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| Turner Wins Snowball Derby | by Gordon Paulus
PENSACOLA, Fla. (Dec. 8, 2002) - The 35th Snowball Derby went 305 laps Sunday.
Winner Ricky Turner drove hard for 306 laps.
He passed Chris Davidson on the final lap to win the Late Model race at Five Flags Speedway and earn $25,000.
Turner, 29, of Dawsonville, Ga., had a tinted visor on his helmet and couldn't tell in the darkness if the white flag or checkered flag was waving.
"I couldn't see much, so I stayed in the gas and kept going," Turner said. "I was pretty sure it was the checkered, but I didn't want to take no chances.
"To have your name amongst the people who have won this thing, it's unbelievable. That's a lot of heroes."
He also put his name in the record book. His win from the 34th starting position in his Ford Taurus broke the mark held by Gary St. Amant, who started 32nd in his 2000 victory.
Rich Bickle finished second, followed by Charlie Bradberry, Chris Davidson and Hal Goodson. Polesitter Jeremy Pate was involved in a late crash and finished 20th. Defending champion Wayne Anderson was eighth.
Turner pitted for fresh tires for the final time with 50 laps left and resumed racing in the 15th position.
"It was the call of the race," he said. "I told (his crew), that was the time to pit. It worked out. It won us the race."
Over the final 40 laps, there were five caution periods and two red-flag periods because of crashes. Ten of the top 15 drivers were involved in the incidents.
That allowed Turner to move to second behind Davidson. On the final two laps, Turner ducked underneath him in Turn 1, then held off Bickle on the final lap.
Bickle led with 20 laps left when he pitted for fresh tires. He said if the race had gone one more lap, he would have caught Turner and won his sixth Snowball Derby.
"Whew, they knew I was here," said Bickle, who hadn't driven his Chevrolet Monte Carlo since his Snowball Derby victory in 1999. "This is a 10-year-old race car. We took it out of the mothballs, dusted it off, put valve springs in and a battery and brought it here. I love this old race car."
The race had 17 caution periods for 144 laps -- almost half the race.
When it ended, there were more cars that looked like modifieds than Late Models.
The first one was Pensacola's Scott Carlson, who started eighth. He was spun out on the first lap, forcing his crew to remove his hood for the rest of the race. He was bidding for a $10,000 bonus after winning the Snowflake 100 on Saturday, but finished 26th when he was caught in a crash.
Other drivers appeared on their way to winning before crashes took them out.
Bobby Gill led twice for 55 laps, but crashed when his rear end broke on lap 268.
Ten laps later, Hal Goodson hit the wall on the frontstretch when Turner got into him.
"There's still a lot of idiots out here," Goodson said. "There was no sense getting torn up on a restart."
Turner said he was pushed into Goodson by a lap car.
"It was an unfortunate deal there," Turner said. "I hate it for him. I think it's just a racing deal."
Another dominant driver, Freddie Query, was involved in the final two cautions. After leading three times for 112 laps, he pitted for fresh tires on lap 271.
On lap 288, he spun J.R. Norris, who was running fourth. Then on the restart, Justin Drawdy spun Query into the wall on the frontstretch.
Turner had dominated in winning the first two Snowball Challenge Series races at the track earlier in the year.
But his Snowball Derby qualifying time wasn't fast, and he earned the final second-round qualifying spot to start 34th. He didn't think he had a chance to win.
"There was a heap of great race cars starting in front of us," he said. "I was hoping to get a good finish, then we got to racing."
He worked his way up to 14th, then had to stop for a pileup on the frontstretch on lap 90. His engine stalled, dropping him back in the field.
But Turner eventually worked his way back to the front.
The damage on his car came in Victory Lane when he did a burnout. He got on the gas a little too much and hit the frontstretch wall.
"I normally don't do that, because I have to work on it and put it back together."
Turner, who does machine work for Winston Cup engine builder Ernie Elliott, said he probably would take today off rather than report to work.
"It might be hard to get me in there tomorrow," he said. "I'm supposed to, but I might have to call in sick."
RESULTS
Start Driver Car Finish
34 Ricky Turner 28 1
29 Rich Bickle 45 2
32 Charlie Bradberry 78 3
17 Chris Davidson 14 4
26 Hal Goodson 16 5
31 Tim Fryer 6 6
9 Justin Drawdy 12 7
20 Wayne Anderson 84 8
19 Travis Kittleson 88 9
27 David Rogers 11 10
22 Joel Kaufman 44 11
23 Jack Landis 70 12
36 Gary St. Amant 86 13
25 Richard Fincher 9 14
4 Paul Kelley 10 15
6 Ronnie Sanders 18 16
33 Johnny Henderson 26 17
24 Reed Sorenson 29 18
14 Freddie Query 8 19
1 Jeremy Pate 22 20
18 J.R. Norris 11 21
12 Darrell Brown 58 22
7 Clay Rogers 2 23
16 Bobby Gill 1 24
21 T. Wade Welch 13 25
8 Scott Carlson 38 26
2 Dave Mader III 118 27
15 Greg Davidson 96 28
28 Mike Garvey 17 29
30 Donald Long 40 30
37 Stanley Smith 49 31
38 Shane Chastain 3 32
3 Kyle Busch 5 33
13 Dale Little 99 34
5 Wayne Niedecken, Jr. 21 35
35 Wes Loyd 57 36
10 John Wilkinson, III 59 37
11 David Hole 0 38
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