Bubba Pollard Motivated to Keep This Momentum

Bubba Pollard really loves Berlin Raceway and he really loves the state of his Super Late Model program, which combined, could spell really bad news for his Money in the Bank competition on Wednesday night.

The case could be made that Pollard should be leading the ASA STARS national championship standings except for the punctured grill he suffered at Hickory, due to part of the track coming up, and a penalty for fighting Casey Roderick after their incident at the inaugural event at Pensacola.

He has been the class of the field in Super Late Model racing and now he gets to go to one of his favorite venues.

“It’s good,” Pollard told Short Track Scene before practice on Tuesday. “I’m happy to be here. You know, this is a place we look forward to every year, especially when we’re running a little better.

“The last couple of years, we haven’t run, like, great here. So, it is different when you’re feeling confident. We like racing here. You can move around the race track. It changes a lot with the weather. I like it a lot, it’s fun, and I’m glad to be here.”

A lot of people pointed to Pollard as the favorite for Wednesday as his program is competitive, and he has a lot of laps. At the same time, Pollard pointed to the likes of Carson Hocevar and Brian Campbell, just because of how much the experience and track time matters.

“The experience always helps, especially for a place like this,” Pollard said. “It’s tough coming, especially here, and just racing once or twice against the regulars. They’re able to fine tune their race cars week in and week out.

“But our race cars are capable of doing it, our program is capable of doing it. We just have to make it happen. I love coming here. It’s a driver’s race track and the experience does help. 150 laps, weather is unpredictable, and it’s going to be tough.”

Pollard is still reeling, a bit, from what looked like back-to-back ASA STARS victories at North Wilkesboro and Hickory. Pollard was about to make what could have been the winning move on a dominant William Byron when a punctured radiator knocked him from the race.

Hickory track operator Kevin Piercy felt pretty confident that it wasn’t a piece of his surface, but Pollard is especially resolute two weeks later.

“I got a piece of asphalt through my grill and still got it at the shop,” Pollard said. “I’ll send the picture. Listen, my family owns a race track so I’m not bashing anyone’s track.

“But when you drive down pit road and there’s asphalt coming up. I got a piece of asphalt in the hole of my radiator, the race track is coming up. We can ride around under pace laps. We’re not dumb.

“So, I’m not saying the track is terrible but when a tour comes in and you’re having a big event, us or CARS Tour, you just have to do the extra work and take the pride in your facility. North Wilkesboro, part of the track was coming up too, and that’s just part of it but we’ve knocked out two radiators and grill screens and that cost us money.”

Beyond that disappointment, it was a really good spring for Pollard, and it comes after one of the most frustrating stretches of his career from late 2020 into the 2022 season. The No. 26, after a couple of chassis swaps, now looks like it did in its heyday with Senneker Race Cars.

But Pollard also recognizes this wave could crest at any time, and he wants to enjoy it while it lasts.

“I mean, it could stop at any point in time,” Pollard said. “We know that, but we’ve had a lot going on. It’s about staying on top of your stuff when things are going to come and go.

“That’s just sports, stick and ball too, you get comfortable, you don’t work, and sometimes you just overthink it. There are so many factors that go into things going bad. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies when it comes to racing.

“You can get humbled fast. Yeah, anything can come to an end, but you just got to do the best you can while you’re running good because it could end at any moment.”

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Read more Short Track Scene:

• The latest on the Huffmans versus the Crums at Hickory
• The difference between a Super Late and Late Model Stock
• North Wilkesboro Late Model Tripleheader Was Special