Saturday night, February 14th the Volusia Speedway Park wrapped up what was a very successful DIRTcar Nationals with one final performance by the World of Outlaw Late Model division and the DIRTcar Big Block Modifieds.
Saturday night's show would mark the longest races for both classes this week with a pair of fifty lap finales presented and correspondently, the most money to the winners with the Late Models racing for twenty grand and the Big Blocks for seventy five hundred dollars to the winner.
Strong fields of drivers still remained after a long week of racing with fifty six Late Model drivers signing in as their car counts have held stout all week. The Big Blocks had a bit of an exodus with forty one of them racing, but their numbers have been larger all week than for last year's event and even on Saturday they still fields a half dozen more entrants than in 2025.
Other than the laps in the main events, the format would remain the same as it has the last few nights and the track prep crew seemed to have found that happy medium that many track prep crews are constantly working to get, a track that is fast but not blindingly so, not muddy but also not to the point of rubbering up and ruining the racing. It is a constant battle, no matter the region and no matter the time of year. This is part of what makes dirt track racing so interesting while also being so maddening from time to time.
While most spectators sleep through the time trials(not literally), they are just about the most important part of the entire racing program as without a decent starting spot for a qualifying event, you might be advised to just put the car in "the box" and call it a night. Chris Madden was the quick qualifier for the night at 15.227 while Garrett Alberson, who has run just a partial week here, topping the second group about two tenths of a second slower.
Six heats were again run for the Late Models and for those at home keeping score, the front row provided the winners for all six heats, thus emphasizing the importance of a good qualifying effort.
The B Features are brutal events, starting twenty or more drivers and only moving up three but it was noted on Saturday that more drivers were scratching out of their B Features and hitting the road home early, cutting their losses and beating traffic.
For the second straight night, there were a number of drivers that are WoO regulars that struggled to qualify and thus had to rely on one of several different categories for those who failed to make the main but wished to participate. This swelled the field to thirty one drivers that took the green for the Late Model event, a traffic jam for even this large and wide a racing track.
With Nick Hoffman, the fastest and winningest driver here this week starting from the pole, the odds were heavily in his favor for another big win. But as they say, that is why the race is run and while Hoffman led for a large chunk of the race, when the checkers flew he failed to even earn a podium finish.
Hoffman led early over Blair Nothdurft, the young South Dakota driver that is rapidly turning into a qualifying wizard and sending the "railbirds" searching their programs to find out who this #76 was.
Unfortunately, while Nothdurft has gotten the qualifying part of the racing down, he is still learning how to pace a race and still have his car under him at the end as he faded back rapidly in the pack after the first few laps had been completed.
Nineteen green flag laps started the race after a shocking first lap yellow when Tyler Erb broke before he got the motor oil warm, and by that time Brandon Sheppard had moved up to second. Hudson O'Neal and Ryan Gustin had also worked into the top five.
As the race moved into its second half, Hoffman seemed to be slowing down while Sheppard was also picking up the pace and on lap thirty three, Brandon moved into the lead. When the yellow waved two laps later, Bobby Pierce, who started nineteenth, first showed in the top five in the running order and he didn't hang back long as when the green flew once again, he made a spectacular move, splitting the drivers in front of him and suddenly finding himself in the runner up slot.
The last dozen laps saw a battle between the two Illinois drivers with Pierce pushing very hard and able to close the gap to a few car lengths. Several times it looked like he just might sneak under Sheppard and take over the lead but Sheppard fought off all challenges and with a couple nifty moves in the last five laps, put just a bit of distance between himself and Pierce. They would cross the line first and second with both likely happy that they had gotten their programs straightened out after some shaky moments by both this week.
O'Neal also made some positive advances as after starting tenth, he raced past Hoffman to finish third. Ricky Thornton Jr has also been pretty quiet this week but he did manage to move up from thirteenth to complete the top five. Twenty two drivers were still on the track at the finish with three of them being a lap behind.
The Big Blocks also went for fifty laps on Saturday and there were three different leaders in that race. Many were hoping for good luck for "The Aussie", Peter Britten after he redrew the pole but things went South for him quickly when he hooked a rut on the first lap, went shooting up the track and took himself out of serious consideration for the win immediately.
A different face was up front early as Justin Stone grabbed the lead after Britten's bobbleand he paced he field for the first seventeen laps of the race, a period that was broken up by numerous yellows. The most serious was a lap four red flag when Danny Creeden clobbered the turn three wall and then went for a couple of quick flips. He was rattled just a bit but eventually clambered out of his wrecked car.
Stewart Friesen and Matt Sheppard were putting the pressure on Stone and when he slipped up the track on lap eighteen, Friesen was right there to motor into the lead. Larry Wight started sixth and it took some time for the track to open up so that he could get to his "sweet spot", which is the cushion. However, when things settled down, he quickly charged forward and by halfway point, was side by side with Friesen for the lead when the yellow flew once again.
Steward couldn't hold back Wight however when the green again flew and Larry shot into the lead. It was one of the those nights when the Big Blocks just couldn't keep racing without the yellow waving often and while it made the battle for second between Friesen and Sheppard interesting, it was frustrating in that they just couldn't seem to get any consistent racing. A total of nine yellows flew during the race with the last coming with just seven laps remaining in the race.
Wight was on a roll and there was no one able to keep up with him. Sheppard went for the lead on the last restart but pushed up the track and forfeited positions to both Friesen, who came home second and Mat Williamson who finished third. At the line, Sheppard nipped Felix Roy for fourth.
Twenty one of twenty nine drivers were still racing at the end and with the frequent yellows, everyone was still on the lead lap.
And just that quickly, the DIRTcar Nationals are in the books again for another year. Thanks to all the many folks from DIRTcar and VSP for their help and for their efforts over the last week plus for me. It is a grueling stretch of racing and all the employees do a great job and still maintain their smiles after night after long night of work.
The crowds have been great all week and a block buster crowd was on hand for the Saturday night finale. The weather has been good all week, albeit cool but the shining sun always helps improve attendance.
Things were a little slow at the Gator Pond in 2026 with just one little one spotted a couple of times. On the plus side, there were no reports also of missing children and small dogs!
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