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Bounty Slapped Down as Incentive to Try to End GARC’s Blizzard Series Dominance

By Chuck Corder

There’s no love lost between Casey Smith and Augie Grill.

The bad blood between two of Five Flags Speedway’s most popular Super Late Model drivers is a deep crimson.

If Smith saw Grill stranded somewhere on I-10, suffice to say Smith wouldn’t pull over. Heck, he might even try to smoke the tires as he flew past Grill.

“I don’t like him, and I’m pretty sure he feels the same way about me,� Smith, 27, said. “He has purposely wrecked me in the past. He drives over his head sometimes and doesn’t think twice about it.

“It’s just one of those things that when you race Augie Grill, you know he’s going to lay the bumper to you.�

So the news this week that Five Flags has placed a $513 bounty in Blizzard Series events to end Grill’s Grand American Race Cars supremacy was music to Smith’s ears.

First crack to take the money and run will come at the Papa John’s 100 on Friday night. It will be the second of five Buddy’s Home Furnishings Blizzard races this season all leading up to the 45th annual Snowball Derby in December.

Sportsmen and Bombers also continue their respective seasons when the gates open at 5 p.m. Friday. An autograph session also is anticipated.

Admission to the grandstands is as follows: $15 adults, $14 seniors, $12 military/students (ages 12 thru 17), $5 children ages 6 to 11 and free for kids under 6. Pit passes are $25.

Drivers steering GARC-made Super Late Models have won a mind-boggling 13 straight Blizzard Series races. That’s a stretch that spans more than 2 years.

Smith — who makes the 12-hour trek to Pensacola from Austin, Texas, for race nights — drives a Hamke chassis and configures a lot of the geometry that goes into his No. 99 himself.

With his ill feelings toward Grill, he’d love to be the one to collect that bounty come Friday.

“It definitely would mean a lot to do that,� Smith said. “I think (GARC has) got something really going at Pensacola, but a lotta good drivers have their stuff. You put any of those drivers in any car, give ’em a couple races and they’d win anything.�

That is the central counter argument for guys, such as Smith, who are chasing cars that come out of the GARC facility in Birmingham, Ala.

The 13 checkered flags have been won by only three drivers. It just so happens that Grill, Chase Elliott and Bubba Pollard are always the cream of the crop of any field they enter whether they are at the famed half-mile, asphalt oval or elsewhere.

They are especially tough at Pensacola’s high banks, though. It’s just a shame the man chiefly responsible for GARC’s success can’t sit back and prop his feet up to bask in this remarkable achievement.

“I don’t have time to really enjoy it, but I definitely think it’s a pretty good accomplishment,� said Grill, the defending Blizzard Series track champion. “I hope and pray this weekend we’ll live up to challenge and outrun those other guys.�

Grill’ hands will be full Friday.

Elliott, the reigning Snowball champion and winner of the Blizzard opener last month, will not be in Friday’s field after competing in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown on Thursday in Richmond, Va.

Grill is confident client Grant Enfinger’s return to Five Flags gives GARC another legitimate shot to continue its run of destiny.

“Customers are big part of what we do,� said Grill, who has won two Blizzard races himself in each of the last three years. “Hopefully we’ll keep that up and have the car right to take it to victory lane.�

Mike Garvey is one of the odds-on favorites to spoil the streak. Garvey steers a Port City Racecar in an homage to his Michigan roots.

“The first job I ever had was sweeping floors at Port City,� he remembered. “Then it went from building cars to racing for ’em. I decided a few years ago I started with them, so I’ll finish with ’em, too.�

Garvey believes GARC’s success can be directly attributed to saturating the Blizzard lineup.

“It’s just mass numbers; 75 percent of the cars in the field seem to be GARC,� he said. “(Port City with Garvey’s help is) trying to change that. We’re taking baby steps and going from there. The more people we get in cars and hopefully it’ll just keep snowballing.�

Smith hopes Friday to erase his personal string of bad luck at Five Flags while ending GARC’s string of good luck.

And he hopes it all comes at the expense of Grill.

“I want me to be first and (Grill) to be second,� Smith said.

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