With the single-season wins record of 14 in his goals for this year, three-time and defending DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals champion Nick Hoffman has gotten off to the best start he could have imagined.
A win in the opener at Brownstown Speedway, another Wednesday night at Peoria Speedway and now another winning night for Hoffman at Kankakee County Speedway Thursday night brings him to 41 career tour victories – 11 wins back of tying six-time tour champion Mike Harrison at 52 on the all-time Feature wins list.
Thursday night was, for the most part, just another night in the office for Hoffman. Except when he hit the ignition to get to staging before the Feature.
“Before I even came to staging, my stuff wouldn’t even start, I had to get a push start and I was late to staging… I made it before we rolled, but it was pretty nerve-wracking,” Hoffman said.
He did indeed promptly answer the bell and took right off at the drop of the green, opening up a comfortable gap between he and runner-up Curt Spalding.
Spalding, the Watervilet, MI-driver making his season debut with the Summit Modifieds, gave Hoffman a slight challenge the inside a few times, but was ultimately unable to make the move.
“[Spalding] showed me a nose a couple times down there on the bottom, and I didn’t really want to go down there because I felt like I was holding a decent pace up top,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman adjusted his line accordingly and was able to hold off Spalding and the rest of the field for 25 laps to collect another $1,500 check.
UP NEXT
The DIRTcar Summit Modified action continues Friday night at Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, IL, with Round #4 of the 2021 campaign. Join us at the track or live on DIRTVision presented by Drydene.
Feature (25 Laps) 1. 2-Nick Hoffman[1]; 2. 5CS-Curt Spalding[2]; 3. 21A-Nick Allen[4]; 4. 25-Tyler Nicely[3]; 5. 8K-Levi Kissinger[8]; 6. 22C- Nick Clubb[5]; 7. 5-Steven Brooks[11]; 8. 45-Kyle Hammer[6]; 9. 94-Tom Pasek[10]; 10. K67-Ian Keller[7]; 11. 35-Jason Hastings[14]; 12. 10-Shawn Scripter[17]; 13. 5B-Timothy Bennett[20]; 14. 19-Travis Thrasher[19]; 15. 242-Brandon Bollinger[16]; 16. 9H-John Demoss[12]; 17. 0-Travis Kohler[15]; 18. 59R-Jacob Rexing[9]; 19. 27-Beau DeYoung[18]; 20. 27A-Arby Burton[13]