ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 3) — Instant reaction and analysis from Wednesday’s FloRacing Night in America program at Eldora Speedway, a $20,000-to-win event captured by Nick Hoffman (DirtonDirt RaceWire; complete Dream coverage):
HOFFMAN’S TIME?: Not trying to say I told you so — there’s still a lot of racing left this week at Eldora, and the biggest payday remains up for grabs Saturday — but Nick Hoffman keeps reminding us why he may be the man to beat. Fresh off his $100,057 windfall at Mansfield — a night that I saw Hoffman do things behind the wheel I had never from him before, whether it was manhandling his race car around a rough-and-tumble surface or boldly shooting gaps on restarts — he put together another complete night Wednesday at Eldora. He qualified second overall despite going out 27th of 41 cars (Jonathan Davenport went out 28th and timed 17th), won his heat and marched to the front from fourth immediately come feature time. The confidence is there, the speed is there, and perhaps most importantly, his Eldora program just keeps getting better and better. As I said on the Dream Videocast, he may be even the bigger favorite than Davenport — or any of his competitors, for that matter.
THROWAWAYS: If you’re wondering what the heck happened to guys like Jonathan Davenport, Chris Madden and Hudson O’Neal, don’t worry — I was, too, and actually had a chance to ask all three what went wrong Wednesday. For each of them — O’Neal finished ninth, Davenport came home 10th after a nonfactor night, and Madden pulled off on lap 33 while running 20th — the takeaway was largely universal. They’ll chalk Wednesday up as a throwaway night, the kind of night where you learn what not to do. For O’Neal and Madden, the biggest lesson revolved around tire management. Both felt they burned their tires up too early by pushing the pace too aggressively from the outset. O’Neal, in particular, observed the tires on Dale McDowell’s car after his charge from 11th to third and Brandon Sheppard’s after he rallied from 21st to fourth, concluding that both had about the ideal amount of tread remaining after 50 laps. Madden came to a similar realization, admitting he made the uncharacteristic mistake of not letting the racetrack come to him. As for Davenport, his takeaway was more setup-related. He said he rolled out a “Plan B” package Wednesday in hopes of hitting on something unique, but the experiment didn’t materialize. Now he knows that’s not the direction to go the rest of the week.
LOSING STREAKS: With Max Blair, Kyle Bronson and Chris Ferguson lining up 1-2-3 for Wednesday’s 50-lapper, it was hard not to notice that all three were carrying lengthy winning droughts vs. full fields at the national-touring level. Before the green flag, I crunched the numbers. Blair is now winless in his last 223 touring starts, dating back to his World of Outlaws victory on May 19, 2022, at Bloomsburg (Pa.) Raceway. Bronson’s drought stands at 176 touring starts since his June 2, 2023, Outlaws triumph at Tri-City Raceway in Granite City, Ill. Ferguson’s most recent national-touring victory remains the 2022 Show-Me 100, though his more selective schedule means he’s made just 58 touring starts since that crown-jewel score. For a moment, it looked as though one of those three might finally break through. But that only underscored how difficult it has become to end a national-touring drought during one of the sport’s biggest weeks, when nearly every heavyweight in the country is in the pit area.
PIERCE’S PROBLEMS: Bobby Pierce’s Dream Week opened with an unexpected setback when an oil pump failure knocked him from the lead of the final B-main. It’s not the start Pierce envisioned, especially after bringing a brand-new car to Eldora for the first time in a while. Pierce and his team finished the car at 7 a.m. Wednesday at their Danville, Ill., shop, actually completing the car so late in the going that they’re parked in the upper pit this week. Still, the Pierces are known for meticulously built machines, and mechanical failures are rare for their standard. Now the question is whether Wednesday’s issue was isolated — or the start of a snowball that could force them to a backup car before Saturday. Pierce remained hopeful afterward, though after inspecting the damage, he wasn’t making any promises.
CONFIDENCE BOOST: Outside of Nick Hoffman’s convincing victory, perhaps no other drivers are buoyed more in confidence from Wednesday’s 50-lapper than Trey Mills after his sixth-place run and Dalton Cook after his 14th-place finish. For Mills, he had an opportunity to race briefly with Hoffman and Devin Moran before they pulled away from him. And even hard-charging Brandon Sheppard. Mills told me afterward that he learned a bunch of from racing with those three superstars — and understands now how much consistency matters. Mills knows, when he hits his marks, he has the speed to keep pace with the frontrunners. “But the difference is they hit it for 50 straight laps,” he said. As for Cook, it’s a big deal for the Smiths Station, Ala., racer to run top-15 against the 82-car field. Not counting Dale McDowell (third), Chris Ferguson (fifth), Garrett Smith (12th) or Mike Marlar (13th) — because they’ve done their fair share of traveling — Cook is essentially the highest-finishing true regional racer Wednesday. The national-touring stars may drive most of the headlines, but regional and weekly racers remain the heartbeat of Dirt Late Model racing. Nights like Wednesday matter because they remind drivers like Cook that, given the opportunity, they can occasionally run with the sport’s upper echelon.
STAT OF THE NIGHT: Hoffman’s first FloRacing Night in America victory comes in his 14th career start on the miniseries. It also draws him within six points of Brandon Sheppard, who won the miniseries opener last month at Spoon River Speedway in Banner, Ill., and made a 21st-to-fourth charge at Eldora.
