MARTINSVILLE, VA – Bubba Pollard, making his first career start in a Late Model Stock Car, has not yet found the feel he is looking for but is continuing to adjust as he gets seat time at Martinsville Speedway.
Pollard is one of the most accomplished racers in Super Late Model racing, having won just about everything there is to win in that discipline except the Snowball Derby. Saturday night, he will make his first attempt in a Late Model Stock driving for Jamie Yelton, but Pollard spent much of Friday morning’s practice trying to get a feel for the car.
“Just seat time, that’s the biggest thing for me, what this car needs,” Pollard told Race22.com on Friday. “Just looking for a feel I haven’t quite gotten yet and just keep working on it. It’s just another racetrack and just another racecar so I don’t know what people keep, you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re racing a Cup car. It is what it is, you’ve just to figure it out. We just keep working hard to see if we can do that.”
When asked what he expected in qualifying on Friday night, Pollard simply said he was still trying to find the right feel.
“I really don’t know,” Pollard stated. “We just ain’t got that feel I’m looking for yet. We find it, I’ll tell you yes. It’s just something we ain’t found yet so we just keep working.”
An accomplished racer, Pollard knows how to get the job done when it comes time to race. However, Martinsville is just as much a learning experience for Pollard as it is another race, and the veteran racer says this won’t be his last Martinsville race.
“If the car’s tight, you adjust your driving or if it’s loose, you adjust your driving to save tires. Just do what you can do inside the racecar to make the best of it,” Pollard explained. “That’s all we can do and hopefully we can make it in. It’ll be fun. This is fun. It’s a learning experience. This won’t be the last year we come to this deal. This one race doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that they’re better than me or I’m better than them, it’s just another race.”
Despite not being where he wanted to be, performance-wise, in Friday morning practice, Pollard’s goal is still the same – not just make the race but win the race.
“I didn’t come here to make the field, I came here to win the race,” Pollard said. “We only said our one goal is to win. We didn’t come here, you know, finishing second is about like not making the race to us so we’re here to win the race.”
A win at Martinsville would mean a lot to Pollard, not just for the grandfather clock and the history at the half-mile track, but also because it would involve beating some of the best such as Lee Pulliam and Philip Morris.
“It’s got a lot of history and I’ll never get a chance to race in NASCAR in that level. You can somewhat try to accomplish being successful on a short track and race within our means. Seeing all these guys, Lee and Philip, you want to race against the best. To be the best, you have to race against the best.”
ValleyStar Credit Union 300 pole qualifying will get underway at 8pm EST on Friday night. Heat races will go green at 3pm EST on Saturday and the 200-lap feature event will commence at 8pm EST. FansChoice.TV and MRN Radio will broadcast the feature event, and Race22.com will continue to have complete, comprehensive coverage all weekend.
