CORDELE, GA. — Bubba Pollard was the final driver to take time in the Super Late Model portion of SpeedFest qualifying and posted the fasted lap with a time of 15.613 seconds around the Watermelon Capital Speedway in Cordele, Georgia.
Pollard was also the fastest in final practice on Saturday afternoon and just edged out Scotty Ellis, David Ragan, Chase Elliott, and John Hunter Nemecheck, who completed the top-5.
Immediately following the session, Pollard drew an invert of five, placing John Hunter Nemechek and Chase Elliott on the front row for the 200-lap feature event at 2 p.m. on Sunday. When asked about the race, Pollard fresh off a victory three weeks ago in the Red Eye 100 at New Smyrna Speedway, was beaming with confidence.
“We’re just going to do the best we can,” Pollard said. “We’ve got a fast race car. I feel like we’re capable of winning so we’ll just do the best we can to put ourselves into position to do what we need to do.”
Elliott, the defending champion of the event, crashed his primary Super Late Model in the Snowball Derby last month and was forced to bring a different car to Cordele. However, he believes that this car is capable of winning, especially given his crew and front row starting position after the invert.
“We were not as fast as we would have liked to have been,” Elliott said. “But we’re going to make some adjustments and hopefully be there at the end.”
Watermelon Capital is a 3/8th-mile bullring that encourages side-by-side racing and frequent contact, but the two-time Speedfest winner believes the event is still fundementally similar to any short track event he’s previously participated in.
“That’s every race,” Elliott said of the beating and banging that is expected to occur on Sunday. “We can’t have a good day unless you’re around at the end so that’s always your goal, in that sense. There are a lot of good cars and drivers here so hopefully it will be a good show.”
David Ragan considers the Cordele his home track and acknowledged on Saturday that survival was key, but that a faster car would mean more at the end of the race.
“You have to feel comfortable and have a car that’s easy to drive,” Ragan said. “Fortunately for us, our car does drive good but there are some other good cars here as well — Chase Elliott, John Hunter Nemechek and Bubba Pollard.
“By no means will it be a cake walk.”
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Like Elliott, Nemechek thought he would have a little bit more speed but ended up on the front row anyway.
“I thought we would have had a little bit more, to tell you the truth,” Nemechek said. “I have to thank my guys back at the shop. We had a little incident here earlier in the week and we had to fix that car before we came back and so I give it up them for their hard work.”
The starting lineup for Speedfest 2015 can be found below.
- John Hunter Nemechek
- Chase Elliott
- David Ragan
- Scotty Ellis
- Bubba Pollard
- Jordan Pruitt
- Kyle Grissom
- Paul Shafer, Jr.
- Kyle Plott
- Harrison Burton
- Cole Timm
- Austin Wayne Self
- Mike Garvey
- Anderson Bowen
- Dominique Van Wieringen
- Dalton Armstrong
- Todd Gilliland
- Kyle Bryant
- Kyle McCallum
- Russell Fleeman
- Jordan Ives
- Chad Finley
- Brandon Oakley
- Ron Young
- Justin Ashburn
- Steve Renner
- Madeline Crane
- John Coffman
