Bubba Pollard Scores ASA STARS Win Over William Byron, Chase Elliott at North Wilkesboro

Bubba Pollard is without a doubt one of, if not the, best short-track racers in the country. And if there was any doubt, Pollard put an exclamation point on things Wednesday night at North Wilkesboro Speedway as he held off William Byron to score the win by 0.309 sec.

While early in the race it looked like William Byron or Chase Elliott would go on to win on the night.

“We took off there, and we were pretty good. I let William by me there to see what he had, so I could see what he had so I knew if we needed to be better and make some adjustments. Then Chase came out of nowhere and was fast. I told them on the radio we don’t have anything for them,” Pollard said of his car in the early part of the race.

Pollard and his No. 26 team got the car tuned perfectly on the final Stage break of the evening, and his car was on rails in the final portion of the event.

“Made the right adjustments on that last break, put four tires on it, and she was good,” Pollard explained.

Pollard dominated the final stage of the ASA STARS ECMD 150, but in the closing laps lapped traffic made things very interesting, and gave Byron another chance to attempt to get by Pollard. However, with a couple of laps to go, Byron slipped high in one set of turns, and that was all Pollard needed to wrap up the win.

After the race, Pollard had some choice words for the lapped traffic that refused to yield to him as he was trying to hold off the NASCAR Cup Series stars for the win.

“I owe them boys one, it’s called disrespect,” Pollard pointed sharply. “10 laps to go, but they’re tired of seeing me up front and winning like it was back in the day. Just no respect, and the favor may be returned one day and I won’t give them the respect back. It’s part of racing. You remember it.”

Behind Pollard was a who’s, who list of NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series talents as behind Byron, the driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series car, were Chase Elliott (2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion), Sammy Smith (No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR Xfinity Series driver) and Daniel Suarez (No. 99 Trackhouse Racing NASCAR Cup Series driver).

Kaden Kvapil, Casey Roderick, Cole Butcher, Derek Thorn and Ty Majeski rounded out the top-10 finishers in the 32-car field on Wednesday night.

ASA STARS ECMD 150 Race Results