The Late Models and non winged Sprint Cars made their first appearance of 2026 Speed Weeks on Monday, February 9th as the 2026 Speed Week activities at Volusia Speedway Park begin their final week. As many know, this year the schedule for races surrounding the Daytona 500 have been completely flopped, as Volusia's week of Late Model racing was typically the final week for Late Model racing in Florida. However, that all changed for 2026 and instead, the appearance of the Late Models at VSP is the first time they have been seen in Florida so far this year. Several weeks ahead will see Late Model racing with both the World of Outlaws and the Lucas Oil Late Model Series putting on events at Florida tracks in the coming days and weeks.
VSP traditionally starts out with the UMP Series sanctioning the first three nights of action with their slightly different format involving qualifying, lineups and such and that will be the case again this year. Joining the UMP Late Models will be the USAC Sprint Cars who are also a staple of the final week of dirt racing at VSP. They will run full programs here for two nights before moving on to Ocala for more nights of racing on the shorter track.
A strong car count was on hand for the Late Model opener as fifty six drivers signed in to race with at least another four or five already also in the pits but choosing for a variety of reasons not to participate on opening night. Just about all the stars from the two major series were in the pits and it would be a very stout field that raced on Monday.
The Late Models were divided into six groups and drivers qualified only against drivers in their own groups. Heat races were lined straight up with only three drivers advancing and three B Features would take a pair of drivers out of each of three of them. No provisional starters for this night so only twenty four drivers out of the big field would start the main. Not much imagination to the lineup either, as first heat winner drew the pole, second heat winner the outside pole and so on and so forth.
Only twenty five laps for seven grand doesn't give much time for strategy as it is basically go fast and see how many drivers you can pass. Brandon Overton, on a hot streak so far this year, drew the pole but everyone was surprised when Cade Dillard, to his outside, got the jump and edged past Overton to lead after one lap.
However, that didn't last long as Overton edged into the top spot on the second lap and he was gone after that. While there was some interesting racing going on behind him, Overton controlled the lead for the rest of the quick race.
Dillard held second for several laps before being passed by Nick Hoffman, who was showing a lot of speed. As is often the case in dirt track racing these days, the majority of meaningful passes are made directly following yellow flags and such was the case on Monday with both yellows causing a considerable scrambling of the running order.
A yellow with twelve laps completed when Chris Madden suffered a flat saw a shuffle when they got back to racing. Cody Overton surprised by passing Hoffman for second with Tyler Erb and Max Blair both on the move. Cody and Hoffman had a nice battle for second during the following laps before the yellow waved again with seventeen laps complete when Dillard slowed and pulled off the track.
This time it was Devin Moran who came out of nowhere as he wasn't in the top five for the restart yet suddenly appeared as he rushed to the front, throwing a slider and getting past Cody Overton for second.
Brandon was long gone but the battle for second was intense and on the final corner, Cody threw his own slider and squeezed up under Moran to take the second spot on the paying lap and claim a top two sweep for the family. Moran settled for third with Blair and a fading Hoffman completing the top five. Overton had also been the quick qualifier at 15.853 seconds with the fastest in each group mostly within a couple tenths of each other.
The USAC Sprints arrived in Volusia a little light in number. They had twenty eight drivers sign in, a full half dozen down for last year and with six hard nights of racing ahead of them, they will be hard pressed to keep enough cars on the track for the whole week and since their point season starts on Monday, unlike other years when their Florida trip was a nonpoint show, there likely will not be any reinforcements arriving anytime soon. Fortunately however, their opening night race was a very smooth one with just a single yellow during their B Feature and no big crashes taking place.
Three heats and a B Feature would set the stage for their main event and they inverted six in their heats, a huge number except for the fact that they also took six out of the heats so it wasn't quite as dramatic as it sounded.
Twenty four drivers started their twenty five lap main which flew by quickly as this race went green to checkers. And while Logan Seavey started on the pole and won the race, it wasn't near as easy for him as it might sound.
He got beaten on the first lap by Brady Bacon and Bacon then led the first nineteen laps of the feature. Seavey moved into the second spot and he dogged Bacon lap after lap.
With the nonstop race, there was considerable traffic for the leaders to pass and Seavey's distance to make up varied from almost nothing to several car lengths but Bacon just couldn't shake him. With two cars in front of him, Bacon found the going complicated and Seavey jumped at the opportunity, making what would be the winning pass with just five laps to go.
It was hardly guaranteed however at this point, as Seavey still had traffic to deal with and Bacon was motivated to regain the lead. On the final lap, Bacon threw a slider to take over the lead but Seavey was able to counter it and crossed the line with a .646 second margin for the win.
Justin Grant moved into third by the halfway point of the race but was never able to cut into the margin held by the two leaders as he settled for that spot. C.J. Leary and Briggs Danner completed the top five.
A very big crowd for a Monday night was on hand with excellent weather to make that possible. But with a smooth operating crew on hand from both UMP and USAC, the show moved quickly along with the final checkers waving just around 10 pm.
Tuesday night will see the exact same show and format presented once again except the USAC drivers will be racing for twice the money while the UMP drivers run for the same amount as on Monday.
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