Nick Hoffman shared what he needs to do to beat Bobby Pierce and win the World of Outlaws Late Model Championship.
Hoffman is currently 116 points behind Pierce with 8 races left on the schedule including stops at Humboldt Speedway, 81 Speedway, Boothill Speedway, and finishing out the season at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
He discussed what he needs to do in an interview on the Dirt-X Podcast. He said, “I’ve said it quite a few times. Bobby just doesn’t have issues anymore. Back when he ran his Summer Nationals days and before he was a national driver, he used to break motors and break parts. And he might win six and DNF those other four. Now that just doesn’t happen.”
“I knew going into this year it was going to take an average finish of third to fifth in order to win the championship. You ain’t going to be able to have those 10th place and like the other night at Senoia running 15th. You just can’t have that anymore,” he continued. “All series has became that way. Sprint cars, Lucas, all that stuff is that way. You better have an average finish around third in order to win a championship. And [Bobby Piece’s] been right around there.”
“It’s going to take quite bit,” Hoffman admitted. “It’s going to have to take a couple issues on his part and me to have a really good night for me to even to catch him. And I pretty much separated myself from third far enough that it’s the same way. I’m going to have a couple pretty bad nights.”
“But I was just like, ‘Man, if I could just get to Charlotte.’ I feel like I run better than he does at Charlotte. I’ve had probably more laps than he has around that place. And my program is really good on big racetracks right now. So if I just have a shot going into Charlotte I’d be pretty confident. And last year we had a shot at it and broke a rear end. So it’s just a couple things take you out of it and it’s just the way it goes. Just get me to Charlotte and I think I’d be fine,” he concluded.
To Hoffman’s point, Bobby Pierce has been extraordinarily good with the Outlaws especially through August. He began the month with an 11th at Cedar Lake and a fourth at Highland Speedway. But then he strung together four wins at Spoon River, Maquoketa, and two at Arrowhead. In September, Pierce finished second at Needmore and 9th at Senoia.
However, outside of the Outlaws, there’s been a chink in his armor. He finished 9th in the World 100 at Eldora in the beginning of September. At the FloRacing Night in America race at Volunteer Speedway he finishe din 13th. During the Knoxville Nationals his best finish was fourth on Friday night. On Thursday he finished 13th and then he DNF’d and finished 25th on Saturday night.
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