Buddy Kofoid is back to full strength after missing races across two continents over the past month and is prepared for a season that could see him seriously challenge for the World of Outlaws championship in his third full-time season.
First and foremost, what was the ailment that caused him to abruptly miss the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals and the second half of a stretch of Sprint Car races in Australia?
“I feel back to normal and a lot better,” said Kofoid in a media zoom roundtable on Friday morning. I'll go into it a little bit. It was just weird. Long story short, I had some sort of bacterial … I don’t want to say infection … but a parasite type thing. It most likely came from some sort of water or ice, something like that, while I was in Australia.
“That caused an appendix inflammation and small bowel inflammation that they were really worried about. Really, I lost a decent amount of weight that I can't afford to lose and just had no energy and was trying to make it to Chili Bowl and just didn’t get cleared in time, and didn’t get the results in time to be able to justify racing on Friday.
“But I do feel a lot better now and just spent three days at (the Toyota Performance Center) in North Carolina and worked out all three days and felt good. I feel back to normal and am putting the weight back on. I’m ready to go.”
As he should be, because the 24-year-old for Roth Motorsports has emerged as the most realistic threat to challenge two-time and defending champion David Gravel this season. He scored 12 wins last season, up from seven in his rookie campaign, and was the winningest driver in terms of money with $780,210 in earnings.
The same team that did this is back and full. No changes.
Crew chief Dylan Buswell
Car chief Nate Knotts
Tire specialist Gage Tyra
“Just graphics, that's it,” Kofoid said. “Get to keep all the same guys that I love racing with. Same (Toyota) engines, obviously, same shocks, same cars. Everything is the exact same except trailer and cars got new wraps.”
Kofoid is already the second most successful driver in Roth history with 20 wins on the WoO tour, behind only Danny Lasoski at 41. Now he wants to be the first driver in the history of the famed 83 to win a championship for Dennis and Theresa Roth, not to mention Toyota’s Andy Graves.
“I feel like they all believe in me and really truly care about me and our goals,” said Kofoid. “They believe that the work they’re doing is going to make a difference and I have never been more comfortable in a Sprint Car than I am right now and a lot of that is Dylan and his talents.
“I feel like he is an extremely talented crew chief. He builds beautiful cars and has me comfortable, fixes whatever problems I ever have with a race car, and not that it blows my mind, but it never ceases to amaze me how good he is.”
It’s a team that Kofoid really believes is on the cusp of making one more jump.
“The last bit falls on me, honestly,” Kofoid said. “I just need to learn and get better, to be honest. There are some places that Dylan and I just struggled at collectively together that we’re both working on. He’s been doing it for a while and I’ve been doing it for a while but you never stop learning. You never stop figuring it out.”
Gravel by the way, thinks he has.
“Buddy has already taken the step,” said the champion. “He had a couple of bad stretches earlier in the year but if you cut out the first third of last season, I think our stats are in the same ballpark.”
Kofoid is still searching, nevertheless.
“We’ve had two good years to kind of stand on going into the third year,” Kofoid said. “To me, the World of Outlaws is probably one of the hardest forms of racing that you get to see, watch, experience or do. I appreciate that a lot. It makes me better.
“Hopefully, we can just get out of Florida good and I can do my part and have no mechanical issues, set the tone and go from there.”
