Editor’s note: This continues a series where we review the top 20 drivers in 2023 NASCAR Cup Series points.
Season in review: Daniel Suárez
No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Crew Chief: Travis Mack Final 2023 Ranking: 19th Key stats: 0 wins, three top fives, 10 top 10s, 48 laps led, one pole position
How 2023 ended: After an up-and-down regular season, Suárez missed the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and earned a pair of top-10 finishes — an eighth place at Texas followed the next week with a 10th place at Talladega — while finishing outside the top 30 three times in that final 10-race stretch. He led laps — 12 at Kansas — once in that span and finished 19th in the championship standings following a 10th-place showing in the 2022 title run.
Best race: Primarily considering finishing order, Suárez peaked with a fourth-place showing at California Speedway in the second race of the season. His highest laps-led output was 12 laps at both Michigan in the summer and then the Kansas playoff race.
Other season highlights: The popular Mexican-born driver started the season in much of the way he finished the previous — out front. He opened the year with three consecutive top-10 finishes — including a career-best seventh place in the Daytona 500, a season-best fourth place at California and then 10th place at Las Vegas meaning he was ranked fourth in the championship standings heading to Phoenix to close out the early-season West Coast Swing. He finished outside the top 20 in the next five races, however, putting the team in rebound mode by the start of the summer.
Stat to Know: Suárez earned the pole position for the August race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, his first pole in four seasons and the third of his career. His average starting position in 2023 of 16.6 is third best in his seven-year Cup Series career.
Quotable: “Sometimes you have years that things go your way and you can see the results and growth and sometimes you have seasons that are signs of lessons you have to take to be able to improve. Everything is a roller-coaster and everything is a lesson and I think this year, we have had a season where we have to get better.” — Suárez
Looking ahead: Speaking to the media during the Phoenix season-ending weekend, Suárez was admittedly disappointed and clearly frustrated with his 2023 output. Having earned his first career Cup Series victory in 2022 (at Sonoma), he had high expectations for his No. 99 Trackhouse Racing team last year and was ultimately unsatisfied. Suárez said he canceled some of his upcoming off-season vacations to spend more time at the shop “because I know we have work to do.” He says it’s really “the little things” that need to be tuned up and insists he wants to be a championship contender, not to “win a race once in a while.”
NASCAR engineers involved with the Garage 56 project that sent a Next Gen-based stock car to the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year have won the Dino Toso Racecar Aerodynamicist of the Year award for their innovations in the field of motorsports.
The honor was presented last week during the Race Tech World Motorsport Symposium at the Embassy of Switzerland in London. On hand to receive the award were Dr. Eric Jacuzzi, NASCAR Vice President of Vehicle Performance, and Brandon Thomas, NASCAR VP of Vehicle Design. Both NASCAR officials were panelists at the annual conference, discussing the development of the Garage 56 entry.
Among the other finalists for the award were the Formula 1 champion Oracle Red Bull Racing team and Scuderia Ferrari, which won Le Mans with its new 499P Hypercar. A global panel of industry experts served as judges for the award, which was first presented in 2005 and is named for the late Dino Toso — a two-time honoree for his work with the Renault F1 team.
The Garage 56 initiative successfully competed in the 100th-anniversary running of the 24-hour classic June 10-11 in France. The project was a collaborative effort among NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet and Goodyear to produce a modified Chevy Camaro ZL1 built for the rigors of the endurance event. Those modifications included specially designed aerodynamic components to make the NASCAR Cup Series’ Next Gen platform competitive in an international field of sports cars on the 8.467-mile Circuit de la Sarthe.
The Garage 56 entry — which was entered into the race’s official results but was ineligible for a class or overall victory in the single-entry “Innovative Car” classification — completed 2,413 miles in the event with an all-star rotation of Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson and Mike Rockenfeller splitting driver duties.
NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney will have a new spotter in the stand in 2024.
Josh Williams, Blaney’s longtime spotter, announced Monday via X that he is departing the No. 12 Team Penske group ahead of the new campaign. Tim Fedewa will take over the headset for Blaney beginning next season, a Team Penske spokesperson confirmed Monday night.
Last weeks NASCAR banquet was my last call as spotter for the 12 team and Team Penske. After 9 years it was time to personally and professionally make a change for myself and my family. Im forever grateful to everyone I’ve gotten to work with at TP, especially those that have… pic.twitter.com/ELtV7aRpjS
Williams has served as Blaney’s eyes in the spotters’ stand since 2015, when Blaney made 16 Cup starts for Wood Brothers Racing. In addition to this year’s Cup title, the Williams-Blaney duo collected 10 wins together as well as a $1 million payday in the exhibition 2022 NASCAR All-Star Race.
