PENSACOLA, FL :: The road to the Snowball Derby began on Friday night in Pensacola, Florida and the first leg of the journey ended with Kyle Grissom in Victory Lane for the Mountain Dew Kickstart 100 at Five Flags Speedway.
The event, which was the third of the season for the Southern Super Series, drew a solid field of 24 Super Late Models and was ultimately decided by a series of wild twists during the final 20 laps of the 100-lap affair.
Defending Southern Super Series champion Bubba Pollard posted the fastest time in qualifying but had to start fifth following the new tour mandated redraw for the eight fastest qualifiers.
The invert ultimately didn’t matter as Pollard quickly worked his way up to second and stayed there for most of the race, taking the lead from a dominant Grissom on a restart with 39 laps to go. Grissom would get him back on the following restart with 20 laps to go — taking the lead for the final time from the outside line, just like Pollard did to him earlier in the race.
Pollard quickly worked his way to the back bumper of Grissom with nine laps to go but something broke on the iconic No. 26 and the multi-time Pensacola track champion suffered his third straight DNF to open his title defense in the Southern Super Series.
A similar fate befell 2013 champion Daniel Hemric, who was running in the top-5 before a broken axle sent him behind the wall on the same lap.
The pair of incidents left Grissom needing to fend off a hard-charging Dominique Van Wieringen for the victory over the final two restarts, something he was just barely able to do. The victory at Pensacola was the first for the 2012 Pro All Stars Series champion and his first in Southern Super Series competition.
Grissom is the 25-year-old son of former NASCAR XFINITY Series champion Steve Grissom. The elder Grissom previously won at Five Flags Speedway back in 1986.
“This is the best of the best down here,” Grissom said of the Southern Super Series competition. “I found that out last year coming down here to run the full schedule and having a tough go of it.
“But we’ve started out strong this year and to win here and to win in Pensacola — this is one of the biggest wins of my career.”
Van Wieringen ran in the top-5 throughout the night, taking command of both grooves at the historic Florida half-mile, powering by Pollard on the outside during the opening run of the race — a show of strength if there ever was one.
While Pollard got back around her later on, Van Wieringen was the one still around for the finish and believes she was a long run away from winning the race.
“I screwed up a little bit on that restart,” Van Wieringen said. “I spun my tires and got some damage but was able to hold on for second. If I had gotten a long run there at the end or maybe another chance at the restart, it would have been a hell of a battle.”
Texan Casey Smith entered the race with the championship lead and finished third to maintain that status. NASCAR K&N West championship leader Dalton Sargeant and Donnie Wilson completed the top-5. Weather permitting, the Southern Super Series race again on Saturday night across the Bay at Mobile International Speedway in the Miller Lite 100.
Pollard is the defending winner of the race.
The rest of the rundown and video interviews can be found below.
- Kyle Grissom
- Dominique Van Wieringen
- Casey Smith
- Dalton Sargeant
- Donnie Wilson
- Mike Garvey
- Garrett Jones
- Casey Roderick
- Roger Reuse
- Allen Karnes
- Kyle Bryant
- Spencer Wauters
- Jeremy Pate
- David Rogers
- Cale Gale
- Bobby Good
- Josh Bragg
- Friday Hassler Jr
- Scotty Ellis
- Bubba Pollard
- Daniel Hemric
- Jerry Artuso
- Brandon Carlson
- Ken McFarland
