Special from Speed51.com – The opening day of CRA SpeedFest 2018 at Watermelon Capital Speedway was a great day for Georgia’s own Bubba Pollard. After a day on top of the practice charts, Pollard swept both qualifying sessions at the event, setting fast time for the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour and the ARCA/CRA Super Series in one evening, giving the humble native reason to smile on pit road after the conclusion of the day’s action.
“It’s just a starting spot. A lot of these guys have got good race cars. Ours just has some speed tonight. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow and the racetrack changes a lot. It’s going to get slick tomorrow during the day and hopefully we’ve got a good balance on the racecar and it’s good enough to last all race,” Pollard told Speed51.com.
When asked who would challenge him tomorrow in either the Pro or the Super Late Model ranks, Pollard stated bluntly, “The same guys that run up front, they’re going to be good tomorrow. It’s a long race so just make the right decisions in the pit and take our tires when we’re supposed to.”
Fellow Georgian Scotty Ellis qualified second on the Super Late Model grid to his own delight.
“It kind of shocked me. We had been pretty good all day. We just didn’t have any speed. But hey, somehow we did it. I am looking forward to tomorrow. I really think we have a good race car. I told the guys before qualifying we may not qualify good but we should definitely race good. This is kind of home to me so I hope we do good.”
Chase Purdy out of Meridian, Mississippi filled out the podium for the Super Late Model ranks. When asked if he thought he had anything for Pollard’s infamous No.26 Purdy replied, “I think we’ll be good during the race. We’ll see, we’ll see. I haven’t seen him (Pollard) much in race runs, but I’m sure he’ll be good. He’s Bubba Pollard, he’s Redneck Jesus so we’ll see.”
You can catch up on all the practice and qualifying action by checking out Speed51.com’s Trackside Now coverage presented by Jett Concrete and PFC Brakes here.
200 laps of Super Late Model Racing and 125 Laps of Pro Late Model racing are on the cards for tomorrow’s running of SpeedFest 2018 at Watermelon Capital Speedway. You can watch all the action live on Speed51.com’s Pay Per View available here.
SpeedFest 2018
ARCA/CRA Super Series
Qualifying Results
1 26 Bubba Pollard 15.634
2 83 Scotty Ellis 15.660
3 81 Chase Purdy 15.697
4 12 Harrison Burton 15.747
5 9 Jeff Choquette 15.809
6 18 Casey Roderick 15.820
7 14X Connor Okrzesik 15.855
8 17 Josh Brock 15.894
9 51L Raphael Lessard 15.901
10 23 Bronson Butcher 15.913
11 26S Chandler Smith 15.913
12 14 Carson Hocevar 15.913
13 71 Cayden Lapcevich 15.941
14 51 Stephen Nasse 15.956
15 07 Corey LaJoie 15.968
16 19 Brandon Jones 16.056
17 79 Kyle Bryant 16.113
18 24 Mason Diaz 16.115
19 5 Jerry Artuso 16.191
20 15 Austin Thaxton 16.192
21 10 Steve Dorer 16.206
22 20S Anthony Sergi 16.234
23 98 Justin Ashburn 16.253
24 17N Nick Neri 16.255
25 32 Stuart Dutton 16.343
26 58 John Coffman 16.890
27 58S Jeff Firestine 17.011
JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour
Qualifying Results
1 26 Bubba Pollard 15.848
2 9C Jeff Choquette 16.012
3 18 Casey Roderick 16.097
3 43 Justin South 16.097
5 71 Dawson Fletcher 16.102
6 5 Kyle Plott 16.116
7 20 Jack Dossey III 16.136
8 21J Brandon Johnson 16.138
9 5K Daniel Keene Jr. 16.152
10 7 Billy Nipper 16.153
11 9 Chris Dilbeck 16.159
12 23 Chris Koslek 16.221
13 78 Corey Heim 16.294
14 19 Brandon Jones 16.308
15 10 Steve Dorer 16.320
16 4 Kyle McCallum 16.322
17 17 Josh Brock 16.365
18 22 Brandon Herbert 16.409
19 16 David Hodges 16.486
20 24 Christoper Tullis 16.500
21 1 Josh Adkins 16.501
22 41H Taylor Holdaway 16.508
23 32 Harold Crooms 16.566
24 21 Ryan Herbert 16.575
25 27 Joe Ross 16.600
26 76 Jerick Johnson 16.621
27 23S Eddie Stewart 16.628
28 17H Blaise Hetznecker 16.657
29 35 Jake Garcia 16.684
30 38 Hunter Byrd 16.694
31 3 Shane Chastain 16.916
32 64 David Strode 17.128
33 41 Hayden Sprague 18.064
Photo By: Rich Corbett
