Monday’s DIRTcar UMP Modified racing from Volusia Speedway Park saw six drivers visit Victory Lane in the first chapter to the 2025 Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals Big Gator hunt.
Beginning the second week with a win at “The World’s Fastest Half Mile” included Gene Nicholas, David Wietholder, Trevor Neville, Bobby Bagley, Chase Holland, and Kyle Strickler.
FEATURE #1
Gene Nicholas had been coming to Volusia Speedway Park for 10 years, and for 10 years leaving empty handed. That changed Monday night during Week 2 of Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals.
The Lowell, AR driver dominated the first DIRTcar UMP Modified Feature of the night, crossing the finish with a 1.5 second lead and winning not only his first victory at Volusia, but his first ever win in a UMP Modified.
“We’d been coming down here for about 10 years, hoping to get one of these things,” Nicholas said about winning his Little Gator trophy. “It’s tougher than you think running against these guys… It’s just come together this year. It’s exciting.”
Nicholas started on the pole of the 20-lap Feature and made sure he never saw a car pass him all race.
Clayton Bryant, Daniel Sanchez and 2024 World of Outlaws Late Model Rookie of the Year Dustin Sorensen battled for second throughout the race with each taking their turn in the spot. Sorensen held it the longest, trying to put the pressure on Nicholas, but the veteran Modified driver never missed his mark.
In the closing laps, Sanchez – who had started the race in sixth – stole second from Sorensen after a restart on Lap 16 but, again, Nicholas was long gone before Sanchez could attempt a hunt.
RESULTS:
Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 11N-Gene Nicholas[1]; 2. 463-Daniel Sanchez[6]; 3. 19-Dustin Sorensen[4]; 4. 114B-Clayton Bryant[2]; 5. 9R-JP Roberts Jr[3]; 6. 11D-Brian Diveley[5]; 7. 28C-Jeff Cotterman[12]; 8. 0K-Damian Kiefer[7]; 9. 77C-Jason Cox[13]; 10. 81C-Christopher Cole[11]; 11. 17-Chris Wilson[8]; 12. 77S-Jim Shipman[10]; 13. 321-Denny Schwartz[16]; 14. 6-Ryan Fowler[9]; 15. 23B-Ethan Boomsma[17]; 16. (DNS) 70H-Jim Britt; 17. (DNS) 81K-Kyle Cole
FEATURE #2
The theme of first-time winners at Volusia Speedway Park continued in the second Feature with Dave Wietholder bringing a rocket ship to a car race.
The Liberty, IL driver launched his No. 05 Modified ahead of the field like a rocket leaving Cape Canaveral.
While he ran away, Ray Kable and James Manka put on a show for second, taking turns on who would claim the spot. But after a caution on Lap 7, Brian Ruhlman settled that argument by making his way by both for the runner-up spot after the restart.
And even though Ruhlman was on the march, he still didn’t have the car to run down Wietholder. By the time the checkered flag was shown, Wietholder had a 2.3 second lead over Ruhlman.
“The car was really good, I’d like to thank everyone, especially my wife,” Wietholder said. “The track has been phenomenal this week. We just ain’t had the best luck down here. Had a motor issue the other night, blew two head gaskets. So, we put our nine to one in. It’s a little under horsepowered than the other ones here, but it’s pretty good.”
Behind the top two, Austin Self was quietly the show of the field, charging his way from 12th to third by the end of the race.
RESULTS:
Feature 2 (20 Laps): 1. 05-David Wietholder[1]; 2. 49-Brian Ruhlman[4]; 3. 23Z-Austin Self[12]; 4. 90K-Ray Kable[10]; 5. 60M-James Manka[2]; 6. 51-Dalton Lanich[16]; 7. 11Z-Zane Oedewaldt[17]; 8. 155-Gavin Shaw[8]; 9. 91-Chris Beaulieu[5]; 10. 72S-Eric Shepherd Jr[15]; 11. 43A-Mark Anderson[3]; 12. (DNF) 15X-Justin Stone[6]; 13. (DNF) 1H-Ben Harmon[7]; 14. (DNF) 01-Brayden Weller[9]; 15. (DNF) 1-Randy Giroux[11]; 16. (DNF) 2K-Taylor Kuehl[13]; 17. (DNF) 11-Aidan Hinds[14]
FEATURE #3
While the first two winners of the night were able to run away with their wins, Trevor Neville had to work for his in the third Feature of the night.