“It’s been a fun ride for the past 9 years together, from all the race wins to the championship,” Blaney said in a post on X. “No better way to go out together than on top! You’re one of the very best brother. Cheers.”
Williams’ future plans have not yet been announced.
Fedewa spent the last 10 seasons spotting for 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, guiding “The Closer” around the track during his entire tenure at Stewart-Haas Racing. Together, Fedewa and Harvick won 37 Cup races. A Michigan native, Fedewa made 333 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts as a driver, collecting four victories, 25 top fives and 66 top 10s behind the wheel.
Blaney is one of six drivers scheduled to partake in a two-day test at Phoenix Raceway beginning Tuesday ahead of the 2024 season.
Six drivers are set to hit Phoenix Raceway for a two-day NASCAR Cup Series short-track test session, with plenty on the docket ahead of the 2024 season.
Team Penske’s 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney will return to the track in which he claimed his series championship as one of the six drivers testing. Others are Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones and Spire Motorsports’ Corey LaJoie as NASCAR officials hope to improve the Next Gen car in a variety of areas.
“I would say we have a pretty long laundry list of items being tested,” Chris Popiela, NASCAR’s senior director of aerodynamics, told NASCAR.com. “It’s kind of just a collection of items that we’ve been working on throughout the year with feedback from the drivers and the industry. We’ve kind of categorized them into specific departments – we’ve got aero, some of the gearbox changes for handling shifting, we’re looking at design changes on our mufflers and some things that we can do to help control the heat inside the cockpit, and then we’re going to have an array of tire configurations that Goodyear is working with us on.”
Each of the four designated areas warrants its own checklists across the two days, with various goals to work toward – all in hopes of raising the quality of racing on short tracks over the next season.
“When we left Richmond (after a separate summer test), we were trying to make sure that we looked through all the data and if there was anything that we could improve upon,” Popiela said. “And we certainly did through CFD (computational fluid dynamics) testing and wind tunnel testing. And the hope there from an aero perspective is to make sure we bring the best possible package and improve on the short-track and road-course package.”
A significant portion of the test will be dedicated to determining the right steps to take with tires. Goodyear brought a tire compound with thicker treads to run at Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway at the end of the season using lessons learned from the aforementioned Richmond test, and that tire was received well by drivers and teams alike. Half of the first day at the upcoming Phoenix test will revolve around tires.
“We decided to use the initial baseline package – so essentially what we raced earlier this month as a baseline package,” Popiela said. “And then Goodyear is going to spend about three to four hours doing tire configuration changes. I think they were pretty successful on what they brought to Martinsville and Phoenix as well. We’re building off of that. So that’s a pretty important thing to do and in parallel with all the aero package changes that we’re doing.
“I think that’s why we have the tire test kind of leading the test and really getting some driver feedback and feedback from the technical people on the teams to get the best selection of tire and then move forward with the rest of the test afterward.”
Goals surrounding the gearbox include adjustments that would limit or eliminate the frequent shifting that drivers currently find necessary on short tracks. Separately, decibel levels were successfully lowered with the introduction of mufflers at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Chicago Street Course, but internal cockpit temperatures remained high enough to warrant further examination into making driving conditions more tolerable for the drivers.
“I think, overall, when I look at this test, I think it’s a really collaborative effort,” Popiela said. “It’s really worked with the cadence of these types of tests where it’s six cars from different organizations and two from each OEM, which is really helpful. It’s worked really well. And I think having the ability to do group runs and have a lot of driver feedback and a lot of collaboration has been really key in moving things forward.”
Blaney, who won the Cup Series championship at Phoenix one month ago, is eager to drive his No. 12 Team Penske Ford all over again with a clearer picture of what the sport’s officials are hoping to extract from the test.
“We had a pretty good run though of what they’re gonna do procedure-wise when we had our meeting with NASCAR before the season ended, so I have a pretty good idea,” Blaney said Thursday ahead of the NASCAR Awards in Nashville. “I don’t know if it’s changed or not, but I am ready to get back behind the wheel. I think that will be nice. It’ll give me a pretty good break. It will actually let me focus on doing productive things for a little bit, so I am excited. Hopefully, we find some good stuff at that test. I know we’ve got a lot of things to try, and hopefully, we can improve that package a little bit.
