Bubba Pollard scored the Southern Super Series victory on Friday night at Five Flags Speedway. Photo by Eddie Richie/Turn One Photos/Loxley, AL
Chaos reigned supreme in the first half of Friday’s Southern Super Series race at Florida’s Five Flags Speedway. But at the end of the night, it was Georgia speedster Bubba Pollard who scored the victory.
Pollard beat out Chandler Smith on a lap 95 restart, following the race’s major round of pit stops, to record the win at the Pensacola, Florida raceway.
Pollard, from Senoia, Georgia would lead a top four sweep by Georgia drivers across the finish line, with Lawrenceville, Georgia’s Casey Roderick in second, Jasper, Georgia’s Smith in third and Marietta, Georgia’s Kyle Plott in fourth.
“It feels good. We had a good race car. It was a long race man,” the Senoia, Georgia native said. “I knew we were coming in to get rights, some time, some point during the race. It was all about saving our left side tires and we had to be patient at the beginning of the race and ride and save our left rear for when we had that 20, 25-lap run here we had something for him. So, that’s just being patient. Kind of letting these races play out.
“The field has gotten a lot better. They’re racing hard. The style of racing has kind of changed from last year because the field has gotten so much better.”
Pollard’s biggest threat was a multi-car crash on lap 52, with Pollard’s No. 26 sustaining a noticeable flesh wound between the right-side tires when Donnie Wilson slid sideways.
“We just got lucky it isn’t worse than it is,” Pollard admitted. “Luckily, it didn’t affect us. You know, all four wheels are pointed straight forward so that’s the important thing.”
Perhaps even more amazing was Roderick’s runner-up finish, following a separate crash the lap before the big wreck, with the No. 18 sustaining heavy damage to the rear after going three-wide with Wilson and Pollard. The Ronnie Sanders Racing crew showed their grit and ingenuity, patching the tail of the car back together. In the end, Roderick felt he had no one to blame but himself for being in that situation.
“Feels really good to come back from an issue during a race, and like I said I put myself in that position; I shouldn’t have,” Roderick, the current Southern Super Series points leader said. “I got way more experience to know better than that. Upset at myself more than anything. I want to thank my guys for working hard and getting me back out there to be able to contend for winning the race.
“We weren’t quite good enough there at the end. Just a little bit too tight rolling the center. I got to the gas really good, but it’s too late in the corner and you know they’re already in the gas when I’m sitting there waiting for it to get turned down. We’ll go back to the shop, make some notes, comeback stronger and beat Bubba.”
For Smith, the early race dominator, he eventually brought his No. 26S home in the third position after leading the most laps of the race. Late restarts and short runs ultimately proved to be his undoing for a race victory.
“We had a really good Toyota Camry tonight,” Smith began. “I felt we had the car to beat to be honest. If we were able to get a really long green flag run, like 40 laps, we would definitely had them beat. Pollard hands down had us down on the restarts, I need to work on that a little bit as a driver but good job to him, hats off to his crew. We’ll come back and be a little better.
Plott recovered from also being involved in the lap 52 crash and came back to finish a seasons-best fourth with Garrett Jones in fifth.
Carter Stokes, Dustin Smith, Jordan McCallum, Joe Aramendia and Kyle Bryan rounded out the top ten.
Next up, the drivers from the Southern Super Series presented by Sunoco will head to Bristol Motor Speedway for the Short Track U.S. Nationals, May 19-20.
For more information on the Southern Super Series, visit SouthernSuperSeries.com.
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Southern Super Series
Five Flags Speedway – Pensacola, FL
Race Results – April 27, 2018
1. 26 Bubba Pollard
2. 18 Casey Roderick
3. 26s Chandler Smith
4. 4 Kyle Plott
5. 88 Garrett Jones
6. 33c Carter Stokes
7. 33s Dustin Smith
8. 11m Jordan McCallum
9. 79a Joe Aramendia
10. 79 Kyle Bryant
11. 114 Preston Bores
12. 14d Chris Davidson
13. 30 Jesse Dutilly
14. 78 Corey Heim
15. 99 Casey Smith
16. 2w Donnie Wilson
17. 51n Stephen Nasse
18. 112 Augie Grill
19. 11b Logan Boyett
20. 14c Connor Okrzesik
21. 9 Jeff Choquette
22. 11r David Rogers
23. 51a Michael Atwell
24. 97 Steven Davis
DNS: 5 Jerry Artuso
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