Ryan Thomas tried to be the third straight driver to pull off a green-to-checkered performance, leaving the rest of the field behind him on the initial start. But his reign out front started losing ground before the halfway point of the 20-lap race.
Neville made his way from fourth to second by Lap 7 and then started cutting a tenth to two-tenths of a second off Thomas’ gap each lap. That brought him to the bumper of the No. 9T by Lap 15 and the fight was on.
Thomas slid over the cushion in Turns 1 and 2 on Lap 16, allowing Neville to see a path to the lead. Running low, Neville pulled side by side with Thomas down the back stretch and darted into Turn 3 to pull ahead and take the lead.
From there, Neville was able to drive away with no issues, collecting his second career DIRTcar Nationals win and first victory of 2025.
“The first couple nights we were down here were rough,” Neville said, who ran three straight nights at Volusia during Week 1 of the event. “There were some emotional moments with the Strickler deal and the Mitch deal and everything else. But you know what? We pulled out and here we are now. I’m really excited to go into the rest of the week.”
RESULTS:
Feature 3 (20 Laps): 1. 777-Trevor Neville[4]; 2. 9T-Ryan Thomas[1]; 3. 66-Cole Falloway[5]; 4. 77D-George Dixon[3]; 5. 36-Kenny Wallace[2]; 6. 96M-Mike McKinney[6]; 7. 97-Mitch Thomas[9]; 8. 7D-Brad Deyoung[7]; 9. 77-Ray Bollinger[10]; 10. 45H-Kyle Hammer[12]; 11. 35A-Michael Altobelli[8]; 12. 114-Jordan Koehler[16]; 13. 21-Scott Ladner[13]; 14. 8W-Gregory Moore[15]; 15. 27G-Jason Garver[17]; 16. 57-Charlie Sandercock[14]; 17. 11J-Jesse Rupe[11]
FEATURE #4
Bobby Bagley’s dream of visiting Volusia Victory Lane with a gator in his hand was realized on Monday night.
The Mineral Wells, WV driver took immediate command from the start and fled away from the pack as the battle for positions occurred behind him.
Behind Bagley, Evan Koehler and Jordan Stotts made substantial gains to chase a podium position, with Koehler moving up from a ninth-place starting spot and Stotts.
By the time the two drivers solidified their spots in the top three, Bagley was long gone – winning the Feature by over five seconds in a flawless green-to-checkered performance.
“It means everything to us,” Bagley said. “A lot of hard work put into this and its really a dream come true. We’re not supposed to be here, so it is what it is and we’re excited to get this win.”
RESULTS:
Feature 4 (20 Laps): 1. 5B-Bobby Bagley[1]; 2. 114K-Evan Koehler[9]; 3. S8-Jordan Stotts[6]; 4. 3F-Rob Fuqua[5]; 5. 07K-Curtis King[3]; 6. 11L-Jimmy Lennex Jr[14]; 7. 3S-Josh Sanford[12]; 8. T9-Zack Tate[10]; 9. 59-Doug Stine[7]; 10. 89W-Rick Weitekamp[13]; 11. 2C-Ronnie Chance[2]; 12. 65-Matt Miller[17]; 13. 99W-Wade Olmsted[11]; 14. 29C-Joey Cotterman[15]; 15. 11R-Reece Ogle[8]; 16. (DNS) 99-Jimmy Wagner; 17. (DNS) 26-Adam Ogle
FEATURE #5
Chase Holland knows a thing or two about success. And on Monday, the Success, MS driver showed what it looks like around Volusia Speedway Park.
