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Pollard Sets Own Bar, Looks to Maintain Blizzard Series lead at Friday’s Rubber & Specialties 100

By Chuck Corder

Expectations tend to be more curses than blessings.

Personal goals are one thing. Those seem to get the competitive juices flowing.

When others set the proverbial bar for you, though, expectations become more about pressure than motivation.

Take Bubba Pollard.

The Senoia, Ga., driver is enjoying a nice, respectable season as he brings his No. 26 Super Late Model into Five Flags Speedway for Friday’s Rubber and Specialties 100.

With a pair of fourth-place finishes, Pollard sits atop the Blizzard Series points standings heading into the year’s third race.

Super Stocks, Sportsmen and Bombers will also swap paint at Pensacola’s high banks when the gates open at 5 p.m.

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.

But, it was 2011’s season for the ages inside his late model rides that left a lasting impression and, thus, created unreasonable standards from his legions of fans.

Pollard counted 19 wins, three season-long series points titles, the Five Flags Speedway track record — at the Snowball Derby, no less — among his many accomplishments.

How does a driver come anywhere near duplicating that? The short answer is you don’t, a reality Pollard admits.

“Of course, you wanna win 20 races again,� he said, “but that was pretty much an impossible season that we had. You don’t run across any racer that wins 20 a year. That took a lotta luck.�

Through the first half of this season, Pollard’s luck has been hit and miss.

While he’s sporting the same kind of consistency he enjoyed in ’11 with a remarkable 10 top-5s in 14 races — he had 12 in 16 races at this point last year — Pollard only boasts one win.

He had earned five checkered flags by last Memorial Day weekend.

“Last year, we had a lot better racecar than what we’ve had so far this year,� Pollard said.

As some of Pollard’s patrons expect more wins, the driver himself has expectations for big-picture wins that includes some of short-track racing’s holy grail of races.

In a shocking move, Pollard spilt with crew chief Ronnie Sanders as the calendar flipped to 2012.

“Everything’s fine,� he said. “We decided to go different ways. He was wanting to stay around and run down here in the South. I was ready to do something different. I’m not trying to achieve the same thing again. I want to challenge and push myself.�

The abrupt ending to the pair’s three-year partnership stunned the short-track world, but Pollard knew the writing was on the wall for the two, which remain amicable with one another.

“We’ve won races on our own before,� he continued. “It’s part of racing. I’m happy where I’m at. People didn’t realize, those were my racecars out there winning. We just took my stuff and Ronnie stuff and put it all together.

“It’s our goal this year, to win the big races like the Rattler, which we won, the All-American 400, the World Crown and, of course, the Snowball. I’ll give up 20 races a year to win some of these bigger races.�

To that end, Pollard competed in the ARCA race at Mobile International Speedway earlier this year and said there are plans in the cars for more.

He will drive alongside a handful of Cup drivers at the Howie Lettow Memorial next month in Milwaukee and then follow that up the next week with Kyle Busch’s short-track extravaganza, which too features NASCAR’s elite.

The schedule tweaks also means Pollard dramatically cut the number of Pro Late Model events he’ll compete in, simple math telling us a quest for 20 is extinct.

“When you race 50 a year, you’re gonna win more,� he said. “But with the percentage down, I only can win 10 to 15 a year.�

At 25, Pollard has a true vision of what it will take to be successful.

“You want to test yourself and see new things and challenges,� he said. “You want to step outside boundaries and push myself to reach new goals and have fun doing it.�

And those are the only expectations Bubba Pollard concerns himself with these days.

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