April 26, 2024

Stephen Nasse kicked off this weekend’s Southern Super Series Gulf Coast Doubleheader with a victory at Five Flags Speedway in Blizzard Series Race 2 on Friday night, with the win being an impressive showing for his family-run team.

Nasse saw great success last season after collaborating with Anthony Campi Racing, but his family-run Super Late Model program struggled for the most part. This year, his program has won two premier Pro Late Model events at Cordele Motor Speedway and Montgomery Motor Speedway, with Friday’s win being their first Super Late Model win of the year.

A string of late-race restarts saw Nasse scrapping with Dawson Sutton and Casey Roderick for the lead, with Nasse ultimately beating Roderick to the line with Sutton finishing in third position.

“It was pretty smooth,” said Nasse on Friday’s racing. “I thought around lap 30 or so when we had one of our first cautions that we didn’t have a great car. We had actually even talked about coming in and making an adjustment on it when I was running third there, which I know sounds crazy.”

“I think Casey [Roderick] was better than me in the long run, but I think I was better in the short, and that’s what it came down to. Glad to beat those guys, and it was fun racing them clean. To get a win in my own car, first Super win of the season, feels good.”

The aforementioned caution that Nasse referenced was for the race leader at the time, Cole Butcher, who blew a tire on lap 26. Shortly thereafter, Bubba Pollard and Sean Hingorani collided and hit the outside wall in turn 3, ending their races as well.

Cautions and calamity were not overly abundant, but some teams are likely to head home and not continue the weekend’s Gulf Coast Doubleheader at Mobile International Speedway on Saturday due to damaged racecraft.

That certainly won’t be the case for Stephen Nasse, who has a chance at a $5,000 bonus if he can sweep the weekend. This of course would come on top of the $10,000 Nasse would stand to win at Mobile in addition to the $10,000 he has pocketed at Five Flags already.

“You’re looking at a bigger, faster race track,” said Stephen Nasse about Mobile International Speedway. “There’s a lot of bumps getting into [turn] 1 that we couldn’t quite figure out on our test day there. It’s gonna be a tough decision. We’re gonna want to run [Friday’s] car, but we have a car in the trailer already set up for [Mobile]. We’re gonna figure out what car we’re gonna run and hopefully collect that $5,000 bonus for getting both wins.”

Blizzard Series Race 2 Results:

1. Stephen Nasse
2. Casey Roderick
3. Dawson Sutton
4. Jake Finch
5. Michael Hinde
6. Jake Garcia
7. Jeremy Doss
8. Connor Okrzesik
9. Dustin Smith
10. Jacob Gomes
11. John Bolen
12. Dylan Fetcho
13. Billy VanMeter
14. Daniel Webster
15. Conner Sutton -1 lap
16. Blaise Rutherford -1 lap
17. Matt Craig -2 laps
18. Jett Noland -3 laps
19. Gavan Boschele -7 laps
20. Michael Goddard -15 laps
21. Sean Hingorani -63 laps
22. Bubba Pollard -63 laps
23. Cole Butcher -74 laps
24. Tony Elrod -82 laps
25. Timothy Watson -83 laps