Hoffman Wins Third Race of the Year at Mississippi Thunder

Nick Hoffman competes at Mississippi Thunder Speedway with the World of Outlaws (Photo: Emily Schwanke | World Racing Group)

FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. — The World of Outlaws late model series headed to Mississippi Thunder Speedway for the Dairyland Showdown on Thursday, but due to the wrath of Mother Nature, night one got shifted back to Friday night. The change also bumped the purse up to $25,000 to win.

Nick Hoffman and Brian Shirley led the 26-car field to the green flag to begin the 50-lap A-Main. Shirley jumped out to an early lead and Hoffman lost second to Cade Dillard but Hoffman got him back pretty quickly. It led to a serious battle between the two though.

As the cars darted into Turn 1 on Lap 6, Hoffman took the lead from Shirley. As he maintained that lead, he caught up to lap traffic.

Meanwhile, Dillard closed in on Shirley and Ryan Gustin closed in on Dillard. On Lap 12, Dillard took over second from Shirley, but it resulted in a battle between the two. They consistently slide-jobbed each other until Brandon Sheppard came up. On the high side, Sheppard got around both Shirley and Dillard, but Dillard didn’t like that either and started battling with Sheppard as well.

Traffic came into the picture of the intense battle for third and it proved to be the biggest problem for Dillard and Sheppard. But a problem came up for Shirley as Bobby Pierce passed him. Shirley dropped back to fifth and allowed Gustin to battle it out with Shirley. Once again, Shirley dropped a spot.

Piece began closing in on Dillard and started chasing him on Lap 17. Hoffman got into some tough traffic once again at the time as well. 

Cade Dillard competes at Mississippi Thunder Speedway with the World of Outlaws (Photo: Emily Schwanke | World Racing Group)

On Lap 31, Pierce finally claimed third from Dillard and while Sheppard closed the gap between himself and Hoffman due to traffic. Even though the traffic was tough and Hoffman began ot struggle a bit, Sheppard was slowing down and couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity that arose for him to get first. 

Four laps later, Sheppard’s slowing speed allowed Pierce to go four-wide with him and lapped traffic going into Turn 3. When they all came out of the next turn, Pierce had second and Dustin Sorenson brought out the first caution of the night due to a right-rear flat.

On the restart, Hoffman kept the lead and Pierce and Sheppard went at it again. Pierce went way high and scraped the wall producing sparks, but he kept second.

Gustin and Dillard went at it for fourth and Gustin got it by running the bottom. Then, Gustin went after Sheppard.

On Lap 43, Hoffman came upon traffic once again and Gustin’s smooth-sailing ride was beginning to fail as Chris Madden had come up and was challenging him for fourth. To get away from Madden, he ended up passing Sheppard four laps later. 

Pierce started reeling Hoffman in, but before he had a chance to attack, the race was over. Pierce ended with a solid second-place finish, while Sheppard, Gustin and Madden rounded out the top five.

Hoffman, doing what he was told, immediately went to Victory Lane after the race instead of the scales. When he ultimately visited the scales, he passed the minimum weight requirement of the night of 2,300 pounds.

“[The] race car was really good,” said Hoffman. “This is my type of racetrack and I was able to get to the lead. I tried to save my tires in case we had a caution and we did. This is my biggest money win and this is huge. [I] can’t thank everybody enough.”