Bubba Pollard wins inaugural Southern Super Late Model Series race at Nashville

NASHVILLE -- Bubba Pollard had the field covered in Saturday’s Southern Super Series debut event but the victory did not come without a few late race dramatics. Pollard had pulled away to a two second lead over Daniel Hemric with six laps to go when Tyler Miles spun out brought out the first of several late race cautions.

The Southern Super Series does not count caution laps and one lap following a restart must be completed or else the field reverts to a complete restart. That was the case on the first restart as well, where Pollard again pulled away from Hemric but a spin-and-collect triggered by Hunter Robbins again brought the field to a complete restart.

But like clockwork, Pollard pulled away on the final restart, without incident and scored the inaugural victory in the new Southeastern -based Super Late Model Stock Car Series.

Pollard last visited Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville in Oct., where he finished second to Ross Kenseth in a controversial decision that involved rain and several aborted restarts on a slippery race track. Pollard was working on Kenseth for the lead when the final yellow of that race fell and had to believe that Nashville owed him one.

Pollard had not won in Music City USA and simply believed that luck just hadn’t been on his side.

“We struggled a little bit here with different tire compounds in the past,” Pollard said. “We just had a simply dominant car today - one of the best I have had in a long time. It was a lot of fun to drive.”

Pollard started on the outside pole alongside Stephen Nasse but quickly beat him into turn one. He proceeded to lead every single lap in the first half of the race, leading up to a halftime break on lap 75 where he tossed a six in the Southern Super Series dice roll inversion process.

Pollard did however pick up 10 points for leading at halfway and surrendered the lead to Hemric who was the beneficiary of the invert. Hemric had the opportunity to make contact with Pollard on each of the final restarts but raced him clean - a fact not lost on the Georgia-native.

“Daniel raced me real clean,” Pollard said. “I was a little worried about that invert because I didn’t want to get stuck in the back. Hemric was good but we were too and wanted it after finishing second in the 400 last year.”

Pollard quickly moved from sixth to third on the second-half restart on lap 75 and was challenging for the lead by lap 77. Pollard would eventually take the top spot and lap 95 and never relinquished it.

The next event for the Southern Super Series is the Racing Radios 125 on Apr. 27 at Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson, Ga.

The full results can be found below. Expect a first-ever points printout to come within a few hours and expect Bubba Pollard to be leading that list, assuming he passes chief inspector Ricky Brooks’ technical inspection.