{"id":5749,"date":"2011-03-26T16:01:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T16:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=5749"},"modified":"2011-03-26T16:04:18","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T16:04:18","slug":"pollard-wins-thrilling-blizzard-finish-as-2011-season-opens-with-a-bang-at-five-flags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/pollard-wins-thrilling-blizzard-finish-as-2011-season-opens-with-a-bang-at-five-flags\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollard Wins Thrilling Blizzard Finish As 2011 Season Opens With A Bang At Five Flags"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Five Flags Media Feature News<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-5754\" href=\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/pollard-wins-thrilling-blizzard-finish-as-2011-season-opens-with-a-bang-at-five-flags\/attachment\/bubbapollardfiveflags3-25-11-2\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5754\" title=\"BubbaPollardFiveFlags3-25-11\" src=\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BubbaPollardFiveFlags3-25-111.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"223\" \/><\/a><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>How do you like your racing?<\/p>\n<p>In your face or a methodical and calculated brand of door-to-door battles?<\/p>\n<p>The Super Late Models in the Blizzard Series gave a near-capacity crowd both on opening night at Five Flags Speedway.<\/p>\n<p>Bubba Pollard led just four laps Friday, but they all came down the stretch of the Pepsi Max 100.<\/p>\n<p>As he did to kick off the Blizzard Series season last year, Pollard  captured the victory, outlasting Grant Enfinger and Augie Grill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were able to take our time and be patient,\u201d said the Senoia, Ga.,  driver, who took the lead form Enfinger on Lap 96. \u201cEarly in the race,  we had some chances, but the door would close. That was OK, though.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed it was.<\/p>\n<p>Pollard followed Enfinger past Grill following the fourth and final restart with eight laps left Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Two of Five Flags wrinkles to the 2011 season proved extremely entertaining.<\/p>\n<p>The debut of new tire that has a different compound in it allowed the  drivers to comfortable run all 100 laps without ever having to worry  about wearing out.<\/p>\n<p>Fans also got a chance to see double-file restarts for the first time at Five Flags.<\/p>\n<p>Both Grill, who led the final two restarts, and Mike Garvey, who led the first two, chose the outside lane.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was real surprised when those guys picked the outside, but now I  know why they did,\u201d Pollard said. \u201cI jumped to the outside on the last  few laps and the car just stuck. It was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It proved wise early on, but came to bite Grill at the end.<\/p>\n<p>When he tried to get the jump on<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think the other cars were better than us at the end, I just  screwed up on the restart,\u201d said Grill, who led much of the race. \u201cThey  got by me and I couldn\u2019t get back up. The car was good. I may\u2019ve run it a  little too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Grill racing cars hard? Who would\u2019ve believed it?<\/p>\n<p>It came as no surprise to see Enfinger battling Pollard at the end.  The fastest car in qualifying at 16.477 seconds, Enfinger had to start  in eighth after a roll of the dice inverted the field.<\/p>\n<p>He bided his time before making his move, leading for Laps 93-95 before Pollard edged to the front.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew we could be patient and pick our time to push the envelope,\u201d  Enfinger said. \u201cEverything played perfectly. I thought we had the best  car at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pensacola\u2019s Johanna Long had a great car, too, for much of Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The reigning Snowball Derby queen and NASCAR trucks rookie driver was  running in the top five for most of the race before falling back to  10th.<\/p>\n<p>She watched quite a battled unfold between the top three.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was great racing,\u201d  Pollard said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s all about right there. Any three of  those cars could\u2019ve won tonight. That\u2019s what the fans come out to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Five Flags never disappoints.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Super Stocks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With the night beginning with a thrilling finish, it seemed only fitting that the night would end with another nail-biter.<\/p>\n<p>Bubba Winslow made a late push on the last two laps to edge Jesse Reid at the line in a photo-finish victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have to thank my dad,\u201d Winslow said. \u201cHe turns wrenches on (the car) like he\u2019s out there driving it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reid led the whole race until Winslow got him at very end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a good race,\u201d a disheartened Reid said. \u201cThe car got a little loose at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sportsmen<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The more things change, the more they stay the same for Steve Buttrick.<\/p>\n<p>Buttrick posted his 13th victory in the last calendar year dominating the field Friday just like he did all of last year.<\/p>\n<p>The Cantonment driver led every lap. Buttrick briefly was challenged  by Brannon Fowler, but did not let that faze him. He pulled away late to  win by several car lengths.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bombers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pace\u2019s Curtis Faircloth and Jay\u2019s Tally Warrick made it a one-two Santa Rosa County finish.<\/p>\n<p>Warrick passed Johnathan Day on Lap 13 of 20.<\/p>\n<p>It appeared the young Warrick would make a flawless transition from  the dirt at Milton\u2019s Southern Raceway to the half-mile asphalt oval of  Five Flags.<\/p>\n<p>But, the kid got loose coming out of Turn 4 on Lap 17 and Faircloth pounced. He never looked back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was good hard racing, I guess you could say,\u201d Faircloth said. \u201cWe put on a show for these folks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pepsi Max 100 results\u2014<\/strong>1. Bubba Pollard; 2. Grant  Enfinger; 3. Augie Grill; 4. Donnie Wilson; 5. T.J. Reaid; 6. Mike  Garvey; 7. David Rogers; 8. Travis Kittleson; 9. Josh Hamner; 10. Joanna  Long; 11. Scott Carlson; 12. Chris Davidson; 13. Dylan Presnell; 14.  Junior Niedecken; 15. Dwyane Buggay; 16. Clay Alexander; 17. Allen  Karnes; 18. Gary Sullivan; 19. Jeremy Pate; 20. D.J. VanderLey; 21. Ryan  Crane; 22. Bobby Good Jr.; 23. Thomas Praytor; 24. Ron McDonald; 25.  Daniel Hemric<\/p>\n<p><strong>Super Stock results\u2014<\/strong>1.Bubba Winslow; 2.Jessie Reid;  3. Shannon Jackson; 4. John Shuffler; 5. Randy Thompson; 6. Joe Mahuron;  7. Darin Matthews; 8. Mike Moore<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sportsmen<\/strong> <strong>results\u2014<\/strong>1. Steve  Buttrick; 2. Brannon Fowler; 3.Michael Couture; 4. Chris Nielsen; 5. Jim  Pokrant; 6. Mark Montgomery; 7. Tina Davidson; 8. Marty White; 9.  Justin Babb; 10. Todd Jones<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bombers results\u2014<\/strong>1. Curtis Faircloth; 2. Tally  Warrick; 3. Johnathan Day; 4. Kenny Bullard; 5. Gary Goodwin; 6. Johnny  Greene Jr.; 7. Brandon Burks; 8. James L. Beal III; 9. Courtney  Rodrigues; 10. Tony Boyd; 11. Leonard Craig Jr.; 12. Tracy Soles; 13.  John Burks; 14. Benny R. Bender; 15. Thom \u201cDoc\u201d Crosslin; 16. Brian  Lane; 17. Robert Balkum; 18. Hunter Ward; 19. William C. Davis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five Flags Media Feature News How do you like your racing? In your face or a methodical and calculated brand of door-to-door battles? The Super [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-five-flags-speedway","category-front-page-news","category-race-results"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5749"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5753,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5749\/revisions\/5753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}