Gateway Dirt Nationals. Now clear though, Hoffman can kick off his 2023 season, that will mostly focus on his rookie season with the World of Outlaws Late Models driving for Tye Twarog. Hoffman's two previous Chili Bowl appearances included an E-Main finish in 2021, and a Saturday B-Main in 2022. That B-Main finish last season came after he ended up fifth on his prelim night. Hoffman shared on his Facebook page that he's headed to Tulsa for the weekend to test and practice, and then run his prelim night on Monday. He'll then return to North Carolina for the remainder of the week to finish up work on the late model. He's going to race Saturday back in Tulsa, and then he's testing Golden Isles in Georgia the following Monday and Tuesday before then starting the Outlaw season on Wednesday at Volusia. So it will be a busy couple of weeks for him.

Hoffman is an interesting character I think in dirt racing. Definitely an old school feel to him with his career in modifieds, building cars, and racing a whole lot through the season. He's ruffled some feathers and hurt some feelings with what he's been able to do with his Elite Chassis. His cars always draw a ton of attention, but that's because he wins a lot. I don't know if I think he's gotten enough attention nationally for what he's done and his accomplishments. And the criticism is going to be that he's just a UMP modified guy, and he's a big fish in a small pond. And maybe that's true, but he's also an innovator and not afraid to step outside his comfort zone and race other stuff. We've seen that the last few years with things like the Chili Bowl and his small steps in the dirt late model ranks. I do think he has a very good chance of having success in 2023 against the Outlaws because of his ability to push the envelope with car setups. And that's really on top of the fact that I think he's just a talented driver behind the wheel. We've seen flashes of what's possible for him in the last few years in the late model in some of the scattered starts he's gotten. In that fill in role during 2021 for Scott Bloomquist, he had a third at Batesville during the Topless 100 weekend, and a seventh in the North South 100 at Florence. Those were big time events with the best in the business and he was right in the mix. I think under the right circumstances this season, with the right resources, he could be a tough one against the Outlaws.

Something else that I think doesn't get talked about enough, and this goes back to guys like Hoffman bouncing from car type to car type, is just how difficult that is to do. FloRacing has a video this week with Matt Dillner visiting Alex Bowman's sprint car and midget shop, and it's something that Bowman touched on. He talked about how long it took him to get somewhat comfortable driving the sprint car and for him to calm down a bit, and that he goes through the process again when he's been out of it for a while. We watch Kyle Larson do it with ease, running the Cup car on the weekend, the late model on a Tuesday, the sprint car on a Thursday, and back to the Cup car by Saturday. But in reality, that's a very very difficult thing to actually do well. Cars are different sizes, you sit in them differently, steering wheels and positions change, power to weight ratios vary, surfaces are vastly different. There is a lot to wrap your brain around when doing that, and Larson makes it look easy. That's why it's so impressive to watch Larson, or Hoffman or a guy like Ricky Thornton Jr. go run some of these open wheel races. Or Stewart Friesen jump around. There are a few examples of guys that do it throughout the year, and it cuts down to the core of being a race car driver. You think of someone who is just a pure driver could get in any type of race car and just make it go fast. When you strip out the money and the politics and all of the other BS, that's really what it's all about.

In Arizona the IMCA Winter Nationals get started today at Cocopah Speedway. Five divisions, including modifieds, Northern SportMods, stock cars, hobby stocks, and sport compacts will compete seven nights through January 14th. If you'd like to catch any of the action, live streams will be available through Speed Sport TV and IMCA.tv.

This week in podcast land, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Gary Thomas, Hoogie's Garage has Jody Rosenboom, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters from Dirt on Dirt, and there is a new episode of Passing Points Down Under. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

And if you want to hear more from me this week, I joined Derek Yoder and Brian Murphy last night on the All Things Go podcast. We talked DIRTRACKR, the Chili Bowl, my NASCAR career and more. You can find that episode on Apple Podcasts, or go find the retweet on my personal Twitter account.

There are four shows on the streaming schedule that will continue to ramp up in the coming days. FloRacing has action down under from Huntly International Speedway, plus Flo 24/7. Speed Sport has the first day of IMCA Winter Nationals racing from Cocopah. There is also DIRTVision Now. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Alright, that's it for the show. Have a good Wednesday. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll be back here tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily.