Through it all, Casey Roderick keeps plugging along and that journey now has him set for a pair of races in the Rattler 250 weekend at South Alabama Speedway.
Roderick won the ASA STARS national championship last season with Anthony Campi Racing but a funding crunch left him only able to drive a Pro Late Model in the Snowflake 100 for Ty King Motorsports. He found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and was briefly treated for injuries after being launched into the Turn 4 wall at Five Flags Speedway that weekend.
This has been a familiar refrain for the 32-year-old who has numerous marquee race wins and championships but frequently finds himself out of racing for budget reasons and then gets caught up in incidents not of his own making.
That Pro Late Model was also a brand-new car and it needed a lot of work after Snowball weekend.
For the Rattler weekend, Roderick is back in that Pro Late Model for King but also starts a new part-time Super Late Model relationship with Bob Lyon Motorsports in the No. 44 car that Jeremy Doss has won races in the past several seasons.
“Over the winter, me, Cody (Glick) and Bob Blount, we all talked a good bit and decided to together and do this deal,” Roderick said. “I obviously didn’t have anything going on and still want to race. We have Ty King here with the Pro car and he wants to race some this year so we’re going to do that.
“Very fortunate to have people who want to keep me racing and I appreciate everyone with parties and looking forward to the season.”
The last time anyone saw Roderick at the track was that violent and vicious crash at Pensacola. Is he good?
“Yeah, I’m good,” Roderick said. “I just had a little bruising after the race but it was unfortunate. It was a brand new car and hated it for these guys. It cost a lot of money to do this and first race out with a brand-new race car pretty much totaled it. Not a good way to start but we’re going to keep digging and work hard and try to have a good year this year with it.”
What Roderick is not going to be able to do is retain his ASA championship and he just wishes the business end of everything was better on that front.
“As a series, you need all your guys to show back up the following year,” Roderick said. “The financial struggles just get in the way of that and I’m always dealing with that.
“So I’m probably not going to run as many races as last year. Cody has a commitment with Anthony Campi Racing with their decent schedule so we’re trying to work around that a little bit; looking at around 10 races or so in the Super, just trying to chase trophies when we do show up.”
