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Snowball Derby

Former Snowball Derby winners fastest on practice day; track came apart

Daniel Vining

Practice day for the Snowball Derby was interrupted and shortened by rain on Thursday afternoon but the two sessions were paced by former winners Chandler Smith and Derek Thorn.

Smith only ran seven laps before the rain came but his 16.498 was fastest over Ty Majeski and Thorn respectively. Thorn was fastest over Smith in the first session after just eight and three laps respectively.

“Everything’s so far, so good,” Thorn told FloRacing after the session. “It’s been good since we unloaded it. I can’t think the Shafer Motorsports guys enough. Just to have the opportunity to come to the Derby is really awesome. To unload and have good speed is also awesome as well.  There’s a stout field of cars, anytime you can sit near the top of the board, you’re in a good spot.  Tires will change, the track will change, but so far, so good.”

The timing of the storms and track drying made it challenging to get a lot of post-practice quotes because there was a scramble to cover cars and unload. With that said, there were several storylines from what track time was had during the day as well.

Track bites Majeski

Late in the second session, part of the track came up in front of Majeski in Turns 3 and 4 and it ripped right through the nose and ductwork of the No. 91 Gearheadz Motorsports TobyCar chassis. Chad Bryant, longtime crew chief and team owner, is working with the Lapcevich family this week but came over to help out Majeski, one of his best friends.

It took some four hours, but Bryant, the Lapceviches and Toby Nuttleman got the front end repaired in time for Friday practice and qualifying.

“Yeah, I was following a car and I was maybe five or six car lengths behind him and he went over it, kind of pulled it up and I saw the piece of asphalt and just couldn’t react quick enough,” Majeski said. “You know, I couldn’t risk getting off the groove and maybe wreck the car even worse so wasn’t sure what it was at first but saw something dark and when I hit it, it obviously exploded the whole front end.”

So it happened in real time right in front of him?

“It did,” Majeski said. “And looking back, I kind of heard it explode and the tinkling sounds on the interior tin so I figured it was asphalt by that point. So yeah, shut it down, came back in and it was obviously destroyed. I appreciate Chad Bryant, Steven, the guys from the Lapcevich crew helping us out. It’s even better now than when we started so I hope it gets us a little more downforce in qualifying.”

Five Flags Speedway owner Tim Bryant stopped by to ask what happened and he was shown the pictures of the track taken by Short Track Scene and vowed to repair the surface with a patch overnight.

“Well listen, our racetrack is old and there’s no hiding that,” Bryant said. “Guys don’t want us to repave the track because they like how it races so occasionally we have a chunk of asphalt come up and we certainly don’t want it to cause anybody any problems but we do have guys on-site to do patchwork on the fly when we need to so we’ll take care of it.”

The frontstretch into Turn 1 was completely repaved in 2022 and the idea was to pave the track in increments so it would never lose its character that way. What is the time table on that?

“I don’t have a timetable on that stuff, to be honest with you,” Bryant said. “We would like to repave the track to be honest with you and that was in the foreseeable future not too long ago but racers didn’t want it and we found a really good grinding procedure to go along with our patching to maintain a good quality of racing. It’s not super bumpy. It’s a pretty smooth track.

“I’d love to do what North Wilkesboro did but the racers tell me they don’t think that’s what Five Flags needs right now so that is where we are at.”

Outside of the frontstretch, this is the same surface from 1973.

Gragson vs Sawalich

Also during that second session, William Sawalich moved Noah Gragson off the bottom of the race track and the two had an argument about it in the infield.

Gragson called him a ‘dip dot,’ and expressed frustration over it.

“It’s Thursday at the Snowball Derby, it’s a long week, and the dip dot in the 62 just running over us,” Gragson said. “We’ve been working really hard in this race car, the No. 30, but we’re not quite where we need to be yet… got a little bit to go. Man, like I said, it’s a long week down here – there’s a lot of practice. To be p–sing me off in the first practice, you know, twerks me up.”

https://twitter.com/FloRacing/status/1864801592987308183

Sawalich posted video that showed Gragson giving him a middle finger.

https://twitter.com/WilliamSawalich/status/1864846709987152134

Gragson felt like Sawalich was released and blended right in front of him, disrupting a flyer. Sawalich feels like it wasn’t that big of a deal because it was a race run, not a qualifying run and that he had run out of room to blend any further.

