Chris Madden notched his 40th career World of Outlaws feature in the season opener at Volusia Speedway Park for the DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals.
Madden swept the night posting the top qualifying time in group 1. Next, he cruised to a heat race win. After winning his heat, he drew a 2 in the redraw. That put him on the front row beside Nick Hoffman. Madden was able to grab the lead with a huge run coming out of turn 2.
While the box score might show that Madden dominated the race, he had a couple of hairy moments. First, on lap 12, Tristan Chamberlain slowed down the back stretch right in front of Madden. He had to take evasive action in order to avoid him. He faced another tense moment on lap 25 when he went to split the lap traffic of Logan Zarin and Daulton Wilson. Coming out of turn 4, Madden rubbed doors with Zarin as he worked past him.
In the closing laps, Nick Hoffman began closing the gap and made his move when Madden bobbled on the bottom of turns 1 and 2. That bobble hurt his momentum and allowed Hoffman to get a run on the outside through 3 and 4 that he turned into a crossover and slider through 1 and 2. However, Madden crossed him right back down the back stretch. Hoffman never sniffed the front again.
However, that was not the end of the race. A caution came out after Jake Timm spun in turn 4 on the final lap of the race. Madden had no problems with the green, white, checker finish. On the restart, he checked out and never looked back.
In victory lane Madden said, “It’s awesome. You couldn’t ask for a better day than today. Everything went really smooth. Obviously, starting up front is very important. Was able to get by Nick on the start there. Knew he was going to be very good. And he got by me there, I got extremely way too tight. I couldn’t enter where I needed to be entering and Nick caught me there and got by me. And I just got up on the wheel and let it rip. I was able to get back by him and just try to do my thing out there.”
As for Nick Hoffman, he told DirtVision’s Ashton Smyth what he needed to win, “As a leader, you’re kind of a sitting duck. So I felt like he was-. He picked the right lane a couple of times. And I was able to get to him a couple of times. Just don’t know how it’s going to play out. When you get a restart with 1 to go, actually, it gives you maybe a chance to hustle the top of 1 and 2 and spook him, but his car, the old man was a little bit better than we were tonight.”
“I was able to slide him, but as soon as I showed him a nose and slid him, it was like he got back up on the horse and rode and was able to get away from me,” he continued. “His stuff was good so we just got to go back and work out on it. He could square up and leave the corner a little better than I could. So I feel like our hot rod’s good. Just put a whole night together again tomorrow and I think we’ll have a shot at it.”
Brandon Sheppard, who finished in third, also discussed his night, “It was really good, honestly. Very maneuverable. I could run pretty much wherever I wanted to on the race track.”
“Hopefully, we can build off of this. I think our car was really good. We had a good balance and just everything went pretty good tonight,” he added.
Official Finishing Order
- Chris Madden
- Nick Hoffman
- Brandon Sheppard
- Dennis Erb Jr.
- Ricky Thornton Jr.
- Dustin Sorensen
- Max Blair
- Tyler Erb
- Bobby Pierce
- Kyle Strickler
- Dale McDowell
- Brandon Overton
- Donald McIntosh
- Tim McCreadie
- Brent Larson
- Clay Stuckey
- Ryan Gustin
- Cory Hedgecock
- Drake Troutman
- Blair Nothdurft
- Daulton Wilson
- Logan Zarin
- Ethan Dotson
- Jake Timm
- Boom Briggs
- Jordan Koehler
- Tristan Chamblerlain
- Jason Riggs
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