… “I think you’re just looking for what path we can continue to go down to try to help it out, so hopefully, we can find some of those things, and I think that will make it fairly successful.”
RFK Racing’s Buescher had a breakout season with three wins in 2023, one of which came on the 0.75-mile Richmond Raceway.
“I think the biggest thing we want is just to see how to get better racing, better opportunities,” Buescher said. “Looking for tire fall off. You’re looking for less dirty air. You know, we’ve gone through and talked about it throughout the last couple years plenty and what we feel is right. I feel like I’m still a proponent for more horsepower and still feel like that’s a strong candidate.
“There’s a lot of things that we want to try out and figure out if it can improve our product. Personally, I thought the last Phoenix race, passing was fairly decent there. I think that not spraying PJ1 down kind of let the track go back to a more natural state, and as it’s aged, that’s creating a little bit of racing in itself. So not gonna say that covers up some of the obvious races that we struggled at this year … but I do think that some of that will come just from us learning – learning race cars, learning these tracks and how to make these cars better at them. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to get the racing to where we feel like we can not be so (reliant) on clean air when we go short-track racing essentially.”
Indeed, that feedback made its way to NASCAR’s aero department, helping determine next steps in the journey toward better short-track racing.
“The package that we’re fine-tuning, the point of that is to improve the car when it’s in traffic,” Popiela said. “An ideal situation is if a car in traffic performs as if it was by itself. That’s always the number one goal. So the idea of this package – and I think we’ve gotten the backing from the industry of all the data and all the CFD data and all the wind tunnel data that we’ve shown them and that they’ve been a part of – is that this is a step in the right direction.”
Chase Elliott will have a new spotter for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, Hendrick Motorsports confirmed Monday.
Eddie D’Hondt announced his departure from the team via X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday, marking the end of a 12-year tenure at Hendrick and parting ways with Elliott after eight years atop the stand for the six-time most popular driver.
Been a helluva run.. 12yrs, 26 wins, 2020 Champs🏆 Thank you to: Mr. Hendrick @JeffGordonWeb@chaseelliott Alan Gustafson👉468 races together, 26 wins & a🏆. Lastly, my dude Kevin Hamlin.🫶
A career to many, a wonderful lifetime memory, for us all.
D’Hondt formerly spotted for Jeff Gordon for four years ahead of his time with Elliott, sticking with what was then the No. 24 team after Gordon’s 2015 retirement. D’Hondt was victorious six times with Gordon and was on the radio for all 18 of Elliott’s Cup Series wins so far, which includes the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship to boot.
A spokesperson for Hendrick Motorsports said the team is still solidifying plans for who will serve as Elliott’s spotter in 2024 and beyond, while D’Hondt has not yet announced his future plans.
Editor’s note: This is the beginning of a series where we review the top 20 drivers in 2023 NASCAR Cup Series points.
Season in review: Alex Bowman
No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Crew Chief: Blake Harris Final 2023 Ranking: 20th Key stats: 0 wins, four top fives, 10 top 10s, 89 laps led
How 2023 ended: Bowman did not qualify for the playoffs for the first time in the six seasons he’s driven the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevy full-time. He had only two top-10 finishes (at Kansas and the Charlotte Roval) and led laps in only two races in the final 10-race stretch to close the season. This marked the first time since 2019 that Bowman did not earn a victory and the first time since 2018 that he did not qualify for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Best race: Bowman’s best finish of the season was third place — something he did at Las Vegas and matched at the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) road course. His 19 laps led at Michigan was his largest one-race tally this season.
Other season highlights: The irony of Bowman’s uncharacteristically lackluster season finish was that he started the year off so strongly. He had top-10 finishes in six of the first seven races, including the season’s first four events. His fifth-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 was a career-best in that race at that track. Bowman added two pole positions to his career total, earning a third pole position for the Daytona 500 and then another in April at Richmond, where he led laps and finished eighth. He finished outside the top 20 only once — 29th place in the Bristol dirt event — in the opening 10 races of the season before he suffered a back injury driving a sprint car in a mid-week race.
Stat to Know: Bowman earned his third career pole position for the Daytona 500 and became the first driver in history to start from the front row in six straight Daytona 500 races.
