Colby Howard scores first Super win with ASA STARS at Hickory

This is why Colby Howard returned to Super Late Models.

To win.

After several years chasing the grind in the NASCAR Trucks and Xfinity Series, Howard is spending this season reunited with Anthony Campi Racing in the pursuit of high-level short track checkered flags, picking up the first such win on Thursday night with the ASA STARS at Hickory Motor Speedway.

That it came holding off Chase Elliott on the final restart was even sweeter.

“This is huge,” Howard said. “We’ve had some tough races up to this point. We’ve just been off past three or four races. I’m not sure what it was. I went home upset and mad at myself, all this stuff, asking myself if I can do this and I really locked in this week and focused hard.

“Me and Cody (Glick) worked hard this week. I did my thing and he did his and here we are. This is huge and what I need more of to pick up by the end of the year.”

There was another element to this story, however.

Howard claimed the pole but lost the lead to a Cole Butcher that is dominating everything in the Super Late Model game these days with Wilson Motorsports. Butcher took the top spot on Lap 93 but only lost it because he broke a rear axle coming to a restart with 35 laps to go.

It denied him three straight national tour victories.

“We just broke an axle,” Butcher said. “We’ve been having axle problems a little bit lately and it bit us in the butt here. Congratulations to Colby and Anthony Campi, Cody Glick and Tyler Tanner; they’ve been wanting to beat us for a little bit now.

“They had the better car all night but I had the track position. Whoever had the lead was the better race car. Colby had a better race car and I was just so tight in the center. I feel like we probably should have won this won.”

Howard said he felt that way too, that he had the better car but not the track position, and simultaneously hated it for Butcher while also wanting to beat him straight up.

“It does take away from it a little bit, what happened to Cole because I did want to beat him straight up,” Butcher said. “It took away a little bit from it. At the same time, first win of the year so you still have the excitement of getting out of the car and all the celebrating.

“We had a fast car. I think we had a faster car than Cole but it was just so hard to get under him and stay under him with these cars/ I toughed him up a little more than I should have but I felt like the only way to get by him was to have moved him and I didn’t want to do it that way.”

Through it all, Chase Elliott finished second in a rare Super Late Model start for Ricky Turner, which included overcoming a third lap stack-up in the front of the field with Gavan Boschele.

But the 2020 Cup Series champion methodically worked his way through the field to score a runner-up.

“We were solid,” Elliott said. “When it came time to push, to keep pace, I was really needing to work really hard. I just drove over the tires more than I wanted to compared to the first part of the run. I wanted to settle in but I couldn’t find a great rhythm.

“We just kept chipping away at it and got it much better today than yesterday (in practice) which was nice. I’m sure (Butcher) would have been really good and hard to beat too but fun to be in the mix. We had a shot at it and looking back at it, I could have managed my run differently.

“I debated that in my head. I wanted to try to push and get control of the race and pushed myself out of the race. That’s how it goes sometimes.”

It’s been a bit of a struggle the past few years for Elliott and Turner, both together and separately, but their two starts this year at Cordele and Hickory have been very competitive.

“It seems that way,” Elliott said. “We were better at Cordele this year than last and better tonight than a year ago. I think everyone else was just a little bit better than they were last year too. We’re improved. We have some work to do for sure. It’s tough to just show up every now and then, here and there, so I wish I could do this some more with them but we’ll keep chipping away whenever we go racing with them.”

This race counted for points towards both the ASA STARS national championship and the ASA Southern Super Series regional championship. The series now moves to Newport Speedway in Tennessee for a Friday-Saturday show that also counts towards both divisions.

ASA STARS Ross & Whitner 255
Hickory Motor Speedway
May 22 2025

1. Colby Howard
2. Chase Elliott
3. Gavan Boschele
4. Carson Brown
5. Bubba Pollard
6. Cole Butcher
7. Spencer Davis
8. Camden Murphy
9. Dawson Sutton
10. George Phillips
11. Derek Kraus
12. Chase Pinsonneault
13. Derek Thorn
14. Austin Nason
15. Kyle Steckly
16. Stephen Nasse
17. Matt Craig
18. Brandon Turbush
19. Nick Loden
20. Caden Kvapil