Bubba Pollard and Kyle Grissom Excite Fans in Rougemont

ROUGEMONT, NC — While Christopher Bell was running away with the victory in Saturday night/Sunday morning’s Orange Blossom 300, Bubba Pollard and Kyle Grissom brought the fans to their feet in the closing laps as they raced side-by-side for the second position.

After a spree of cautions marred much of the Championship Auto Racing Series (CARS) Super Late Model feature, the final 40 laps ran under the green flag.  The battle for second went on for much of the race’s final green flag stint.  The two drivers swapped positions several times but it was Pollard who prevailed, edging Grissom to take the second position.

“It’s good to race with a guy like Kyle and have a lot of fun there at the end,” Pollard said after the race.  “It’s like our own race back there behind [Bell].  He’s in a league of his own so all we do is go to work and see if we can make it better and come back next time.”

Pollard and Grissom have both raced against each other in the Southern Super Series, the Deep South Super Late Model touring series which Pollard claimed the championship in last season.  The respect between the two drivers, who raced each other hard but clean, is mutual and Grissom enjoyed the side-by-side race for position as much as Pollard.

“I’m just glad we were kind of up at the front the whole night and got to stay out of trouble because it was pretty wild it looked like back there at the back,” Grissom said of the race.  “We had a good car.  Obviously, we didn’t have anything for [Christopher Bell] but had a lot of fun with Bubba [Pollard] there at the end running those last 20 laps racing hard with him.”

All in all, Grissom was satisfied with the outcome of the race.

“The car was pretty good,” Grissom remarked.  “We just needed to be a little bit better turning down here in turns three and four.  We would have been better but overall, it was a really good night.”

Pollard did not race his iconic black and yellow no. 26 car.  Instead, he stepped in to race for Scotty Ellis in car no. 83.

“Scotty was supposed to race,” Pollard said.  “He wasn’t able to make it today.  Grateful enough to work with some good people that are able to let me drive their racecar and have fun so can’t thank them enough for making this all possible for them.”

As of now, Pollard plans to race in the next CARS Tour which will be run at Hickory Motor Speedway on May 9^th but he does not plan to run the entire tour.