Here is what drivers had to say following the third night of the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte with the World of Outlaws Late Models:

Nick Hoffman — Winner: “I just wanted to get the lead there in turn 1, be able to control the pace of the race ’cause last night I felt like once we got rolling there, I was in third or fourth and those guys started charging too hard at the beginning and were killing their tires and they started coming back to us. So the same deal tonight. I just wanted to make sure when I was out front, I wasn’t abusing my stuff and was able to, I feel like,  save my tires good enough. So, we had that restart with 4 to go. I was able to still charge pretty hard. My car still felt like it had grip and tires underneath me. And I think that makes a huge difference. If I’m out there on bald stuff the last four laps, I’m probably in a bad spot and they’re going to drive by me. So, was able to do that. 

The whole night went pretty much perfect for us. They did a great job with the race track because four, five hours ago whenever we’re doing wheel pack, I’m like, ‘There’s no shot that this is going to be any good at all.’ It’s pretty wild that they got to the way it was.

We get to lap traffic there and I don’t know where anybody’s and just a couple times picked the wrong lane at the wrong time and really shut my momentum down and then I just had to turn it up a wick and get aggressive with a couple lap cars and get going again. I’m looking at the video board, looking around me, trying to figure out where somebody is, see if somebody’s pressuring me, but felt like our car was good enough if I needed to really hammer it, I could still go faster until the last four laps. That was about all I had. 

It’s just really cool to win here. The way last night went I felt like I gave one up, pissed a lot of people off on your Facebook, but I just tell how it is. I’m happy in times like this when things don’t go my way. I’m going to tell it how I seen it, my perspective, and you either like it or you don’t.

I wasn’t happy with fourth place last night. I felt like that I had the car to win the race and didn’t get it done from the driver’s seat and so tonight I wanted to prove that and was able to.

Tomorrow, bigger picture. $25,000 to-win, going to start in a pretty good in my heat race here. Everything’s clicking right now. To get this one out of the way was awesome. Just such a surreal moment for me climbing out of that car and all the fans that are here, everybody that stuck it out. I assumed after them Sprint Cars got done a lot of people would leave, but grandstands were still packed, which is awesome. Like I said, tomorrow, 50 laps, that changes a lot too. There were only 35-lap races and we’re still killing tires. 50 laps puts it more in the driver’s hands, ‘Hey, you got to control your pace a little bit and save some stuff.’

We’ll probably have [Gloria] on at the bar, my Blue Deuce Tavern. It’s been fun. Gordy’s here again. He was here for the World and everything. And all my close friends, my guys from my Elite shop, my chassis guys, they don’t don’t ever really get to see me race. So for them guys to be here, all my family, it’s just really cool and special. And a lot of people that’s never seen me even win a race before that are part of my family were here tonight. Really neat and just got to get it done tomorrow.

I’m still from St. Louis. I’m from the East side, though. You got to remember that. So I’m from Illinois, but I love North Carolina. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life of moving down here. It’s the best place to live, I feel like. I love going back home to St. Louis, but this area here it’s grown my career to a whole new level. I would never have this opportunity for next year if I didn’t live right here. I love Charlotte and I’ve always liked this race track. To finally win here is pretty damn cool.

I’ve won a lot of Modified races here and always been good in the Mod stuff. It translates over. Just like Volusia. I was really good at Volusia in the Modified and it translated over in the Late Model. And same deal here. Just driver characteristics wise is very similar both places. Yeah, to finally get a Late Model win is really cool. And the trophy’s badass too. It’s heavy as hell. It almost looks like a Cup trophy except the deal like curves up. Can’t drink out of it. It’s not a cup or anything. It’s a really cool trophy. I enjoy those things. Charlotte’s bad and like I said, my house is only 20 minutes away and I get to go sleep in my own bed.

It’s a badass win. I was pretty much over [the Championship hunt] at Pevely when I felt like that was my best shot. He qualifies bad both days somehow ends up on the podium both days. And that was pretty much my stab in the back of like, ‘I’m done.’ So at that point I’m just going out here trying to win races. 

