MOBILE, AL :: Daniel Hemric gave it his best shot, but ultimately, that was not enough to overcome a 16-point championship deficit to Bubba Pollard on Saturday night in the final Southern Super Series race of the season at Mobile International Speedway.
One year removed from a campaign in which Hemric defeated Pollard by a single digit to win the inaugural title, Pollard responded with a seven point defeat of his rival in the follow-up to that first season.
Hemric did everything he was supposed to do on Saturday night.
He first took the lead during a restart on lap 113 and survived a wild three-wide finish between Augie Grill and Jeff Choquette to win his second race of the season. With a victory, Hemric needed Pollard to finish seventh or worst and that didn’t happen.
While Hemric did everything that was required of him, Pollard did the same thing. He fell to fifth on a restart with 12 laps to go but gained the position back on a separate reset with nine to go, cruising to a fourth-place finish and his first career touring series championship.
“I’m really excited for my guys,” Pollard told Race22.com. “To race against the caliber of drivers and this competition in the south is pretty cool. It means a lot to win the championship. It’s pretty cool and that’s awesome.”
It could be said that the Southern Super Series was designed for a driver like Pollard to thrive and establish a legend for himself. Prior to the formation of the SSS, Pollard was the driver to beat in independent races at Pensacola, Mobile, Gresham, Montgomery and Nashville.
It took two years and overcoming Daniel Hemric and Carswell Motorsports but that legend came to fruition on Saturday night in the Gulf Coast.
Pollard won a series-high five of the 15 championship races, including four in a row earlier in the year from rounds three-to-six. Despite the dominance, he was also often struck by bad luck, finishing out of the top-5 on five separate occasions, allowing first-year challenger Anderson Bowen to take the points lead on several occasions.
He last took the championship lead on July 25 but was then challenged by Hemric, the defending champion who contended not with wins but sheer consistency, finishing no worse than sixth on only two occasions — in the first and third events of the season. Ultimately, the championship came down to wins and the south is Pollard’s home turf.
“I knew it would be good for us,” Pollard said of the formation of the SSS. “We definitely struggled at some of the places like Montgomery but we’ve finished well there. Other races — like the World Crown (and) the Alabama 200 — really set us back in the points. We had to come into the weekend needing to be conservative. It’s tough.”
Pollard believes the talent roster in the series is the best the country and that means something coming from a veteran of the ARCA Racing Series, ARCA Mid-West Tour and a traveling ace that routinely competes in events all over the eastern seaboard and Deep South.
“I don’t think it gets any better than this,” Pollard said. “I’ve raced in the ARCA Mid-West Tour and they have a good group of good guys, as does the CRA. There are a good handful of guys who can win those races but we have eight or more that can run up front and have a chance to win. It’s tough.
“That’s what makes this championship so special, running around guys like this.”
An extensive video conversation with Pollard and a reactions interview with Hemric can be viewed below.