Quotable: “So many bad days, I didn’t have a choice because the way 2023 has gone for me on and off the race track, I had to figure it out. That’s just part of life. Regardless of what the stat sheet shows, I feel like I’ve learned a lot this year and hopefully am better for it.”
Looking ahead: Bowman has had an unusually tough road the last two seasons, missing three races this year after suffering a severe back injury while competing in a mid-week sprint car race and missing five races in 2022 because of concussion protocol. When having the opportunity to contest an entire season in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy, however, Bowman has turned in promising statistics and made a run at the title, winning a single-season career-high four races in 2021 and finishing a career-best sixth in the championship in 2020. He’s with a championship team in a championship car, and if he can stay healthy, Bowman should be a weekly race favorite and, ultimately, a title contender.
PENSACOLA, Fla. – Ty Majeski has seen wins in the Snowball Derby slip away from him on many occasions.
During Sunday’s 56th running of the Super Late Model race at Florida’s Five Flags Speedway, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver thought it was happening again.
Majeski, the 2020 winner of the 300-lap endurance test at the challenging half-mile oval, had just lost the lead after a gripping, multi-lap battle with Stephen Nasse that saw the two exchange the top spot no fewer than five times in a six-lap span.
He then lost second place to perennial Snowball Derby contender Bubba Pollard, who began his own war for the lead with Nasse while Majeski looked on in dismay.
“I thought if I could clear him and Bubba could wiggle Nasse then I could sneak away, but it never happened,” said Majeski, who drives for ThorSport Racing in the Truck Series.
And then, instead of watching his chance at a victory slip away, Majeski saw the pay window open.
Nasse and Pollard crashed in Turn 1 while battling for the lead with six laps to go, allowing Majeski to slip past and win his second Snowball Derby in the span of four years.
“Nasse was lifting to keep me on the outside and it allowed Bubba to close the gap and fill the hole, but that might have been the mistake that lost him the race,” Majeski said. “He was able to let Bubba get to his bumper.”
The victory makes Majeski one of just 12 drivers to score multiple Snowball Derby victories during the event’s 56-year history. The road to that honor was a challenging one, as Majeski spent most of the 300-lap event watching drivers like Nasse, Pollard and defending winner Derek Thorn hold the lead.
Ty Majeski during the 56th running of the Snowball Derby Sunday afternoon at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida. (Susan Wong/NASCAR)
Majeski’s first turn at the front of the field came just past the 200-lap mark, when he grabbed the lead from Nasse during a restart. He held the spot for a time, but Nasse proved too good on the short run, and Majeski had to concede the position.
“I had the best car on the long run all night; I just fought short-run speed,” Majeski said. “I let them get away a little bit. I got the lead on that restart with about 200 to go. I was able to hold Stephen off for a little bit, then he got by me. I was able to keep that gap close. On previous runs, I could drop back to fourth and work my way up and just get to his bumper and I was able to keep that gap closed up.
“We had him right where we wanted him. It looked like the race was going to go green with about 30 to go, and I was teeing him up. I was within a couple car lengths of him, and then of course the caution comes out.”
The caution, which was for a spin by Luke Fenhaus after contact with NASCAR Cup Series driver Erik Jones, allowed the entire field to pit for fresh tires and adjustments. Majeski’s crew focused on making changes to his car that would give him the short-run speed he needed.
The first attempt to resume the race proved disastrous, as Noah Gragson, who restarted fourth, missed a shift. A multi-car melee ensued that eliminated a multitude of contenders such as Thorn, William Byron, Jones, Michael Hinde and Jake Finch.
(Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
After a lengthy cleanup, the race resumed with Majeski and Nasse engaging in a battle for the ages. Majeski lost that battle, but he won the war when Nasse and Pollard crashed.
He inherited the lead and powered away from runner-up Gio Ruggerio, who had come from two laps down after an issue prior to the start of the race, and 2019 winner Travis Braden, to secure his date with the Tom Dawson Trophy.
“You can’t ever be fast enough to win this race,” Majeski said. “I felt like we were the best car at times, but maybe not when it counted. I’ve been the best car when it counted and didn’t win many times, so I know how it feels. You just have to be a good enough car to maintain the track position. Be in the top-three, four or five at the end and anything can happen.
“Speed helps, but it’s not everything in this race. Situations have to go your way and tonight it was our night.”
PENSACOLA, Florida – Tim Bryant stood in the main office of Five Flags Speedway on Saturday morning watching it rain.
