All the Big Names were Fast in Battle at Berlin Practice

Bubba Pollard loaded up an hour before Battle at Berlin practice on Tuesday if you needed any indication about how good the No. 26.

This is the same Pollard, by the way, who more often than not will tell you how much his car ‘sucks’ and they ‘need to get better’ before inevitably contending for the win anyway. So it speaks volumes that Pollard shook the car down a couple of times and felt like there wasn’t much else to learn.

Sure, he won a local show at the track two weeks ago so that went a long way but Pollard was largely satisfied.

“We loaded up before I messed it up,” Pollard said with a chuckle leaving the track. “We came up a couple of weeks ago and felt really good, were decent and didn’t want to mess it up.

“We’re decent. And really, now we’re going back to some of these tracks for a second time with this new car, we’re unloading a lot closer and making the right adjustments now that we’re used to this car.”

That could be bad news for the competition, 32 strong, no matter how stout the names on the entry list may be.

And make no mistake, the name at the top of practice on Tuesday was one of the historically stoutest of them all in 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott who is making his first track at the Western Michigan bullring.

Pollard may have posted the fastest time in the final session before loading up with a 16.090 but Elliott was fastest overall with a 16.075.

Elliott had a scheduled meet and greet with fans after practice and wasn’t available for comment but has to be happy with the progress of his car since bringing out in January for Speedfest at Cordele.

This is a really competitive field, from Josh Berry in the TK Motorsports No. 71 that Johnny VanDoorn and Carson Hocevar have driven to wins over the past decade down to Hocevar himself in the field for Wednesday’s race.

Hocevar was not able to practice due to attending NASCAR Truck Series Playoff Media Day in Charlotte. William Byron was also amongst the fastest on the day but like Elliott, had fan obligations.

Derek Griffith, a multi-time World Series of Asphalt and Granite State Pro Stock champion, has attended all the big races at Berlin the past couple of years and says this is the best his car has felt at the trick Michigan bullring.

“This is the best I’ve felt here, as far as comfort and falloff, ever,” Griffth said. “Little falloff, which is impressive because you can lose a second here quick. We could run the .40s and .50s here forever so I think we’re pretty good.

“We were really good here in the spring race and had a flat right rear and we didn’t have enough time to stay on the lead lap and just pulled in because we only had like 13 lbs. in the tire. That hurt because it was a really good car and we’re set up basically the same way today, just a few adjustments and it was really good.”

The winner of the Money in the Bank in June, Jones, made a lot of adjustments on Tuesday but landed in a really satisfactory place.

“I thought we were good,” Jones said. “We made it a lot better from the start of the day. We made a lot of changes. We had a good baseline but today and tomorrow are a lot hotter than June and the SRX rubber meshed in and the track wasn’t great this afternoon.

“We bougth some balance stuff at the end, but I feel pretty good, but we’ll see tomorrow.

But until proven otherwise, they’re going to be chasing defending winner Shotko.

“The track changed a lot today, a lot of rubber got put down and between the weather last night or the SRX rubber last week, we had a lot of different tracks today,” Shotko said. “But I thought we were pretty good.”

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