Bubba Pollard
Andrew “Bubba” Pollard has proven himself to be one of the top asphalt short-track racers in the country. The Senoia, Georgia native has scored numerous victories and championships in that form of racing and has even been named as the ‘Driver of the Year’ by the noted racing website Speed51.com and by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. But lately, however, the 29-year-old driver has added Dirt Late Model racing to his repertoire.
With assistance from fellow Georgian and long-time dirt racer Clint ‘Cat Daddy’ Smith, Pollard has begun to hit the clay ovals of his home state to do battle in the Crate Late Model division. And the pavement specialist has found success by winning feature races in that class at the Senoia Raceway.
So why did the asphalt star decide to make the foray onto dirt?
“We’re just doing something different,” Pollard declared in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “My dad and my granddad grew up doing it and I had been wanting to do it for years. With Clint right down the road from us, we’ve been with him racing for several years, then when they got the track going in Senoia we had a good reason to go do it. We finally got us a car and with a lot of help from Clint, we’ve finally been able to make this happen and it’s been fun.”
Indeed, Pollard’s family does have a background in dirt racing. His grandfather, Hence Pollard, was the original builder and manager of Senoia Raceway while his father, Sonny, won multiple feature races on the family’s home track.
But with Pollard’s concentration having been on pavement throughout most of his career, he welcomes the challenge of trying a different form of the sport.
“That’s kind of an unknown right now,” Pollard answered when asked just how much dirt racing he plans to do in the future. “I tell you what, we’re having a lot of fun doing this. It’s different, with different people and a different atmosphere. The racing is totally different and it’s a challenge. The guys that help me are having fun.
“We’ll always do both, but in the next year or so, we’re working on getting us a new car and a new super engine,” he added. “We’re probably going to do a lot more dirt racing next year.”
Make no mistake, though, the driver who has placed as high as second in the finishing order in the prestigious World Crown 300 at Georgia’s Gresham Motorsports Park still has his eyes set on the top racing prizes contested on pavement.
Pollard’s Crate Late Model dirt racer
“There’s still asphalt races that I want to win that I haven’t won yet,” he stated. “Hopefully someday we’ll get the chance to win them. The big races like the Snowball Derby, the Winchester 400, the All-American 400 are goals. We’ve been close and we’ve had opportunities to win them but we just can’t seal the deal. Now that I’ve gotten in this, I’ve got goals in this thing too. One day I’d like to run some World of Outlaws races and some Lucas Oil races with those guys. Right now, I’m just getting some experience with the crate cars. Hopefully one day we can move up.”
Pollard notes that Late Model racing on dirt and asphalt are two very different animals.
“I’ll tell you what, it’s two different types of racing,” Pollard insisted. “Asphalt racing takes a lot of patience, and don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of patience in this dirt racing. But you’ve got to make things happen pretty fast. In asphalt, you can be patient but you’re car’s got to be absolutely perfect, especially with all the competition we’ve got nowadays. The other night at Senoia we didn’t have the best car but we were able to move around on the racetrack to where we could have the best car at the end of the night. There are more variables to it and more driving goes into these dirt cars. You’ve got to be smart with them and you’ve got to have good guys working on them.”
Even with his extensive experience in short-track racing, Pollard is facing the challenges of taking on something new. Where asphalt racers often get hours of practice time leading up to an event, dirt racing offers only brief hot lap sessions and then sends its programs right into qualifying and heat racing to prevent excessive laps from being logged on the track.
“Ever since I’ve been doing this dirt deal, it took me a while to get the hang of it,” he explained. “I couldn’t get any laps. Now we’re getting seat time and getting comfortable in the race car where in asphalt cars, we’re liable to stay in one place for two or three days and wear motors and tires out. It’s been fun doing this.
Pollard believes that more racers doing as he is and competing on both surfaces would only serve to benefit a sport in need of greater exposure and an infusion of new supporters.
“I’ve tried to talk some asphalt guys into going somewhere on dirt because you see a lot of people, a lot of fans, and a lot more racing. I think racing is a dying sport and one thing to get it back going is money and you’ve got to keep it as cheap as you can for the racers and that’s where the dirt comes in. That’s why you see a lot of people racing on dirt now.”