Only an hour before, he had been forced to postpone Saturday’s Snowball Derby activities, including the Pro Late Model Snowflake 100, to Monday due to torrential rain that had inundated Florida’s panhandle.
The decision wasn’t one Bryant wanted to make, especially not during his biggest race weekend of the year.
“It’s very challenging, for one thing,” said Bryant, who works as the general manager and co-owner of Five Flags Speedway. “At the end of the day, we can’t control the weather and we have to make the best decisions we can as far as rescheduling.
“We’ve got race teams that are from all over the country and they want to stay until they do race.”
Despite Mother Nature’s untimely interference, the 56th running of the Snowball Derby remains on track for Sunday afternoon.
Reserved seating for the event sold out the day before Thanksgiving, leaving just general admission and standing room only tickets available for race fans hoping to watch arguably the biggest Super Late Model race in the country in person.
It’s a testament to how big the Snowball Derby, which was created by former track owner Tom Dawson in 1968, has grown in the last 30 years.
“There is just a lot of electricity from the time you come through the gate,” said Bryant. “We don’t take a whole lot of credit for that. We’re trying to orchestrate all the chaos that goes on here the best we can. But the fans are just awesome. They’re having a good time, many of them are here for a week.
“We’re motivated by people and the loyalty that people have shown the event. I feel an extreme obligation to them to try and continue to improve it.”
William Byron during Snowball Derby qualifying at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, on December 1, 2023. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
The Bryant family have been the stewards of Five Flags Speedway since the 2004 season, when they initially leased the track before purchasing it a few years later. Prior to becoming owners of the facility, Bryant and his family were trackside vendors at the half-mile oval, selling tires and race parts to competitors.
“We leased it for the first three years and obviously put a lot of heart into it and we were kind of stuck there at that point,” Bryant said. “In our third year we had the option to purchase and we were able to do so. We’ve owned it ever since.”
Even before Bryant and his family acquired Five Flags Speedway, the Snowball Derby had a long history of drawing in the best competitors from across the country. You need only look at a list of Snowball Derby winners – and a list of those who haven’t won – to truly understand that.
In the early years, drivers like Wayne Niedecken, Friday Hassler, Dickie Davis and Ed Howe claimed Snowball Derby victories. They were followed by men such as Daytona 500 winner Pete Hamilton, NASCAR Hall of Famer Donnie Allison and three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Darrell Waltrip.
Through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, short-track racing stars like Freddy Fryar, Butch Lindley, Jody Ridley, Rich Bickle, Gary St. Amant, Bobby Gill, Jeff Purvis and Tammy Jo Kirk also found their way into Victory Lane at the Snowball Derby.
In recent years the event has served as a launching point for young NASCAR stars like Erik Jones, who used back-to-back Snowball Derby victories in 2012 and ’13 to catapult himself to NASCAR stardom.
The Tom Dawson Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the Snowball Derby, sits in the office at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, on December 2, 2023. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
When you consider the list of drivers who have won the event during the past decade, which includes Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, John Hunter Nemechek, Christian Eckes and the most recent winner Derek Thorn, you also must consider the list of those who haven’t won it.
Bobby Allison, Red Farmer, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Neil Bonnett, Jack Ingram, Harry Gant, Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Dick Trickle, Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, Terry Labonte, Bobby Labonte, Ken Schrader, Johnny Benson, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Petty, as well as current stars like William Byron, Christopher Bell, Ryan Preece, Josh Berry, Brad Keselowski, Corey LaJoie and Harrison Burton have all tried and failed to win the Snowball Derby.
“The best of the best is how people look at this event,” Bryant said. “Most of these drivers knowing, that if they can pull off a win here, or even in some cases just a good run here, it raises their status up a notch. I believe that’s true. In fact, we’ve had some young guys come in and win the event and go on to bigger and better things in the NASCAR world. I think that’s in the back of a lot of these driver’s minds, especially the young guys who are looking to work their way up.
“They know if they can notch a Snowball, then it has the potential to open some doors for them. Your diehard short track guys, your Stephen Nasses and your Bubba Pollards, guys like that, your Derek Thorns, they thrive on that. Number one, they like to beat the NASCAR guys. They just kind of thrive on being able to beat the best.”
Situated in his office on a gloomy afternoon at Five Flags Speedway, Bryant continued to watch it pour, now harder than it had all morning.
Despite the disappointment that came with postponing Saturday’s on-track activity, he was confident that what Five Flags Speedway has in store for fans and competitors on Sunday would make up for it.
