The enduring memory from the 2014 Snowball Derby probably isn’t the closing laps and the battle between John Hunter Nemechek and Dalton Sargeant, but rather the fiery crash on Lap 218 between Chad Finley and Bubba Pollard.
In that race, Finley lost a lap early on pit road but was the provisional free pass holder when Pollard went to pass him in the middle of Turns 1 and 2. It was there that Pollard suddenly broke loose and snapped right into his left rear quarter-panel, sending both contenders hard into the outside retaining wall.
The contact to the Finley car ruptured the fuel line, igniting the 42 in a raging inferno. At the time, Finley was dazed from the contact and said it took all he had to climb out of the car with it quickly burning to the ground.
“I remember everything about the crash,” Finley said. “He got me in the left rear when he tried to save it and my initial thoughts were ‘this is going to hurt,’ because it was just past the point of the corner where you’re almost guaranteed to get hit on the driver side if there is contact to the left rear.”
Problematic for Pollard was that the nose of his car was embedded in the Finley machine when it caught fire. Fortunately for him, Finley ran back to the cockpit to hit the emergency fuel shutoff switch, at least saving Pollard from a total loss.
“It was just a freak accident,” Finley said. “It rung my bell pretty good, but really, I was just more disappointed in how the weekend went. We broke a motor in the Snowflake (100) earlier in the morning and burning the Super down to the ground was expensive and set us back at the beginning of the year.”
For what it’s worth, both Finley and Pollard praised the construction of the modern Super Late Model, praising the safety features of the fuel cell. Pollard said the incident also resulted in updates to the cell that will make the cars even safer moving forward.
“Even from then to now, they’ve made safety updates to the shutoff and the fuel cell,” Pollard said. “They’ve helped us with the safety updates. That was just hard racing and a tough deal, 100 percent an accident and I just hate that it happened.”
Finley agrees with Pollard on the matter of safety, but with one caveat.
“I feel like Super Late Models are pretty safe nowadays,” he said. “There’s always a risk anytime you strap into a Late Model but with the HANS device, seatbelts and helmets that are available to us, we feel pretty safe.
“But I do think improvements could be made to the driver side area and that’s something I would like to see in the future.”
POLLARD: Veteran Champ Looking to Overcome Adversity
As for the 2015 Snowball Derby, Finley believes he has the notebook and resources needed to post his best result yet. The Great Lakes native ran the May 22 Southern Super Series race at Five Flags Speedway, posting the fastest time in qualifying and leading 62 laps before blowing a right front tire. Even though he believes he would have won that race, the success gives him a tremendous amount of confidence entering December.
“I really think we will have a good car this week once we unload,” Finley said. “We just have to do a good job keeping up with the track all week and get a car that’s balanced the way it needs to be.
“For us to have a good weekend we have to execute with our adjustments in practice and on pit road during the race. We just have to survive. So many things happen during the race to where you’ll have a shot if you’re simply running at the end.”
Snowball Derby week begins on Wednesday night with the qualifying pill draw and pit party. Time trials for the event is on Friday night with the race itself kicking off on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET. Speed51.com will provide a live Pay-Per-View broadcast.
