Perhaps no other contender in Super Late Model racing has been stricken by as much bad luck as Donnie Wilson over the past three seasons.
Sure, the Oklahoma native has won numerous races and has contended for the Southern Super Series championship, but he’s also haunted by how many more races he should have won if circumstances just played out differently.
That’s been the case in the Snowball Derby too.
He finished second in the 2010 race in just his second start, leaving many to believe it was just a matter of time before he made it to Victory Lane in the Super Bowl of Short Track Racing. Instead, he’s consistently brought fast cars to the Florida Gulf Coast but has mostly finished outside of the top-10, with pit strategy and restarts costing him more so than a lack of speed.
Now the 45-year-old returns to Five Flags Speedway looking to overcome a season in which he’s been amongst the best in the discipline but didn’t quite close out quite like he wanted to over the past 11 months.
“Here’s the thing,” Wilson told Race22.com on Saturday. “We didn’t run well the first half of this season so we made some changes. But we should have won three or four more races in the second half.”
The Southern Super Series finale at Pensacola last month is one such race that sticks out to Wilson. He qualified seventh but quickly made his way to the front and paced the field for 41 laps before an ignition issue forced him to the pits with a DNF.
Then there was the Winchester 400 in October where Wilson spent all day in the top-10 before crashing out with less than 100 laps to go. That’s been the book on Wilson over the years — fast enough to win the marquee races but just needs better luck.
He hopes this is the year it all comes together.
“We’re bringing two really good cars to the Derby this year,” Wilson said. “(Crew chief) Troy Smith and I have gone over these cars three times to make sure everything is working like it’s supposed to. That’s all you can do.
“We just need some good luck. So what we’re going to do is just keep knocking on the door until we knock it down. That’s what we’re here to do.”
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A victory for Wilson would also be a triumph for the so-called little guys. Wilson has been a contender over the past half-decade, despite operating out of Oklahoma City and far from the Super Late Model hotbeds of the Southeast and Midwest.
Wilson and his father run the team out of their own pocket and they take a lot of pride in matching the likes of Chase Elliott, Bubba Pollard and Erik Jones each December.
“It would be a really special feeling,” Wilson said of winning the Snowball Derby. “We do this on our own. We don’t have a lot of outside help and the guys we do bring to the track are volunteers that just love being a part of a team.
“We’re a close bunch of guys that get our motivation from competing with the heavily funded teams.”
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.
