PENSACOLA, FL :: The Gulf Coast is where Bubba Pollard goes to break slumps, something that once again came to fruition on Friday night in the Rubber & Specialties 100 Southern Super Series race at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida.
Pollard hounded Kyle Plott for the first half of the race before making the winning move on Lap 51. Plott once built up a two-second advantage but that was off-set by a series of mid-race cautions. Pollard let him Plott escape and essentially schooled the 20-year-old on tire management at the tricky half-mile.
“When you have a good race car, you can ride and save your stuff,” Pollard said in Victory Lane. “I was testing him on those first couple of restarts. He was running the car pretty hard.
“I knew we had a good race car but we just had to bide our time.”
Pollard is considered the most elite name in southern asphalt Super Late Model racing but has gotten off to an atypical start. He began the year with a P15 in Cordele in CRA Speedfest and opened the Southern Super Series campaign with finishes of 11th and 30th.
But with his return to Pensacola, a track he’s now won at 13 times and scored 22 podiums, it appears that Pollard is back.
“Everyone else has just gotten better and we were there with them when we debuted this car, and somehow gotten a little out of shape,” Pollard said. “All the guys at Senneker shop has helped us get it going, and when its right, its fast.
“And this is a good driving race car.”
Perhaps the fastest driver on the track at the end was Donnie Wilson, whom charged from P10 to second in 15 laps. If not for a mistake in qualifying, the reigning Southern Super Series champion felt like he had a car capable of winning.
All he needed at the end was a caution.
“We were just charging hard at the end,” Wilson said. “That’s what everyone has to do here. I just put ourselves in a hole with our qualifying effort. We had a good car all day — top of the boards both sessions. I just screwed up getting into Turn 1. That’s on me.
“I had to make up for it in the race. I knew we had a good car but I didn’t know we could cut through there like that. Now I wish we had a caution to see if we had anything for Bubba.”
As for Pollard, he swept a Gulf Coast doubleheader in July 2015, and could do so again tomorrow in the 95 KSJ 95 at Mobile International Speedway. The Georgian has always considered MIS a second home, and has apparently returned to form.
“Sometimes you have to take a step back to get things going so hopefully we can keep it going,” he said.
The complete results can be viewed below.
- Bubba Pollard
- Donnie Wilson
- Kyle Plott
- Chase Purdy
- Stephen Nasse
- Chandler Smith
- Casey Roderick
- Garrett Jones
- Jeff Choquette
- David Gilliland
- Paul Kelley
- Scotty Ellis
- Connor Okrzesik
- Derrick Griffin
- Cole Williams
- David Rogers
- Allen Karnes
- Austin Thaxton
- Dennis Schoenfeld
- Logan Boyett
- Jerry Artuso
- Jeremy Pate
- T.J. Duke
- Daniel Webster
- Casey Smith
- Chris Davidson
- Kyle Bryant