“We feel like we dodged a bullet yesterday. We got qualifying in, which is vitally important to the Snowball Derby,” Bryant said. “We got that done on a day when Mother Nature said we really shouldn’t be planning on racing. She said she was going to rain all day today and she was right on that.
“If she continues her pattern then maybe she’ll be right again tomorrow hopefully because it looks like it’s going to clear out. We’ve got some work to do as far as preparing our facility after all this rain and we hope it clears out sooner than later, but our plans are to be ready to go tomorrow morning.”
Those were the words of driver Connor Okrzesik as he watched Thorn, the defending Snowball Derby champion, go to the top of the speed charts Friday during qualifying for the 56th running of the event at Florida’s Five Flags Speedway.
Thorn’s name at the top of the charts has become a common sight in the last five years at Five Flags Speedway during the Snowball Derby. His pole lap on Friday, a speedy 16.501-second lap around the half-mile oval, gives Thorn four Snowball Derby poles in the last five years.
“I’m just enjoying the moment,” Thorn said as he watched his Paul Shafer Motorsports team go through the traditional post-qualifying technical inspection that comes with running the Snowball Derby. “To be back here in Pensacola, to be fast, that’s one of the things that obviously makes it the most fun.”
While Thorn has made a habit in recent years of controlling qualifying for the Snowball Derby, it hasn’t taken away from the intense atmosphere that surrounds the annual Friday tradition at Five Flags Speedway.
Friday’s qualifying session locked in the top-30 starters for Sunday’s 300-lap main event, with all other drivers forced to compete in a 50-lap last chance qualifying race on Saturday afternoon.
Only the top-four finishers from that race advance to the Snowball Derby, with two additional drivers joining the field based on the championship standings in the local Blizzard Series and the ASA Southern Super Series.
That adds up to 36 potential starting positions for Sunday’s race, meaning of the 49 drivers to take time Friday afternoon, 13 of them will be forced to pack up and go home Saturday night.
One of the drivers on the outside looking in is rising NASCAR Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar, whose time of 16.954 was nearly half a second slower than that of Thorn. Hocevar will be one of the drivers looking to race their way into the Snowball Derby via the last chance qualifier Saturday.
Carson Hocevar sits in his race car during qualifying for the 56th Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, on December 1, 2021. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
“I don’t think there is a single car that plans to miss this race,” Hocevar said. “These are guys that win regionally, locally, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at the NASCAR level or dirt level, whatever the case may be. They’re all here.
“Everybody has different agendas and a lot of them want to come win the race. Sometimes they realize they might not have a shot to win the race, now they’re just fighting to get in the race, which is crazy. With how much this place takes, it’ll humble you real quick.”
Thorn knows all about being humbled by Five Flags Speedway. In his first trip to the Snowball Derby in 2011, he narrowly made the starting field only to flip his Super Late Model during crash late in the event.
That’s why the success he has enjoyed recently, which includes leading more than 800 laps in the last three years combined, means so much to him.
“It’s the failures that make this part the most fun,” Thorn said. “When I came the first year 13 years ago, I blew two motors, qualified 30th by one one thousandth and ended up flipping the car in the race.
“To look back now at what we were doing then and just the passion of coming here to the Derby…we come here because we want to race against the best. That’s the reason we’re coming. But to be on top of the board in front of the best so many consecutive years is really something special.”
Despite his recent success at Five Flags Speedway, Thorn isn’t immune to the nerves that come with qualifying for the Snowball Derby.
After setting his fast lap shortly before the midway point of the session, Thorn had to stand and watch as car after car made runs trying to knock him off the pole.
“You’re always biting your nails,” Thorn said. “Any one of them could be fast. There are so many guys here that are so good. The [Last Chance Race] tomorrow, whenever they have it, is going to be probably one of the best features at a weekly show or a touring race all year. It is nerve-wracking because there is so much talent in this field.”
With qualifying now behind Thorn, his focus turns to Sunday’s 300-lap finale, where he hopes to become just the fourth driver to win consecutive Snowball Derby’s.
Going fast for one lap at Five Flags Speedway is one thing. Putting together a perfect 300-lap race is the challenge of a lifetime.
Thorn’s done it once and there’s no reason for him to think he can’t do it again, but he knows there is still work to do.
“We’ve been snakebit in a few of them,” Thorn said of his past Derby experiences. “Last year was great, but we just have to get in the race and execute and be there when it counts and hopefully everything falls our way.”
