Bubba Pollard, seen here from an earlier win, scored the Southern Super Series victory on Saturday night at Five Flags speedway. Photo by Eddie Richie/Turn One Photos/Loxley, AL
Bubba Pollard continued his dominant 2018 season at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida Saturday night, holding off a hard-charging Chandler Smith to score the Southern Super Series victory.
Pollard, from Senoia, Georgia took the lead from Smith with 41 laps remaining in the 150-lap event, which served as the penultimate race of the Southern Super Series and the Blizzard Series finale for 2018. A late caution opened the door for Smith to make a late-race charge, but Pollard held off the Jasper, Georgia native for his 18th career Blizzard Series victory.
Pollard had complete confidence in his car’s long-run ability, which is where his machine was at its best. An extended green flag run gave him the perfect opportunity to storm to the front during the middle stage of the event.
“We started the race off pretty free, like we’ve been all weekend,” Pollard said in victory lane. “We didn’t know if we were going to make it. We had a really good car on the long run. I feel like if we went green there, we’d be good.”
An incident involving Bobby Knox brought out the yellow flag with 30 laps to go, bringing everyone but Kyle Plott to pit road under a controlled caution. Plott, the winner of the Southern Super Series’ most recent race at Watermelon Capital Speedway, was unable to hold off Pollard on fresher tires. However, Smith quickly chased down Pollard to challenge for the win before running out of time.
“Those guys were better than us on the short run,” Pollard admitted. “It showed at the end when Chandler was better than us, but then we leveled out. It’s all about that tire game. I’m glad it worked out, that’s all I can say.”
For Smith, the runner-up finish marked a strong showing for a brand new car in preparation for the upcoming Snowball Derby at the 5 Flags Speedway.
“Ricky (Turner) and Will (Coats) and all the guys have been putting this piece together all year,” Smith said. “It’s a brand spanking new car we’re going to run for the Derby. I think we may run it a few more races before the Derby. This thing is really good.
“We started catching him towards the end, but we ran out of laps there,” Smith said about the finish. “Hats off to Bubba, congratulations to him.”
Harrison Burton made his first Southern Super Series appearance since winning the Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway in March, and he came away with a third-place finish in his own preparation for the Snowball Derby.
“It’s the toughest competition in the nation in Super Late Model racing, in my opinion,” Burton said. “It’s so, so hard to win these races. You’ve got guys like Bubba Pollard who run these races every weekend and we’re coming with a lot less laps than them. We’re still contending with them, which is good.
“We came here kind of as a Derby tune-up,” Burton added. “I think it went well, and we learned a lot, that’s for sure. We’ll come back and get them next time.”
With a seventh-place finish, Lawrenceville, Georgia’s Casey Roderick secured his third Blizzard Series championship. While it was not the run Roderick had hoped for entering the evening, it was enough to take a 32-point triumph over Chris Davidson in the four-race Super Late Model championship contested at 5 Flags.
“We struggled tonight,” Roderick said. “The car was off and we were able to fight back. We pitted a couple of times trying to get it better. I felt like we did that, we just didn’t have enough.
“We’ll come back stronger for the Snowball,” Roderick continued. “I’m glad we were able to pull off another Blizzard Series championship. That’s three now. I couldn’t be happier for Ronnie (Sanders, car owner), getting him another Blizzard Series championship. We’ll see what we can do at the Snowball.”
The final race of the 2018 Southern Super Series season will be the inaugural Mobile 300 at Alabama’s Mobile International Speedway on October 28.
For more information, visit SouthernSuperSeries.com.
Southern Super Series
5 Flags Speedway – Pensacola, FL
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Unofficial Race Results
1. 26p Bubba Pollard
2. 26s Chandler Smith
3. 12 Harrison Burton
4. 30 Jesse Dutilly
5. 88 Garrett Jones
6. 51n Stephen Nasse
7. 18r Casey Roderick
8. 18g Noah Gragson
9. 53 Boris Jurkovic
10. 14c Connor Okrzesik
11. 16 Lucas Jones
12. 11r David Rogers
13. 4 Kyle Plott
14. 22 Brandon Herbert
15. 33c Carter Stokes
16. 14h Carson Hocevar
17. 78 Corey Heim
18. 97 Brandon Lynn
19. 47 Allen Karnes
20. 9c Jeff Choquette
21. 79 Kyle Bryant
22. 30k Bobby Knox, Jr.
23. 43t Derek Thorn
24. 112 Augie Grill
25. 51r Raphael Lessard
26. 2W Donnie Wilson
27. 5a Jerry Artuso
28. 14d Chris Davidson
29. 11m Jordan McCallum
30. 7 John DeAngelis
31. 99 Casey Smith
DNS: 11b Logan Boyett
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