On statistics, I should have won the Championship. I think it was the most points anybody’s ever earned in a World of Outlaws Championship, most Top 5s ever, and then most points ever earned and then he just earned more. He had a great season, but I said it multiple times, racing against him is the reason why we’re as good as we are right now. It’s stepped our program up and it shows. It sucks. He won double the amount of races that I did, but I run Top 5 how many times? 42 now, I think. It’s really cool, but sucks at the same time.”

Jonathan Davenport — Finished 2nd: “Didn’t go very well off the start there. The track had like a glaze on it. It was kind of greasy. Knew Sheppard was a little softer on tires, and he kind of drove around all of us. I kept moving around a little bit. I knew the bottom really I didn’t think was going to be the fast line for the guys with harder tires. Finally just started inching my way up and got more momentum and then once the tires came in we could really move around really good. I could kind of steer way better tonight than I could all weekend really. That’s what we’ve been missing. Just haven’t had the right balance on the car. Got to say thanks to my buddy Nick. He helped us on that there and got us going in the right direction.

So we just kind of moved up through there and I could tell everybody else was kind of still overcharging and I just kept slowing up my entry and just kept driving straighter and straighter like an asphalt car and I could just leave the corner so much better than they could. And then, obviously, that was saving my tires for late on in the run. And then we just kept getting better and better as the run went.

And then once we got up through there — I hate it for Trey, he had a good run going there and had that left front left. And then that got us up into position three there on that restart. Ryan just didn’t get a good start and I felt like I was beside him of him at the flag stand. We was pretty much wheel to wheel getting to turn 1 and I tried to stay off of him, but I don’t know. I’d have to go back and watch the video, but I feel like I was about as low as I could go right there without being plum in the mud. So, it’s just racing and half ass in the rubber a little bit and half ass just kind of dirty and on slick tires.

Anyway, congratulations to Nick, Ryan. It’s good for us to come back from the couple days we’ve had here and be competitive now. Know what to do for tomorrow, I feel like, or the direction to go. I’ve been lost since last year’s Easter egg here all weekend. Just haven’t had the balance that I wanted. Now, I kind of feel what I need and I think we’ll be okay for tomorrow.

[Nick Hoffman] said since he helped me I had to pass him on the outside. So, I don’t know how I was going to do that. But, no, Nick’s been really good and that’s kind of mine and his race track like that. When it’s real momentum and you drive straight. So I don’t know if we had anything for him. Obviously, he was in clean air. So he would have been a little bit better, but if we had gotten to lap traffic maybe, but that would have had to been way later on in the run. I don’t know if anybody would have made it a whole lot longer on tires. Ours looks okay, but it’ll be tough for the 50-lapper tomorrow. We’ll definitely have to manage tires early in the race and have to move around and not run around in the rubber so long. 

Forward.”

Chris Madden — Finished 5th: “It’s a great run for us tonight. We started 5th and run 5th. We always want to be better, but overall a good night for us. 

We had a couple good runs there. Me and [Dallon Murty] had a couple two or three different times we were door to door right there. He’s an upcoming young driver and he does a really good job. 

We got a few things, got a couple ideas that we think we need to do for tomorrow. Hopefully, we get a good starting spot in our heat race and get us another victory in the heat race and get it started up front again and I think we’ll be fine.

Actually, tonight was the first night that since we built this new car that we got all the bugs worked out of it. Tonight was the first night we were 100% in that car. Like I said, we got some ideas now and we got everything fixed and all the bugs worked out and we’re ready for tomorrow.

I think tonight was about as good as you’re going to get here at Charlotte. That was a great race track and I think if they can reproduce that tomorrow, which they probably will, it’ll be another good show tomorrow.”

Dallon Murty — Finished 6th: “That’s a pretty good run for us. Last night didn’t fair out very well at all. So pretty happy with that. This is such a stacked field. To be in the Top 10 is a pretty good accomplishment in my book. But we were in seventh probably would have ran seventh, but unfortunately Trey got a flat tire and that boosted up a spot. We’ll just keep plugging away. It’s a pretty good first week at Charlotte.

