Pollard Grabs CRA Win at Gresham and Top-Five at Montgomery

In a Double-Header Weekend of CRA Racing and the Alabama 200, Pollard Posts Strong Runs

Bubba Pollard accomplished a feat this weekend that only a

handful of drivers are truly capable of.  Pollard went into a

stacked weekend of Late Model action against some of the

best drivers in the country and came out with a win at

Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia and a top-five finish at

Alabama’s Montgomery Motor Speedway.

Saturday, Pollard took the checkers in the CRA Super Series

Southern Six Pack Second Annual George Elliott Memorial

Easy Racers 100 at Gresham Motorsports Park after holding

off TJ Reaid on several late-race restarts.

“Track position is so important here and it’s so hard to pass,” said Pollard of the race at Gresham.  “It’s tough down on the bottom and the car just slides around.  I knew we’d have to get out front.  We were able to get by TJ (Reaid) on a restart to get out front.  We had a good car that stayed with us all night long.  We weren’t sure what it was going to do, but it turned out good for us.”

A series of late-race restarts kept a hungry field of Super Late Model stars on his back bumper, but Pollard held strong in the final laps.

“I wasn’t worried (about the late restarts) because I knew we had a good racecar.  I’m okay with cautions.  Our car comes up to speed pretty good and the tires come in pretty quick.  I’m used to cautions here lately and it’s won us a couple races.  I knew our car was real good on restarts.  I knew I couldn’t make any mistakes.  It’s hard to get good restarts here, but luckily I did tonight.”

After two wins this season at the Jefferson, Georgia half-mile track, Pollard now has a strategy going into the track’s biggest race in November. 

“Just being out front and keeping our nose clean is the biggest thing,” said Pollard.  “We’ve changed a couple things up the past few races, but we also changed some things tonight so we were different tonight than we were before.  I think tonight was a good learning curve for us and hopefully we’ve got something going into the World Crown.”   

Following Saturday night’s win, Pollard headed home to grab a mere two hours of sleep and then loaded up for Montgomery Motor Speedway’s Alabama 200 on Sunday.  Pollard welcomed the challenge of starting at the back of the Pro Late Model field after missing practice and qualifying the day before and was looking make it two wins in a row for the weekend.  A late-race incident while leading sent him back to a fourth place finish, but it was still a strong end to a decorated weekend.

“Really, not having enough practice at a track we’ve struggled at because we don’t have as good of a baseline setup kind of hurt us,” said Pollard.  “So we had to change a couple things around for these last couple races and I think we hit on something that we could contend with.  With a few more adjustments we can get better over there.  So all in all I think starting in the back for such a long race and not having any sleep didn’t help either.  It was just a long race with a lot of cautions but overall a good run.

Many drivers would have shied away from having to start at the tail end of a field such as Pollard and other Southeastern Late Model stars such as Augie Grill and Chase Elliott did after racing Saturday at Gresham, but Pollard wasn’t one to back down from the challenge.

“I like things like that,” said Pollard.  “Me, Augie (Grill) and Chase (Elliott), we’ve got our setups and things together now and it’s pretty cool for the fans to get to see people come from the back like that and I enjoyed it.  I like doing something that’s different.  I had fun doing it, and that’s what matters – as long as you can have fun while you’re doing it.  We’ve been running well enough lately that we can do things like that so yea, I had fun. It was pretty cool.”

Pollard will be out to clinch the Sunoco Gulf Coast Championship this coming weekend, as he will tackle both Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida on Friday and Mobile International Speedway in Alabama on Saturday.  Points from both tracks are added for the big pay day in the SGCC and Pollard enters the weekend with a 31 point lead in the standings.

Bubba Pollard grabbed his second win of the season at Gresham Motorsports Park. (Speed51.com Photo)