Pollard Wins, Earnest Crashes At Peach State

Only one driver this year had recorded more than one victory on the Georgia Asphalt Series tour. Bubba Pollard, of Senoia, had twice visited victory lane.

On Saturday night, he upped that number to three with a victory at Peach State Speedway.

It wasn’t an easy one to win, either. Piloting the number 42 normally driven by Tony Clark, Pollard first had to chase down Commerce racer Taylor Satterfield.

Then he had to duel longtime GAS series rival Paul Kelley, of Pendergrass, before pulling away for the win.

"This was possibly the most fun I ever had racing," said Pollard in victory lane. "Paul (Kelley) raced me clean and I'm thrilled to get Tony's (Clark) car in victory lane."

Kelley would finish second, despite a late spin off the fender of a lap car, and seemed equally as happy with his race against Pollard.

"Wow, that was a blast racing with Bubba," said Kelley. "I want to congratulate Bubba on his win."

Pollard started by setting a fast time in qualifying, but moved to the seventh starting spot after a driver inversion put 16-year old Casey Roderick into the top spot. Roderick, who just turned 16, was recently named as a development driver for the Bill Elliott Driver Development program. Elliott watched his young driver make his way to an eighth place finish from the spotter’s tower above the main grandstand.

Roderick led early, but was passed on lap 19 by Kelley and Satterfield. Satterfield moved out front, staying there for much of the race. But late in the going, Kelley and Pollard chased down the Commerce racer, and moved past as Satterfield began to fade.

Pollard and Kelley began battling for the top spot, and with eight laps remaining, Pollard made the final pass for the win.

GAS rookie Max Gresham finished third, David Hole was fourth and Commerce’s Lee Langford finished fifth. Satterfield, Russell Fleeman, Roderick, Brandon Johnson and Beau Slocomb rounded out the top ten.

With his seventh place finish, Fleeman took back the points lead for the GAS series from Ryan Sieg, who spent much of the race a lap down, and eventually finished 11th.

Fleeman holds a slim five-point lead going into the last two races.

The scariest moment of the night occurred in the first event of the evening, the local Mini-Stock division.

During a restart on lap seven of the caution-riddled event, the car of Lance Beck made contact with the turn two wall, then drifted down the track where he made contact with the car of Jefferson’s William Earnest.

Earnest’s car flipped side over side down the backstretch five or six times, finally coming to rest against the inside guardrail. Earnest climbed out of the car moments later, uninjured.

That accident came just one lap after the car of Shawn McIntyre, of Monroe, came to rest upside down in turn one after an accident on a restart. McIntyre was uninjured, and climbed out of the car on his own.

Spanky Hicks went on to win the event.

Other local division winners included Wes Whitfield in the Pro Truck division, and David Murphy in the Outlaw Late Models.

The next event at Peach State Speedway will be on Oct. 4, with the GAS series season finale, along with racing in all local divisions.