Pensacola Post Race Notes

Carson Brown led 129 laps in the Sunshine State 200, pushing his season total to 292 laps, including the season-opening Clyde Hart Memorial.  Last year, Cole Butcher just missed a chance at leading 1,000 laps in ASA, but Brown has a chance with many of the higher-distance events still to come. 

For the first time since the year 2022, the Blizzard Series at Five Flags Speedway got to witness Back-to-back first-time winners in the Super Late Model Series.  Dawson Sutton won the finale in the fall of 2025, and Carson Brown took the honors in the March race.  We can almost bet that we won’t see the same faces winning during the doubleheader in June.  

Snowball Derby winner Stephen Nasse returns to Pensacola only to have more of the same type of runs.  Nasse started 18th and charged up into the top five.  A flat tire sent him to the pits, and he had come from the back again to post a ninth-place run.  He still passed nine cars, but it was more like 27ish cars that he passed.  

Cole Butcher was knocking on the door for a three-peat in the Sunshine State 200.  He had a look under Carson Brown on a restart.  The bid was short-lived, and Butcher finished third. While Butcher is on the NASCAR Truck schedule full-time this year, he will return to Five Flags in June for the doubleheader. 

Don’t look now, but after the performance by Kyle Steckly at Five Flags, we can only imagine that he will be back in the winner's circle before the end of the season.  Steckly was second at a track that has not been kind to him. If he can do this with his Wilson Motorsports team each week, he will be a challenger at every track. 

Dustin Smith made some big noise by winning the Hamke Race Cars Pole Award for the Sunshine State 200.  He proved that it was no fluke by leading 33 laps and winning the first segment.  Smith was running inside the top five before he was involved in a late race incident with five laps to go.  Smith finished 19th and still made it to Mobile to finish second in the Pro Late Model race.

Matt Craig didn’t have the finish that he would have liked to have posted, but he kept his streak going for completing laps at Five Flags.  Craig has completed the last 1507 laps at Five Flags in Super Late Model action, including the ASA National Tour races and the Snowball Derby. 

Five Flags Speedway will have to wait several weeks for the return of the Super Late Models as they will have a doubleheader on June 12th and 13th.  The Pro Late Model will be in action at Five Flags on April 24th and May 15th. 

The ASA Southern Super Series will return to action at Montgomery Motor Speedway (AL) for the Rumble by the River 125 on April 18th.  This will be the series 19th trip to the fast half-mile track.  

The ASA STARS National Tour will step away from the Southern Super Series for the upcoming race at Dominion Raceway (VA) on April 26th.  They will then return with the Southern Super Series events at Hickory and Tri-County in May.