Snowball Derby practice session 1

1Derek Thorn16.508
2Chandler Smith16.521
3Buddy Shepherd16.530
4Harden Plybon16.536
5Cole Butcher16.568
6Brent Crews16.582
7Kaden Honeycutt16.589
8Jeremy Doss16.603
9Giovanni Ruggiero16.603
10Michael Hinde16.606
11Bubba Pollard16.619
12Ty Majeski16.636
13Jake Garcia16.669
14Kole Raz16.685
15Jake Finch16.689
16Sammy Smith16.738
17Jace Hansen16.743
18Carson Kvapil16.746
19Timothy Watson16.748
20Conner Jones16.750
21Billy VanMeter16.754
22Dawson Sutton16.755
23Stephen Nasse16.761
24Michael Scott16.763
25David Gilliland16.782
26Matthew Craig16.783
27Vito Cancilla16.791
28Dylan Fetcho16.810
29William Sawalich16.823
30Connor Okrzesik16.825
31Derek Kraus16.831
32Dustin Smith16.836
33John Bolen16.884
34Nick Loden16.884
35Luke Fenhaus16.891
36Nicholas Naugle16.915
37Kasey Kleyn16.952
38Kyle Steckly17.023
39Cayden Lapcevich17.037
40Noah Gragson17.059
41Caden Kvapil17.070
42Conner Sutton17.221
43Joseph Meyer17.432
44Treyten LapcevichNo Time
45Ed VanMeterNo Time

Snowball Derby practice session 2

1Chandler Smith16.498
2Ty Majeski16.516
3Derek Thorn16.526
4Dawson Sutton16.537
5Kaden Honeycutt16.553
6Cole Butcher16.580
7Haeden Plybon16.609
8Jace Hansen16.643
9Giovanni Ruggiero16.653
10Michael Hinde16.659
11Nicholas Naugle16.682
12Jake Finch16.683
13Dylan Fetch16.728
14Billy VanMeter16.735
15Bubba Pollard16.736
16Treyten Lapcevich16.745
17David Gilliland16.748
18Conner Jones16.750
19Timothy Watson16.761
20Sammy Smith16.764
21Carson Kvapil16.771
22John Bolen16.790
23Jeremy Doss16.802
24Kasey Kleyn16.821
25William Sawalich16.844
26Vito Cancilla16.850
27Caden Kvapil16.857
28Connor Okrzesik16.888
29Kyle Steckly16.892
30Michael Scott16.894
31Matthew Craig16.903
32Stephen Nasse16.906
33Cayden Lapcevich16.927
34Noah Gragson16.948
35Jake Garcia16.949
36Buddy Shepherd16.957
37Kole Raz16.966
38Brent Crews16.966
39Derek Kraus16.973
40Nick Loden17.007
41Luke Fenhaus17.012
42Dustin Smith17.106
43Conner Sutton17.339
44Joseph MayerNo Time
45Ed VanMeterNo Time

Quotes

“I really feel good about where the speed is at. Sometimes, when you come down here, it’s hard to find that speed and that has not been the issue since we unloaded on Monday, which is a good thing. Just looking for a little bit of feel, specifically in race trim, just some nuances at Pensacola that I know I need on the long run here to be fast. I don’t feel like we quite have everything at this point, so just fine tuning it and trying to get those fields. The speed is there, like I said, just need to get a driving right.”
-Ty Majeski

“I thought we made some good changes. I think the racetrack this morning had a lot of grip in it, and it was going to be very similar to what qualifying will be. We never mocked up and I wish we had now but the tires were still new enough that I think we learned something. If you’re tight earlier, you’re going to be tight on stickers, right? So we made those adjustments. We got where we needed to be and then the rain came before we were ready to mock up. That was unfortunate but I mean, we have good balance on our race car. I don’t think we’ll set fast time or anything but as long as we get a good starting spot, hopefully we lock in around the top-15 and we’ll be fine.”
-Bubba Pollard

“It was pretty good. We struggled a little bit to start the day but then we made a couple of good adjustments and the last session we ended up having some better turn and drive off. So that’s really honestly what we working on all day. And I think we got it there. So we’re going to keep on working tomorrow because it’s going to be a lot colder and the rubber is going to take different and we didn’t want to dial ourselves out too much because we just wanted the car drive good. We did that so now we can focus on qualifying and hopefully have a good run there.”
Kaden Honeycutt

Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

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