Casey Roderick finally broke through.
After a season of consistently posting podiums and countless runner-up finishes behind the wheel of the Anthony Campi Racing No, 26, Roderick scored the win in the North South Super Late Model Challenge on Saturday night at the Nashville Fairgrounds against a familiar podium that included Stephen Nasse and Bubba Pollard.
It’s the Big 3 of the Southern Super Series, who have also podiumed together at Cordele and Pensacola so far this season.
His last win here in a Super was the 2020 All American 400.
“It feels good to come back here and get a win,” said Roderick. “It’s been a while since a Super win. What an awesome day. We worked really hard in practice, just getting the feel I need. We’ve been searching that feel everywhere we go. We’ve been so close, but just hadn’t pulled it off yet.”
Roderick won the race by nearly two seconds over Nasse but his tires were starting to fade.
“I started feeling that right-front go,” said Roderick. “I had really good drive all night. I think that saved us. That right-front was seeing some abuse. I was hanging on there for the last 10 laps, just trying to keep it on the bottom. Any time I got up about half a lane, it took off on me.”
It was a familiar story for Nasse, who had to charge through the field, after starting 11th. He is a notoriously mixed results qualifier.
“We’ve got to get better at qualifying,” said Nasse. “I’ve got to do better qualifying. Starting so far back is what’s killing us. I feel like we had one of the better cars. I just had to push my right-front a little more than I would have liked trying to get through the field. Just like Pensacola, it took longer to get through than I was expecting it would take. They made me work for it.”
But he also expressed empathy for what Roderick was feeling after such a long winless drought dating back to last March in Pensacola.
“Casey has been runner-up, third, on the podium, hasn’t been able to pull off that win,” Nasse said. “I know how that feels, so congratulations to those guys. We were a little bit off, but everyone did such a good job.”
Pollard was actually driving a car out of the Ricky Turner shop with his car going to Jennerstown on Thursday for the UARA race.
“I can’t thank these Fr8Racing guys enough, Ricky Turner, all of them for giving me an opportunity to go race and giving me a good race car,” Pollard said. “The driver didn’t do his part tonight. I wasn’t aggressive enough on those restarts and lost too many positions. We had a long run car, and we knew that. I didn’t do a good job putting us in position. I cost us a shot at, at least, a second-place finish.”
The race was slowed for a pair of incidents involving Michael Hinde and Billy VanMeter but also for Gio Ruggiero cutting a right front tire.
Southern Super Series North South 100
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway
July 13 2024
Casey Roderick
Stephen Nasse
Bubba Pollard
Dawson Sutton
Dylan Fetcho
William Sawalich
Chase Burda
Matt Craig
Dustin Smith
Jake Finch
Jackson Boone
Billy VanMeter
Johnny Brazier
Connor Okrzesik
Gio Ruggiero
Michael Hinde
