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Nick Hoffman Explains What Happened That Led To Mason Zeigler’s Violently Wicked Wreck

June 6, 2026  ·
  John Trent

Nick Hoffman shared what happened that led to contact with Mason Zeigler that sent him into a vicious wreck down the front straightaway at Eldora Speedway.

Following a restart with 35 laps to go in the 50-lap feature, Hoffman drifted up the track exiting turn 4 and pancaked into Zeigler’s left side door, who was at the top of the track. The contact sent Zeigler spinning down the track and across Hoffman’s nose.

Brandon Sheppard who attempted to avoid the whole thing had dove underneath Hoffman and T-boned Zeigler as he came down across the track. The contact sent Zeigler up and into the air. His car initially barrel rolled twice, but then spun up in the air on its nose before landing hard on all four tires and coming to a stop against the inside wall.

Zeigler exited the car and told FloRacing’s Dustin Jarrett that was okay, “It’ll take a lot more to hurt me than that. Someone got into my left rear there. I think it was Nick. I don’t think he did it on purpose. I have no idea. I just know someone got in my left rear and we were going too quick and caught an edge and started tumbling. It just looked like Nick ran into me there. It’s pretty early in the race. It sucks that he did that, but I’m sure he didn’t mean to. We’ll be alright.”

On Facebook, Zeigler’s team shared that the wreck ended his Dream, “Unfortunate end to our Dirt Late Model Dream. Our #25z was flying around Eldora Speedway until it literally went flying through the air during a nasty flip – the first of Mason’s racing career. Without a second car in the trailer, our weekend is done.”

“Thanks to everyone who has reached out to check on Mason. He escaped the violent flip uninjured thankfully,” the team concluded.

Hoffman shared his explanation on what happened in a post to Facebook as well, “Tagged the inside wall trying to stay below Dale and it pushed me out into dirty air behind Dale which makes you push across. You can hear I was out of the gas just trying to square back up but I got into Mason. I reached out to him last night and we are all good. Glad he was alright.”

“That contact ruined my chance to win too because it messed up my RF and my right side door so for some to say I was doing it on purpose makes no sense,” he added. “People on here are so quick to jump to conclusions and don’t have a clue. 🕵️”

Hoffman also included in-car footage from his perspective showing the wreck. 

To Hoffman’s point, he had one of the best cars on the track at the time of the wreck. Before the initial caution that came out for Trent Ivey, Hoffman had worked his way up to fifth after starting in ninth and had actually gotten past Jonathan Davenport, who went on to win the race.

Hoffman will start second in Heat 3. He’ll be up against Garrett Alberson, Brandon Overton, Zack Mitchell, Dennis Erb Jr., Ryan Gustin, Mark Whitener, K.C. Burdette, Carson Ferguson, Mario Gresham, Jeffery Erickson, Jimmy Owens, Greg Williams, Joe Chalmers, and Mike Spatola.

The top three drivers in the 15-lap heat race will advance to the 100-lap Dirt Late Model. For the cars that don’t transfer, they will head to a pair of 20-lap B-Mains, where the top three from each race will lock themselves into the feature.

There are also two provisionals for the highest points earners who do not make it in through their heats. The two drivers currently at the top are Bobby Pierce and Jonathan Davenport.

Additionally, the track announced that they will be moving up the start of racing activities an hour to 5:30 PM instead of 6:30 PM to start hot laps.

NEXT: Trent Ivey Explains What Ended His Dream Preliminary Night At Eldora

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Author: John Trent