Chase Elliott Completes Comeback - Wins Second Straight SpeedFest Title

Chase Elliott Completes Comeback, Aided By Late Race Contact, Wins Second Straight, Sixth Career SpeedFest Title

Second straight ARCA/CRA Super Series SpeedFest triumph occurs after late race tangle between Pollard & Nemechek

(Cordele, GA - Sunday, January 25, 2015): The premier series within Champion Racing Association (CRA) Powered by JEGS, the ARCA/CRA Super Series Powered by JEGS kicked off the 2015 racing season, the 19th year of competition, with their traditional non-points season opener; SpeedFest 2015. Watermelon Capital Speedway, located south of Macon and north of the Florida / Georgia state line in Cordele, Georgia hosted the prestigious season door opener for the fourth straight year. The fast 4/10s (0.400) mile semi-banked paved oval produced some late race dramatics resulting in a familiar face in victory lane.

 Chase Elliott, the 19-year-old NASCAR standout who won the 2014 NASCAR Nationwide (Now Xfinity) Series Championship in his rookie season, came back to his home state of Georgia and the Dawsonville native made the Peach State fans happy by winning his second consecutive and sixth overall SpeedFest title. After race leader, Bubba Pollard and 17-year-old John Hunter Nemechek tangled with four laps to go, Elliott, in his #9 Rocky Ridge Custom Trucks / HendrickCars.com / Chevrolet would retake the lead he lost on a lap 100 restart due to a flat tire, to complete the comeback and bring home the trophy and a $7,000 payday.

 “We got a little help there with Bubba (Pollard) and John Hunter (Nemechek) getting together. I would have rather have beaten them straight up. I don’t think I could have beaten them unless I had fresh tires though," Offered Elliott after climbing out of the car to the roar and approval of the partisan home state crowd. "I found something there in the last few laps but they were still getting away a little. I would have liked to have it go green the whole say so I didn’t have to have an excuse, but we’ll take it. We had a right front go down after the first half and that was the worst possible time to have a tire go down. We only had one set of tires, so we swapped the good fresh tire on to the right front and put the old on the right rear." He added.

 After Miller Auto Parts Fast Qualifier, Pollard drew the minimum of a five for an inversion, that place Nemechek and Elliott on the front row of the headlining event of SpeedFest 2015; the SpeedFest 200. Nemechek, fresh off of his win earlier in the afternoon in the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour Presented by Chevrolet Performance portion of the weekend, picked up where he left off from that race and would beat Elliott to the first corner to take the early lead. Nemechek would hold the point until lap 45 when Elliot recoiled and went back after Nemechek and took the lead away.

 Elliott would lead the Pollard, who had passed Nemechek for second and the rest of the field into the lap 100 break as the top five at the time all took two tires at the break to restart ahead of the rest of the field. On the restart, Elliott's right front tire had collected debris and went down which forced Elliott to slow stacking the field up behind him. Elliott would come down pit road to change the tire and restarted at the rear of the field handing the lead to Pollard who had Nemechek glued to his back bumper in a swap of the finishing positions from the previous race. Nemechek briefly took the lead away on lap 136 only to relinquish it back to Pollard a lap later.

 As the laps clicked off, Pollard kept a safe distance ahead of Nemechek when the caution came out with eight laps to go setting up a four lap dash to the finish. Pollard led Nemechek and now Elliott, who had clawed his way up to third to the green and it was Pollard and Nemechek pulling away to decide it. With four laps to go and heading into turns one and two, the two drivers bumped sending Pollard around in turn two resulting in the last yellow flag of the day. Both were sent to the rear of the field handing the lead to Elliott who would hold off a late charge by Kyle Grissom to score the win.

 In winning his second straight and third ARCA/CRA Super Series SpeedFest triumph, it would also be Elliott's sixth overall SpeedFest win which includes three more triumphs in the Pro Late Models portion, two of those under the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour banner. In addition to the earning and trophy, Elliott also scored the PitBoxes.com Halfway Leader Award for leading lap 100 as well as VDL Fuel Systems Hot Lap of the Race Award which occurred during his run back to the front in the second half of the race. He also picked up the Allstar Performance First Place Award as well.

