Nick Hoffman has significantly cut into Bobby Pierce’s championship lead for the World of Outlaws Late Model title, but with just five races remaining his chances of winning his first title are slim.

Hoffman currently trails Pierce by 96 points, 6,679 to 6,775, after the Bayou Classic at Boothill Speedway was rained out due to Hurricane Polo. The only races left are a doubleheader at Modoc Speedway on October 23-24 and the three races at the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte on November 4-7. In order for Hoffman to win he has to surpass Pierce’s points total; he cannot tie him. The first tiebreaker is feature wins, and Pierce’s lead there is insurmountable: 20 to Hoffman’s eight. With five races left, Hoffman can get to 13 at most.

If Hoffman is perfect on all five nights by winning his heat and the feature each time, he gains a total of 755 points. The World of Outlaws Late Model Series awards 150 points for a win and a point for a heat race win. That would give him a total of 7,434 points to end the year. In order for Hoffman to win in this perfect scenario, Pierce has to average 10th or worse over the five races with no heat wins. If he finishes 9th in each of the races, he would still win. Anything better than that, and he wins as well.

Pierce has been far better than that. His average finish this season is 3.6 through 47 starts, the best of his full-time World of Outlaws career, with 36 top-fives and 45 top-10s. A collapse to a 10th-place average over the final five nights would be a sharp break from the form that built the lead.

Last year shows how hard that kind of comeback is. Hoffman entered the 2025 World Finals 124 points behind, and shaved off 68 points at Charlotte to finish second, 56 back. He gained ground without ever putting the title in real doubt. Pierce clinched on Thursday night with a 12th-place finish while Hoffman was fourth. The maximum swing in a single feature is only about 46 to 50 points, so a triple-digit deficit cannot be erased without Pierce having multiple disastrous nights.

The same ceiling applies now. If Hoffman wins both Modoc features and Pierce finishes second both nights, the deficit drops from 96 to 88, a gain of 4 points a night. The gap grows to 104 only if those results are reversed. Either way, three Charlotte features are still enough for Hoffman to catch Pierce if Pierce fails to qualify or finishes deep in the field while Hoffman sweeps. A win against a non-qualifier is about a 50-point swing, so three of those equal 150 points. Matching results, or even finishing one or two spots behind Hoffman most nights, is enough for Pierce to lock up his third title before the finale.

Hoffman can still win, but only if the final five races look nothing like the first 47. He needs to sweep Modoc and Charlotte while Pierce’s 3.6 average finish collapses into missed features or deep results. Short of that, the lead Pierce has already built holds.

NEXT: Logan Seavey Wants To Continue His Dirt Late Model Career: “I Got A Seat Ready”