ATLANTA, GA :: Winning championships in the Southern Super Series is easy — you just have to be flawless during the course of the entire season.
Like I said, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
But seriously though, that is the daunting challenge that now lies before the final five still remaining in the Southern Super Series championship hunt entering the prestigious World Crown 300 this weekend at Gresham Motorsports Park.
With four races remaining in the points paying season, Bubba Pollard enters the homestretch with a 25 point advantage over defending champion Daniel Hemric. It is another 40 points back to Donnie Wilson, 42 to Augie Grill and 45 to Anderson Bowen.
That is five drivers separated by just 45 points. For the sake of perspective, each event pays a maximum of 115 points so any of the top-five could potentially leave Gresham with a championship advantage entering the Alabama 200 at Montgomery on Sept. 6.
Pollard lost the season championship in 2013 by a single point to Hemric and says the championship will not come down to victories or even podiums but rather the driver who makes the fewest mistakes and has the best luck.
“The championship is going to come down to a parts failure,” Pollard said. “A couple of guys had part failures this year and a couple of guys have been in accidents or wrecks. So it is (about) consistency and finishing all the races and being there at the end.”
If Pollard is correct, the World Crown on Saturday night may become the most pivotal stop remaining on the tour. At 300 laps, this is the longest race on the SSS schedule and presents double the opportunity for something to go wrong.
That is a possibility that Pollard and Hemric understand all to well.
Pollard took a 47 point advantage into the season ending All-American 400 last season but lost it all when Kyle Benjamin slammed into the back of him entering Turn 1 on a restart with 13 laps remaining. Hemric finished second to Chase Elliott and scored the first season championship in SSS history.
That’s how quickly a season could change and it could happen sooner rather than later this season.
Wilson said that the parity is the appeal of the Southern Super Series, knowing that anyone can win on any given week, even against a stacked field of outsiders like they will have this weekend at Gresham.
“Any of the five can win here,” Wilson said. “Look at Daniel at Pensacola last week. He dominated that deal. Augie can absolutely win on any given night. Anderson won at Gresham and Bubba is the guy to beat every weekend. It is what it is and we all have to work hard on it.
“It’s hard to find a series tougher than this one. It’s hard to win against Bubba and he proved it when he went to Berlin and went toe-to-toe with some of the Midwest’s best.”
His point is that the elite of the Super Late Model world are racing in the southeast and in the Southern Super Series. Five of those aces have a shot at winning the championship and last year proved that it will come down to the wire.
May the best man win.
Race 22′s Matt Weaver is live on-site at Gresham Motorsports Park for the World Crown 300. Follow him on Twitter for updates and analysis @MattWeaverSBN.
