MOBILE, Ala. — Bubba Pollard swept both Southern Super Series Gulf Coast doubleheader events over the weekend at Pensacola Five Flags Speedway and Mobile International Speedway respectively.
His dominance, combined with bad luck for several other championship contenders, considerably consolidated the championship standings following the first four of 16 events. Anderson Bowen entered the weekend with a sizeable lead but left the coast in a dead tie with Casey Smith for the top spot after Smith piloted his Super Late Model to second place in Saturday’s race.
Pollard and Augie Grill also moved up the standings and are tied for second and just seven points behind Bowen and Smith.
Pollard was the class of the field on both Friday and Saturday but especially during the Mobile event where he led the most laps and quickly raced his way through the field after restarting the second half outside the top-10.
Pollard credited his crew and their fast cars in Victory Lane.
“We’ve always had fast cars,” Pollard said in reference to the past two seasons. “We’ve just had a hard time getting to the finish of a lot of these races. But that’s racing — the ups and downs of it. We had fast cars last year and we’ll have good cars this year as long as we stick to what we got and keep moving forward.”
The Mobile race was the first to extensively feature the new pit stop changes that the Southern Super Series issued over the off-season. The inaugural season forced all teams to make a pit stop and change tires during the lap 75 halftime break.
This season, series officials have decided to allow teams to take tires at any point in the race, introducing an element of strategy to the races.
Several teams made their stop on lap 63 on Saturday, including Hunter Robbins, who would lead the opening stages of the second half once Pollard pitted during the halftime break. The strategy looked to be a solid one for both drivers, more so for Pollard, as Robbins failed to make it to the finish after a series of late race accidents.
The next race in the Southern Super Series championship is the Montgomery 125 at Montgomery Motor Speedway in Montgomery, Alabama on Saturday, May 10.
The finishing order of Saturday’s Mobile Lumber 125 and updated unofficial championship standings can be found below.
Results:
- Bubba Pollard
- Casey Smith
- John Hunter Nemechek
- Donnie Wilson
- Mike Garvey
- Daniel Hemric
- Kyle Grissom
- Jake Perkins
- Augie Grill
- Kyle Bryant
- Josh Bragg
- Will Gallaher
- Justin South
- Landon Cling
- Chet Morrison
- Hunter Robbins
- Anderson Bowen
- Chris Davidson
- Logan Boyett
- Stephen Nasse
- Jeremy Pate
- Allen Karnes
Unofficial Championship Standings:
- Anderson Bowen (Ldr.)
- Casey Smith (Ldr.)
- Bubba Pollard (-7)
- Augie Grill (-7)
- Kyle Grissom (-29)
Notes:
Casey Roderick opted not to race at Mobile on Saturday and thus forgoing his championship standings after entering the weekend third in the rankings. The decision was made following the Southern Super Series parking him for illegally scuffing his tires on Friday at Pensacola.
Roderick believed he was within regulations and protested the tour by not racing at Mobile. Roderick still plans on racing at Gresham but is evaluating his full-time option following the conflict with Southern Super Series officials.
Stay tuned …
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