Casey Roderick Adds Another Guitar With North/South Super Late Model Challenge Win

On Saturday night, Casey Roderick expanded his guitar collection, securing his third victory at the North/South Super Late Model Challenge at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.

Roderick achieved a significant victory in his chase for the ASA Southern Super Series championship. Despite starting the evening with a 63-point lead over Matt Craig, he was still on the hunt for his inaugural win of the season.

Where else would be a more suitable place to tick the box than at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway? Roderick, a former Pro Late Model track champion at the Fairgrounds, is also an All American 400 victor. In addition to these achievements, he has won the North/South Super Late Model Challenge twice, an event jointly sanctioned by the ASA/CRA Super Series and ASA Southern Super Series.

“Returning here and achieving a victory feels great,” Roderick stated. “A Super win has eluded us for some time. It’s been an incredible day. We put in a lot of effort during practice to get the feel I was looking for. We’ve been trying to find that feeling everywhere we compete. We’ve been on the verge, but hadn’t quite managed to pull it off until now.”

Despite beating Stephen Nasse by almost two seconds, Roderick had to navigate the final laps with caution. The handling on his No. 26 car was beginning to deteriorate, partially because of the significant strain he had put on its right-front tire.

“Roderick said, “I began to sense issues with the right-front. Fortunately, I had excellent drive throughout the night. I believe that’s what saved us. The right-front was taking a beating. For the last 10 laps, I was just trying to maintain control and keep it on the lower side. Whenever I moved up about half a lane, it would start to lose control.”

Nasse qualified in 11th place but managed to fight his way through the field to finish as runner-up to Roderick. While this trend of qualifying poorly and then racing to the front may thrill Nasse’s fans, Nasse himself expressed his irritation with this pattern after the race.

“Nasse expressed, “We need to improve on qualifying. I personally need to enhance my qualifying performance. Starting from the back is proving detrimental for us. I believe we had one of the superior cars. I was forced to exert my right-front a bit more than desirable to navigate through the field. Similar to Pensacola, it took more time than anticipated to get through. They certainly made me earn it.”

Despite this, he acknowledged Roderick’s accomplishment in securing the hard-to-get first win of the season by tipping his cap.

Casey has secured second and third places, and even made it to the podium, but never managed to secure a win. I understand how that feels, so kudos to those guys. We were slightly off, but everyone still did an excellent job.

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For Saturday’s event, Bubba Pollard teamed up with Ricky Turner and the Fr8Racing team. He thought they could potentially vie for at least the second position in the final ranking. However, his cautious approach during restarts ultimately proved disadvantageous.

“ I can’t thank these Fr8Racing guys enough, Ricky Turner, all of them for giving me an opportunity to go race and giving me a good race car," said Pollard. "The driver didn’t do his part tonight. I wasn’t aggressive enough on those restarts and lost too many positions. We had a long run car, and we knew that. I didn’t do a good job putting us in position. I cost us a shot at, at least, a second-place finish.”

In the Pro Late Model 100 lapper, Dawson Sutton took the lead with 12 laps to go from Hunter Wright and pulled away for his second win of the season at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Sutton went on to finish fourth in the Super Late Model feature, with Dylan Fetcho rounding out the top five.

The ASA Southern Super Series schedule’s forthcoming event takes the tour back to its starting point, Cordele Motor Speedway. This event is slated for August 10, prior to the points finale at Five Flags Speedway on September 28.

The ASA/CRA Super Series teams are set to go to Anderson Speedway for their next event. This event will be co-sanctioned with the ASA STARS National Tour and will feature the signature Redbud 400 on July 20.

-Photo credit: Jason Reasin

North/South Super Late Model Challenge Unofficial Results

Pro Late Model 100 Unofficial Results