I’m used to dropping back, but we just got to a spot there. I was just really struggling in dirty air. Any time a car was anywhere near in front of me, I would just get real sideways and skate up the race track. Once we got spread out, I felt really good. I could kind of hold my own and keep pace with Madden. I was following him for most of the race. I tried [to get Madden for fifth], but we were in too good of positions to do any more than that. So just settled for sixth.

Thank my guys. Thank Skyline. One more night here and see if we can cap it off.

Hopefully, we’re sitting good in points. That was a pretty good point night for us: qualifying, heat race, and all that. Hopefully, we’ll be on the front row of these heat races or whatever we’re running tomorrow and try to be in the show again.”

Bobby Pierce — Finished 10th: “It feels awesome. I know everyone in the crew and everybody’s a lot more relaxed that we got it all locked up for tomorrow. We were just talking, the hard part was yesterday, you know, having a good third-place run that made today pretty easy for me just having to get a Top 14 and we finished 10th. I definitely wasn’t quite riding. I was a little bit, but I feel like we weren’t very good tonight to really push anything. So I just settled for a nice good run and locked it up. 

So it’s awesome. It’s a long year. I got to thank all my crew and everybody, sponsors, and anyone associated with this team. It’s tough to do this stuff. To win it for the third time in four years, really should have been four years in a row, but it’s pretty cool. It’s a big accomplishment.

It’s easy to get caught up in the moment. A 10th place run tonight is not what we wanted, but when you think back to the year that we had, breaking the Outlaw win record in one year. That’s crazy. We won like seven in a row and 21 wins in Outlaws this year. 29 overall. Trying to get 30. 

But, man, we had some good wins across all those races. Some exciting ones. Really good races from all across the country and just trying to think back to all of them. It’s such a long year. 

When we left Modoc, I thought that was a race we should have won and then to have that belt strip on us, it sucked ’cause it definitely put a little bit of pressure on us heading here, not like a whole lot, but definitely a little bit because it was still lose-able. Even before that, I’ve talked a couple times about Shelby County when we were running second on the last lap that deal happened with Daulton spinning out, stalling the motor in front of me, and I had nowhere to go. So lost some points that night too. 

Second place [at Hendry County]. I won there the first night, got second the night. It was probably up until, I think it was late June or maybe July where it was like every other race we swapped the lead in points. It was neck-and-neck for a long time. I’m fortunate that we pulled away and got ourselves a safety net. 

When we were up in North Dakota, Minnesota, and got on that really good run of like six or seven Outlaw wins in a row that was when it was like hardcore, get her done. And we were doing it. I was excited for Deer Creek and Deer Creek canceled. Nick’s a heck of a competitor as you saw tonight. We had 75 of the some of the best late models here and he won the race. He’s definitely got that car hooked up. That’s why when we’re good you got to capitalize on the moments and win them races. 

It’s tough, man. You saw he won the World 100 this year and he’s getting better, but I feel like we’ve also gotten better through the years. Obviously, it shows winning 21 Outlaw races this year. Maybe next year will be more.

Chris Ferguson — Finished 30th: “We just broke a drive shaft. We had a malfunction. Our torque arm got into it and broke it. Lip bar, it broke it. It got into the drive shaft and broke it. We tried to fix it and go back out there, but we didn’t actually get it fixed all the way. So, just part of it. 

We wanted to go out there and make a couple laps at the end, but we didn’t get the chance to. So, we’ll start tomorrow fresh and we should be on the front row of a heat race, but would’ve loved to got to see what we had tonight. I was really looking forward to that race. 

We got it fixed up tonight. We should be good to go tomorrow. Was just testing tonight. It’d been nice to—. We didn’t really have nothing to lose tonight ’cause we already had a good night under our belt. So we were really excited to try some things and see what it was going to do. Now we don’t know. We’re going to go to the notebook and see if we can have a good run in the heat race and then get in and hopefully put together a good night. We’ll see.”

NEXT: Nick Hoffman Wins First World Finals Feature For 20th World Of Outlaws Victory