LUCAMA, NC :: Stephen Nasse and Steven Wallace bounced off each other several times during the closing stages of the Super Late Model portion of the CARS Tour season opener on Saturday night at Southern National Motorsports Park.
The back-and-forth began on lap 129 when Wallace drove Nasse down to the apron to defend the seventh position. Nasse nudged him as a result and they spent the next two laps seemingly attempting to retaliate against each other.
Nasse ultimately got by and finished seventh while Wallace slid back to 11th by the finish. They confronted each other after the race and simply agreed to disagree.
“Typical stuff man,” Wallace said. “It was just hard racing. At the end of the day, I’m a hard racer and he is too. He’s a good guy and we’ll race each other hard for years to come.”
Nasse largely agreed.
“I was just a little bit faster than him,” Nasse said. “He just came over and we talked about it. It’s just racing. You know, this track, it’s so hard to pass and he was hugging the bottom. If I drove into the corner, I would just spin my tires and you try not to do that to the best of your ability.”
Despite the complications, both drivers walked away relatively satisfied. Wallace struggled in the first half of the race but felt as if he established a notebook on the American Racer tire and his chassis by the end of the race.
“I feel really good about it,” Wallace said. “We work really hard and we had a good car that ran really fast. We just have to be a tick better.”
Nasse largely felt the same about his efforts.
“When me and Wallace got into each other, I had to get back around him and get back around the next one and by that point, I just ran out of time. We had a good day. We stayed with the leaders and who knows what could have happened if I had been able to get around Garbo — we were about even.”
Recap and Results –> http://race22.com/cole-timm-stuns-all-star-cast-at-southern-national/
Grissom Rebounds From Rattler 250
Kyle Grissom and his team worked endless hours in the two weeks following the Rattler 250. Their car was destroyed in the Southern Super Series season opener at South Alabama and it had to be rebuilt for the CARS Tour X1R Performance 300 at Southern National.
The work paid off on Saturday night as Grissom and his 42 crew scored a third place with a car that wasn’t even drivable 13 days ago.
“We just had to work hard after Opp,” Grissom said. “I can’t thank everyone that helps me enough. We worked every day to come back here after Opp.
“It felt good to come back and have a strong run. I like this CARS Series and I like being a part of it. It’s a great track for us here at Southern National and we had a great weekend.”
Grissom has to be considered the best in class after finishing third to Cole Timm and Christopher Bell — two drivers who were in a totally different zip code for a majority of the race. Grissom was especially satisfied after qualifying 13th and not exactly blazing through the field in the first half of the event.
“I don’t think we had anything for the leaders,” he said. “We were really good on the long run. Based on our lap times, we were pretty much about equal to them. But it took me five or six laps to get going so a late race caution might have hurt me.
“So we probably finished about where we should have. The car was good. We had to start further back than we wanted to but we finished about where we should have.”
Learning Lesson for Lyons in Lucama
Unofficial Championship Standings
- Cole Timm 35 (Ldr.)
- Christopher Bell -2
- Kyle Grissom -5
- Bubba Pollard -6
- Anderson Bowen -7
- David Garbo, Jr. -8
- Stephen Nasse -9
- Trevor Noles -10
- Clay Jones -11
- Quinn Houff -12
- Steve Wallace -13
- Lucas Ransone -14
- Chris Davidson -15
- Grant Gallaway -16
- Kaz Grala -17
- Stephen Leicht -18
- Nick Robinson -19
- Brandon Lynn -20
- Chris Fontaine -21
- Gus Dean -22
- Matt Craig -23
- Kiel Spaulding -24
- Nick Leitz -25
- Clay Rogers -26
- Harrison Burton -27
- Robby Lyons -28
- Brandon Setzer -29
- Zane Smith -30
- Lucas Jones -31
