Craig leads wire-to-wire, winning at Pensacola; Nasse wins Blizzard Championship

Matt Craig took full advantage of a strong qualifying effort and beneficial invert to start from the pole and lead every lap en route to winning the Deep South Cranes 100 at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola on Saturday. His nearest competition was Spencer Davis, who set the fastest time in qualifying, and ran second the entire race, finishing in that runner up spot about a straightaway behind Craig. Jake Finch rounded out the podium, and was in contention for the track’s Blizzard Series Championship, but fell shy to Stephen Nasse, who with a seventh place finish, secured the Championship.

Craig was all smiles after the race, noting that he had confidence in the car after strong runs in practice. Craig said it was all about getting all the pieces to come together at just the right time.

 “The car was on a rail,” said Craig. “I kind of knew yesterday.  Last night we had a practice in the dark and the car felt really good. The lap averages were really good and it’s just one of those races. I didn’t sleep that good last night because I knew the car was so good. I was like, ‘I just need everything to go, you know, off without a hitch and we’ll be fine’.”

There were zero hitches for Craig. He had to out duel Davis over multiple restarts, and each time was able to pull away convincingly.

 “The pieces just fell right into place this weekend, and those weekends are hard to come by and you gotta cherish them when you have them.”

Southern Super Series points leader Spencer Davis was no slouch on Saturday night. After setting the fast lap in qualifying, Davis started the 100 lapper in third, right behind Craig. Davis jumped into the second spot from the start, and held strong there all night. He challenged on the restarts, but didn’t quite have enough to get to Craig.

“Yeah, we just needed a little bit,” said Davis. “We were good enough for second all night… we challenged them there at about 20 to go, and man, Matt just prevailed. He had a little bit more drive late in the run, and you know, we’ll come back for the Snowball Derby, be a little bit better.”

Going into the night’s race, Stephen Nasse held a 22 point lead over Jake Finch in the Blizzard Series Championship race. Finch scored some additional points thanks to his qualifying effort but Nasse, starting deep in the field, needed to have a solid performance to ensure capturing the Championship.

The race started precariously for Nasse after a stack up in Turn 1 on Lap 2 resulted in a spin and damage to the number 51.

“It definitely didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” Nasse said after the race. “It wasn’t very easy, but I never like to do things the easy way, I guess, and especially not around this place. It would have been nice to make it through, you know, just a spin out and not contact there, but definitely got pretty good damage on the left side when I was rolling backwards.”

From there, Nasse worked his way up to seventh by race’s end, securing his first Blizzard Series Championship, marking yet another accolade in his running list of achievements, though his eyes are already looking ahead to bigger prizes on the horizon.

“I mean it feels great,” said Nasse. “It’s been something I’ve been so close to I’ve lost it by I think as little as one point and yeah, it’s been bittersweet. It’s finally checking it off the box and that feels good, but we need to get us another (Snowball) Derby win and I need another (Nashville) guitar and I need another (Winchester) rifle. So, we got to double down with all these things again and even triple down with a couple of them.”

Beyond the race at the front for the win, and the battle for the Blizzard Championship, one driver found himself making a trip to the local hospital for and evaluation.

Dustin Smith, who had just finished third in the night’s Pro Late Model race, was caught up in the same Lap 2 stack up as Nasse. He drove away with significant damage to the nose of his car, but was able to continue. It quickly became evident that Smith had a tire rub coming from his left front wheel well.

On Lap 16, the caution flew as Smith’s left front tire blew out, sending him hard into the outside wall in turn three. The crash resulted in a lengthy red flag period as safety crews removed Smith from his car. Smith was then attended to by the onsite paramedics before being released. He spent the remainder of the race resting in his hauler before heading to a local hospital immediately after the race for further evaluation. Thankfully, while sore, Smith was able to share that he is okay in a post on social media on Sunday morning.

“What was looking to be a good night turned bad quickly during the Super race. We blew a LF tire and hit the wall harder than I’ve ever hit before.

“After the wreck, I made a trip to the ER to get my head checked out and make sure I didn’t have a concussion. Thankfully, everything checked out okay! Just going to take a couple days to rest, recover, and get feeling right again.

“As far as the car goes, unfortunately she’s killed. It’s a tough one to swallow, and we’re going to have to miss a few races that I was really looking forward to running.

“We’ll regroup, rebuild, and be back. Huge thank you to everyone who has reached out and checked on me.”

Busch Lite Championship Night | Five Flags Speedway Southern Super Series (SLM) Feature Results:

1. 54 Matt Craig
2. 96 Spencer Davis
3. 51 Jake Finch
4. 26 Bubba Pollard
5. 62 Keelan Harvick
6. 35 Luke Yarbrough
7. 51 Stephen Nasse
8. 26 Dawson Sutton
9. 25 Kevin Harvick
10. 22 George Phillips
11. 62 Casey Roderick
12. 19 Isaac Kitzmiller
13. 27 Kole Raz
14. 24 Jade Avedisian
15. 17 Hudson Bulger
16. 3 Kasey Kleyn
17. 20 Jett Noland
18. 9 Ethan Ebert
19. 29 Allen Gordon
20. 67 Colin Allman
21. 37 Michael Goddard
22. 22 Ryan Herbert
23. 53 Boris Jurkovic
24. 33 Dustin Smith