COPPER HILL, VA :: We continue our look back at the best of 2014 with a look at the best Super Late Model races of the 2014 season.
10. Sunoco 125 at Gresham (SSS)
Anderson Bowen led his first two laps in the Southern Super Series competition on July 12 at Gresham Motorsports Park and they were the most important ones — the final ones.
Bowen denied defending SSS champion Daniel Hemric his first tour victory of the season by passing him coming out of Turn 4, taking the white flag and checkered flag to earn his first-career Super Late Model victory just an hour north of his home in Suwanee.
The finish was a fitting conclusion, given how the pair had raced each other, side-by-side but clean, over the final 50 laps of the nationally televised event, with Hemric barely holding the edge until just before the white flag lap.
9. Bruce Gowland Memorial 100 (World Series of Asphalt)
Perhaps the most underappreciated event in short track racing, the World Series of Asphalt continues to attract the best and fastest in the discipline each February at New Smyrna Speedway during the build-up to the Daytona 500.
Seven races make up the Super Late Model portion of the WSOA and Kyle Benjamin won the 100-lap finale — the Bruce Gowland Memorial 100. Steve Wallace finished fourth and won the championship. For Benjamin, it was a fitting swansong for the end of his Super Late Model career as he embarked towards a full-time combined ARCA and K&N East slate.
8. Firecracker 125 (PASS South)
Daniel Hemric made a habit of earning dramatic victories in 2014 but his Independence Day weekend triumph at Greenville Pickens Speedway was both thrilling and controversial.
Denver Foran slowed on the track with 22 laps remaining, preventing Hemric from losing a lap while conserving his tires for the stretch run on the unique PASS tire compound. PASS officials deemed that he did so intentionally to protect Hemric, who went on to win in dramtic fashion over Harrison Burton. Hemric kept the victory but was fined and placed on probation by the sanctioning body.
Despite efforts to reach out to Hemric in the aftermath of the event, the issue was never spoken about publicly again.
7. Carolina Clash 150 (PASS South)
Daniel Hemric surived what has continued to be called an “epic crashfest” to earn a victory in the PASS South Series at Dillon Motor Speedway. In typical 2014 Hemric fashion, the North Carolina driver scored the win with a last lap pass on Cole Timm.
His victory came in a race where only 13 cars out of the 24 cars that started the race finished after two massive melees on the frontstretch swept up half the field. Epic indeed.
6. Stoops Freightliner Redbud 300 (ARCA/CRA)
Daniel Hemric enjoyed the best season of his career in Super Late Model competition, winning races in his home base Southern Super Series, CRA Super Series and the Pro All Star Series. But no victory was more prestigious or memorable as his first triumph in the Redbud 300.
Taking the SSS roadshow north to Indiana, Hemric dueled with rival Bubba Pollard over the final 50 laps with the finish being decided by differing tire strategies. Pollard first got out front due to a two-tire pit stop while a dominant Hemric took four. Pollard nearly made it work but was unable to hold Hemric back, losing the lead with 23 laps remaining.
5. Battle at Berlin 251 (ARCA/CRA)
Johnny VanDoorn had the fastest car at Berlin Speedway (MI) but was simply unable to put the field away until a final restart with 10 laps to go in the Battle at Berlin, winning one of the marquee races of Midwest competition.
The driver known as “JVD” put all but eight cars a lap down during the first 138 laps but stalled his car on pit road immediately afterwards, costing him valuable track position. It was during this stint that Bubba Pollard, Daniel Hemric and Terry Senneker all took turns out front while JVD methodically worked his way towards the front.
Restarting on the outside of Pollard on a restart with 10 laps to go, VanDoorn sped away and never looked back. With JVD outside of the top-5 for a majority of the second half, the battle for the lead was some of the best racing we have seen all year.
4. Orange Blossom Special (PASS South)
Roger Lee Newton held off a furious last lap charge by Trevor Noles that saw Noles spin across the finish line to win the 9th annual Orange Blossom Special for the PASS South tour at Orange County Speedway.
It was Newton’s second Orange Blossom Special victory and put him in elite company joining Preston Peltier as the only drivers to ever win the event more than once. It was an early-season example of two drivers giving everything they had and more to win a race.
3. Circle City 100 at Lucas Oil Raceway Indianapolis (ARCA/CRA)
In a race that defined what short track racing is all about, Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek dueled over the final 50 laps with the Sprint Cup superstar ultimately making a daring last lap, last corner pass to edge the second-generation racer by just 0.024 seconds to win the Circle City 100 at the former Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Ross Kenseth led the first 53 laps before a spin on the backstretch set-up the stretch run. Nemechek immediately took the lead on the reset and took Busch with him. Busch stalked for the next 47 laps, taking the young gun coming out of Turn 4. Nemechek didn’t win but he earned the respect of a NASCAR veteran and set the stage for a very successful second half of 2014.
2. Sunoco 125 at Mobile (SSS)
The season-ending Southern Super Series race was a snapshot of everything that has made that tour so popular over the past 24 months since its debut event. A stout field of 25 Super Late Models battled around half-mile Mobile International Speedway with most of the attention placed on the championship battle between Bubba Pollard and defending series champion Daniel Hemric.
Facing a 16-point deficit, Hemric took the lead with 10 laps remaining and endured a furious charge from Jeff Choquette and Augie Grill. Pollard, needing to finish sixth or better to clinch with a Hemric victory, was running fifth and with a one-point champoionship advantage — the same difference that decided the 2013 championship.
Ultimately, Hemric won the race in dramatic fashion, nipping both Grill and Choquette, three-wide, at the line but it wasn’t enough to win consecutive championships as Pollard survived to fourth. Pollard also secured the trifecta, earning a Mobile track championship and Gulf Coast (Mobile and Pensacola) combined championship for his efforts.
1. Winchester 400 (ARCA/CRA)
The Winchester 400 is the most prestigious Super Late Model race in the Midwest and continues to be the most action-fueled event of the season regardless of discipline in short track racing.
The event consistently features three-wide battles throughout the entire duration of a green flag run, without the aid of cautions, and produces action that is best-described as a spin cycle at 130 mph. Short track fans have truly not lived until they attend the longest Super Late Model race in the profession.
The 2014 running featured more of the usual and came down to a dramatic back and forth duel between defending winner Erik Jones and Travis Braden, the defending ARCA/CRA Super Series champion. Braden applied the bump and run with a seven laps remaining but didn’t even complete a full lap before Jones returned the favor, retaking the lead and never looking back. Jones won his second straight Winchester rifle trophy while Braden settled for a repeat celebration as CRA Super Series champion.