Holland and Evan Taylor brought the field to the green flag, with the two drivers in close distance with each other through the first quarter of the Feature.
Their battle for the lead was an opportunity for Volusia expert Todd Neiheiser to make ground on the two drivers, with the Panama City, FL native passing Taylor for second-place by the seventh lap.
Neiheiser stayed within striking distance of Holland through the remaining 12 circuits, but was unable to steal the gator away from Holland as his No.45 hung on for the Monday night victory.
“Man, my nerves are shot and I’m speechless,” Holland said. “I never imagined we’d be able to get one, especially the first three nights of not being able to make it into the show. It’s incredible, and I can’t thank the good Lord and all my sponsors enough.”
RESULTS:
Feature 5 (20 Laps): 1. 45-Chase Holland[1]; 2. 72-Todd Neiheiser[5]; 3. 7-Evan Taylor[2]; 4. 8A-Austin Holcombe[8]; 5. 2J-Troy Johnson[11]; 6. 88-Matt Crafton[14]; 7. 17T-Tyler Evans[4]; 8. 25-Greg Belyea[7]; 9. 21B-Hunter Breland[13]; 10. 18-Miles Beaulieu[15]; 11. 16-Shawn Deering[16]; 12. 9-Ken Schrader[10]; 13. 0-Glenn Styres[9]; 14. 32-Chad Roush[17]; 15. 8-Dave Pinkerton[12]; 16. 10X-Billy Uptegraff[3]; 17. 17C-Coleman Evans[6]
FEATURE #6
Kyle Strickler’s wait for a DIRTcar Nationals Golden Gator trophy in 2025 ended on Monday night.
It did not come easy for the Mooresville, NC driver. A smoking engine from Qualifying forced the Mooresville, NC driver to change engines in his No.8 prior to competing in the Feature – finishing the task minutes before rolling out onto the racetrack.
Once the competition began, the “High Side Tickler” took his Modified to the top of the track for the lead and went to work on the 20 laps ahead of him.
Will Krup showed the front-running consistency from Friday and Saturday at Volusia by running second to Strickler. While Krup used the bottom lanes of Turns 3 and 4 to close the gap, Strickler had stronger exit speeds than the No.K9 that earned him a 15th-career gator trophy.
“We’ve been so close all week and we sure had to work for it tonight,” Strickler said. “We were really good with (the motor), but we were just missing that little bit. So, I wanted to change motors and see if that’s what it was. And damn it, the thing didn’t have a burned piston, it was just smoking and had to qualify with it.
“We were fortunate enough to be in the last Feature and barely got the motor changed to what we had originally. It makes all of our hard work worthwhile, adding another gator to the list means so much to me, and see if we can run down Nick (Hoffman) on the gator count.”
RESULTS:
Feature 6 (20 Laps): 1. 8S-Kyle Strickler[2]; 2. K9-Will Krup[4]; 3. 35-David Stremme[3]; 4. 5CS-Curt Spalding[5]; 5. 27-Michael Turner[6]; 6. 21CZ-Cole Czarneski[12]; 7. 90-Jason Beaulieu[1]; 8. 12L-Lucas Lee[7]; 9. 18L-Michael Long[9]; 10. 13-Charlie Mefford[10]; 11. 31G-Stephen Pedulla[8]; 12. 24-Zeke McKenzie[15]; 13. 10Y-Trent Young[11]; 14. 56-Colton Profitt[16]; 15. 60-Shannon Fisk[13]; 16. 7J-Justin Allgaier[14]; 17. (DNS) 41-Brad Goff
Up Next: The DIRTcar UMP Modifieds return to Volusia Speedway Park for the second night of DIRTcar Nationals gator hunting with six Features on Tuesday, February 4. Tickets are available here:
If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVIsion – either online or by downloading the DIRTVision App.
