Cory Hall earns first World Series Super Late Model win

Derek Griffith was ‘a little too nice’ and Cory Hall claimed his first victory in the Super Late Model World Series of Asphalt in Race Two on Sunday night.

The maritime Canadian out of Jolicure, New Brunswick, and a regular in both PASS North and the Easy-Kleen Super Late Model Series, emerged victorious with King Competition on merit but also a fortuitous invert.

The random draw for Super Sunday was ‘7’ meaning that Hall rode his seventh best speed to the pole for the start of the 35-lap race. Meanwhile, Griffith drove from fourth to second after qualifying fourth but just couldn’t find a way around.

Griffth, the two-time World Series of Asphalt champion, got his nose under Hall on two different occasions but never pressed the issue.

Hall, driving a HAMKE chassis, credited the car but also the circumstances.

“I mean, I knew what we had a good car, like this is the second ever race on this Hamke,” Hall said. “So we felt like we made some good changes in practice and just needed some clean air and once we got it, the car was really good.

“Just, it’s hard to believe that we can come down here from Canada and make an impression like this. It’s really cool. So we look forward to the rest of the week. Obviously with the ASA race coming, it was going to be a lot more competition and really good guys to compete against.”

Griffith said he just wasn’t going to deny Hall his first Speedweeks win in any way other than the right way.

“I’ve always raced clean with Cory and it’s a big deal to win one of these races,” Griffith said. “I didn’t want to be the (pause) … That’s not the way I wanted to take it away from him. I would rather race him for it and won it the right way.

“Consistency is key here. Every time I get into somebody, the toe gets knocked in and I suck. So it was a mixture of things. Like I said, Cory has always run me clean. There’s no reason to rough him up. I gave him a little bit of a bump off one the corners and couldn’t get it done.”

The race track was complicated for several reasons.

There was Tour Modified rubber on the track but it was also a humid evening that made the race track really slick and lacked the grip needed to race side-by-side.

“I think tonight it’s like, it feels like it’s 90 percent humidity,” Griffith said. “It made me have no drive off (Turn) 4 in qualifying and it just made the whole track like slick tonight. That’s the only way I can explain it.

“I was sliding the nose and I think it was the dew like when we go to Pensacola. We were just slower tonight, all of us, compared to normal. We were like three-tenths off.”

William Sawalich, who went fast time in qualifying, called it ‘the biggest swing’ from night-to-night.

Also, for the second night in a row, Sawalich and his Kevin Harvick Inc. powered by Rackley WAR Racing team were disqualified from the final results. On Friday, it was for tread width across The Referee and this time it was for jacking the car on pit road as opposed to going to the inspection area for finishing fifth.

Chief inspector and veteran racer Rick Turner said ‘I hated to do it’ but that he was left no choice. The Rackley WAR team said they were not under the impression they had to go to inspection for a top-5. The top-5 have been sent to inspection all week.

Meanwhile, Friday night winner Carson Brown finished fifth and maintains a two points lead over Cole Butcher with three races left to go — the ASA STARS Tour 200 on Tuesday, a 35-lapper on Wednesday and the Orange Blossom 100 on Thursday.

World Series of Asphalt Super Late Models Race 2
February 9 2025
New Smyrna Speedway

1. Cory Hall
2. Derek Griffith
3. Cole Butcher
4. Gavan Boschele
5. Carson Brown
6. Conner Jones
7. Michael Hinde
8. George Phillips
9. Jake Finch
10. Paul Shafer Jr
11. Billy VanMeter
12. Max Reaves
13. Nicholas Naugle
14. Brad May
15. Derek Kraus
16. Bobby Kendall
17. Mike Hopkins
18. Austin Teras
19. Austin Nason
20. Kyle Steckly
21. Jeremy Davis
22. Chase Pinsonneault
23. Ty Fredrickson
24. Derrick Kelley
25. Dawson Sutton
26. Kasey Kleyn
27. Steve Weaver
28. William Sawalich (DQ)

Updated World Series standings

1. Carson Brown
2. Cole Butcher -2
3. Derek Griffith -4
4. George Phillips -6
5. Conner Jones -8
6. Michael Hinde -10
7. Cody Ware -12
8. Nicholas Naugle -14
9. Brad May -16
10. Gavan Boschele -18