Life is pretty dang good for Bubba Pollard right now. He’s a year into married life and just a few weeks into raising his first daughter — Elizabeth McMillan Pollard — affectionately called ‘Mac.’
He also just returned to asphalt racing following a two-month hiatus and dominated a full field of Super Late Model teams in the Southern Super Series season finale on Saturday night at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida.
This is the good life.
“It’s keeping me on my toes,” Pollard told Short Track Scene on Wednesday. “I’ve gotten married. I have a kid. I really look forward to waking up and going to work in the morning now. It’s an extra pep in my step. I want to do everything I can to make sure that little girl has a great life. That’s what motivates me now.
“It’s crazy how much she’s changed my life. You put her first in everything you do.”
With that said, he’s put a lot into his Super Late Model program over the past two months too. He arrived in Pensacola on Saturday with a new car and wasn’t entirely sure what he would get out of it. He won the pole and led all but 24 laps of the 150-lap showdown.
He could have led them all if not for the invert that made him start fifth. Either way, Pollard made a statement.
“I felt like we needed to,” Pollard said. “We haven’t ran asphalt in awhile and I needed to make a statement that we were still here. We had a dominant car I did everything I could to prove a point.”
Message delivered.
Now Pollard will take this same extremely fast Super Late Model with him to Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville this weekend where he hopes to win his first All-American 400. If all goes well, he expets to take that same race-winning car with him to the Winchester 400.
And of course, he wants to take it to the Snowball Derby too.
“When you go to the big races, you have to bring your best piece,” Pollard said. “Otherwise, you’re going to get beat. Hopefully we have the same speed at Nashville that we did at Pensacola. I think we’re going to have a pretty good baseline but we’re going to have to be smart because there’s not a lot of practice time.
“We’re still learning the tire this year and that could be a challenge. They’ve made it a 10-tire race this year to cut costs. That’s good but it’s going to throw a lot at us on Sunday in terms of strategies. Nashville is a hard place to race as it is and I’m just looking forward to it.”
Pollard just has a lot going for him — he’s just missing a guitar.
