Nick Hoffman Rallies From Lap Down For Podium At Eldora Speedway's Dream
Nick Hoffman Rallies From Lap Down For Podium At Eldora Speedway's Dream
Smashing the wall early, a pit stop for repairs of Lucky Dog reprieve lifted Nick Hoffman to a third-place finish at Eldora's Dream XXXI.

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ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 7) — Nick Hoffman’s mantra heading into Saturday’s Dream XXXI was to stay out of the unforgiving concrete wall at Eldora Speedway, making sure he’d have the opportunity to grab a $100,000 payday.
“All day yesterday and (today), I was just beating it in my head: Do whatever you can to take care of the body and the spoiler,” the 33-year-old Mooresville, N.C., driver said. “Then I didn't even make it 10 laps.” | Complete Eldora coverage
Indeed the provisional starter's chances to rally from the 10th row appeared doomed in the early laps when he made the mistake he’d continually warned himself not to make.
Because his suspension was too soft on the right-front corner, “I was bottoming out really bad and that's what caused me to hit the wall,” the Tye Twarog Motorsports pilot said. “As I went in the corner and bottomed the right front out, then you can’t steer, and I just stuffed myself right in the fence by myself.”
Within a few laps, leader Dale McDowell put Hoffman a lap down, and he was about ready to call it a night in the six-figure race eventually captured by a dominating Jonathan Davenport.
"I mean, I was literally to the point of like, 'I'm just gonna pull in. I'm wasting my time at this point,’ ” Hoffman said. “I was just sort of moseying around the bottom because I didn't want to ruin the race for the leaders and everybody's just trucking by me. We got that caution (on lap 22) and then I was the second guy in line to get the Lucky Dog and I was like, ‘Man, if we just get another one right away here, then I'll be all right.’
“So under that first caution, I came in and just told my guys fix my spoiler, and get me back out there because at that point I was just kind of hanging on for dear life. They were able to somehow give me something back for a spoiler on the right rear there and that changed the whole race car for me again.”
The crew’s effort was notable, doing “whatever they could. Kicking it, punching on it or whatever it took,” Hoffman said. A second caution, on lap 33, gave Hoffman the Lucky Dog Award of being restored to the lead lap, and “that's why you never give up kids,” he added.
Not only was Hoffman back on the lead lap, the slickening track proved fruitful for his car’s setup, and the restored right-rear corner and spoiler provided the downforce and support to make his car’s setup work.
Suddenly, the driver who was running 23rd after 32 laps began heading forward, looking more like the driver who finished fourth in Wednesday’s FloRacing Night in America event and fourth in a Friday preliminary feature. He was 14th by lap 40, cracked the top 10 six laps later and then the top five on lap 68.
“I was able to truck by them guys. I made my way up through there pretty quick, I felt like, and then got myself to like seventh or eighth and kind of stalled out. I got a couple of cautions where I could get back by a couple of guys,” Hoffman said. "I probably spooked a couple of them because there's quite a few guys that lapped me, and to see me come back by them they were probably like, ‘What the hell?’
“My race car is just really good in this condition. And part of that is thanks to J.D. Me and him run up and down the country together and share a little bit of a notebook on some stuff and he helps me out.”
Hoffman wondered after the race if he missed an opportunity to change tires during his early pit stop that would’ve given him fresher rubber late in the race while finishing a distant third behind Davenport and runner-up Bobby Pierce.
“Looking back at it, I probably should have changed the tire, but at that point in time, I didn't know how much time I was going to have to even fix my spoiler before they were going to go back green,” he said. “I didn't want to be stuck on pit road. So looking back on it, I would have had enough time to fix that and put a tire on it, but you would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.”
Hoffman was disgusted with himself for hitting the wall early, and he knows the WHOOP fitness tracker he wears on his wrist will probably reveal some interesting data points of how he was feeling inside the car on the up and down night.
“It'll track my heart rate,” Hoffman said. “so I'll be able to see like my heart rate spike and see how much stress I was actually under for the first part of that race and be excited to look at that data and stuff.”
He did the best to try and regain his composure after smashing the wall and then getting back on the lead lap as he tried “to calm myself back down and get through the rest of the race.”
“Once you start getting close to the front again, you start to get anxious and probably abuse your tires just a little bit too much, and that one restart, the last restart we had (on lap 66), I felt like my right rear was going flat for some reason. I felt like it was just kind of lazy and I kind of just fell.
“I was like, ‘Man, I feel like I'm getting a flat or something,' and then finally took back off and I was able to go again. So I don't know what happened there but all in all it worked out.”
His third-place finish worth $20,000 marks his best-ever performance in a major Eldora event, surpassing his ninth-place Dream run in 2021.
"So man, it sucks to run third, but I don't know if anybody has ever came from a lap down to run third,” Hoffman told the crowd after the race. “But man, our stuff was really good.”