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By Jordan DeLucia
Kyle Strickler and Nick Hoffman. For years, both drivers came to The Dirt Track at Charlotte in October and raced against each other for World Short Track Championship supremacy.
And now, and they’re celebrating together in Victory Lane.
Strickler, 41, of Mooresville, NC, captured his fourth career World Short Track Championship Feature win Saturday night, breaking the tie between he and Hoffman for most all-time in the Summit Racing Equipment DIRTcar UMP Modified division.
“It means a lot to me because I’m here with all my sponsors and hometown people, family, friends and everybody that comes out to this race,” Strickler said. “It’s awesome. I love coming here.”
However, this win came with a bit of irony, as Strickler won the race driving a brand-new Elite Chassis — Hoffman’s own UMP Modified chassis brand.
For most of their careers, Strickler and Hoffman were bitter rivals on the track, at odds with each other personally as well as professionally. Strickler traditionally raced Longhorn Chassis Modifieds while Hoffman built and drove his own Elite Chassis Modifieds, and both had their fair share of success as multi-time winners of World Short Track Championship.
“What’s wild is, if you would’ve seen us about 15 years ago racing locally right around here, we hated each other,” Hoffman said. “We would literally crash each other on purpose, could never finish a race together because we would just wreck each other.
“We were pretty hard competitors, completely hated each other. So, for us to come full circle now… We gained a lot of respect for each other once we started running Late Models and going that route and being successful in other forms, not just Dirt Modified racing. It’s pretty wild.”
Though much time has passed since their days of hard feelings, Strickler said he had driven Hoffman’s Elite cars in various one-off races over his 18-year UMP Modified career, and felt 2024 was the time to finally get one of his own.
“FOX [Racing] Shox, our relationship with them, and Nick’s been tied in with them too on the Modified side, so it made sense,” Strickler said. “Jerovetz Motorsports (Shock Service), Ryan Rosenow and all them guys in Wisconsin — they do all of our shocks for myself and for Nick, even when I was in the Longhorn stuff.”
“He wanted to get a car from me a couple months ago,” Hoffman said. “We talked about doing some stuff. Finally, he got this thing from me about a month ago and finally got it put together for this weekend.”
Right from the drop of the first green flag of the weekend, Strickler’s Elite Chassis was fast, setting the second-fastest lap in the 38-car field in Thursday’s Qualifying session. On Friday, Strickler was strong again, dominating the first Heat Race to lock himself into the redraw for Saturday’s main event.
He drew the outside pole and took off as the green flag dropped on the main event, taking the lead on the opening lap and leading every lap unchallenged en route to the $4,000 victory.
“I really want to thank Nick, because he’s really helped me with any questions I asked him,” Strickler said. “As competitors for so long, we’ve kinda gone two different ways with setup stuff, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s the same, too. So, it’s great to have him be an open book where he could help me learn this new car. It’s been so good right out of the box.”
Crossing the finish line behind Strickler were two Illinois natives and fellow Elite Chassis drivers — Will Krup and Kyle Hammer. Pennsylvania driver Jonathan Taylor finished fourth ahead of Kentuckian Charlie Mefford — another Elite Chassis driver who climbed from 13th on the starting grid to finish fifth, much to Hoffman’s delight.
“It’s really cool for me to have my cars sweep the top three on the podium, and then have four of the top five is really special,” Hoffman said. “I was more nervous standing up there watching this race than I would’ve been sitting out there racing myself.”
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 8-Kyle Strickler[2]; 2. K9-Will Krup[3]; 3. 45-Kyle Hammer[4]; 4. 5-Jonathan Taylor[6]; 5. 18-Charlie Mefford[13]; 6. 35-Carder Miller[5]; 7. 8A-Austin Holcombe[11]; 8. 6-Ryan Ayers[21]; 9. 84-Ryan Toole[23]; 10. 00-Michael Leach[17]; 11. 5T-Drake Troutman[7]; 12. 89-Corey Gordon[19]; 13. 12-Ace Claborn[10]; 14. 7-Evan Taylor[8]; 15. 114-Jordan Koehler[9]; 16. 51P-Joey Polevoy[18]; 17. 07-Curtis King[26]; 18. 23Z-Austin Self[24]; 19. 25-Greg Belyea[22]; 20. 66-Cole Falloway[15]; 21. 12R-Ty Rhoades[14]; 22. 99-Cole Hilton[16]; 23. 88-Matt Crafton[20]; 24. 31G-Stephen Pedulla[1]; 25. 44-Dave Hess Jr[12]; 26. 814-Samuel Lamborgini[25]