 Grissom, the son of 1993 NASCAR Busch (Now Xfinity) Series Champion, Steve Grissom, scored a career high second place finish in only his second ever ARCA/CRA Super Series start. The 25-year-old driver from Concord, North Carolina in his #31 Ariat Boots / Chevrolet was also the 2012 PASS South Series Champion before moving up to the Southern Super Series where he has spent the last two seasons. Grissom didn't leave Cordele, Georgia empty-handed as he picked up the Racing Electronics Second to None Award as well as the Allstar Performance Second Place Award.

 Rounding out the podium finishers would be NASCAR Sprint Cup Series star and home track favorite, David Ragan who steered his #77 Derksen Portable Buildings / Ford to a solid third place effort. The two-time Sprint Cup Series winner from near-by Unadilla, Georgia used the bold strategy of taking three tires at the break instead of the standard two or four and was rewarded by tying his career high ARCA/CRA Super Series finish which also came at his home track of Watermelon Capital Speedway during the 2012 SpeedFest.

 14-year-old Harrison Burton completed a career day by scoring his second straight top five place finish of the day by finishing fourth in his ARCA/CRA Super Series debut after scoring a third place finish in the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour race earlier in the afternoon. The Huntersville, North Carolina teenager and son of NASCAR veteran and now Television Analyst for NASCAR on NBC, Jeff Burton had the best day of any of the five drivers and six teams total who were pulling double-duty during the weekend with his third and fourth place finishes. Scotty Ellis completed the top five in his #83 M&E Construction / Chevrolet as the Forsyth, Georgia competitor secured his best career ARCA/CRA Super Series finish in just his fourth ever start in the series.

 Chad Finley earned the Racecar Engineering Hard-Charger Award as well as the Racing Electronics Most Improved Driver Award with his impressive 22nd to sixth place run despite missing the right side bodywork on his machine and making multiple pit stops to repair the damage from an earlier accident. 17-year-old Paul Shafer Jr., the 2014 ARCA/CRA Super Series rookie runner-up was seventh as Brandon Oakley finished eighth after starting in 23rd. Pollard and Nemechek would end the race ninth and 10th respectively. 17-year-old Maddie Crane, a Dirt Crate Late Model competitor in Georgia made the most of her pavement debut as she picked up the Racecar Engineering 15th Place Award while Todd Gilliland got the Racecar Engineering Hard Wreck Award.

 In Miller Auto Parts Qualifying held the day before on Saturday, January 24th, Pollard would take home the $500 bonus over a stout 29-car field with a lap measured at a 15.613. Pollard's lap equals out to 92.231mph and was just 0.051 seconds off of the track record. The ARCA/CRA Super Series track record remains safe for another year as NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standout, Johnny Sauter still lays claim to it with a 15.562.

 The ARCA/CRA Super Series Powered by JEGS will start their run for the 2015 Championship on Friday-Saturday, April 10-11th as the fast 1/2 (0.500) mile high-banked paved oval of Toledo Speedway in Toledo, Ohio hosts the running of the 7-Up 100. The past two season openers in northern Ohio have been combination races with CRA's counterparts within the ARCA Midwest Tour and that will be the case once again in 2015.

 In 15 previous appearances, three-time series champion, Johnny VanDoorn leads the way with three victories including the 2013 win in the first ever CRA vs Midwest Tour combo event. Defending race winner, Brian Campbell has two trips to victory lane including last years' checkered flag to give the CRA contingent two wins in two events pitting the two tours against one another. Another three-time series champion, Scott Hantz and Canadian legend, Junior Hanley also have a pair of wins each. 2005 series champion, Jeff Lane and 2002 series champion, Joel Kauffman as well as Harold Fair Jr., Fred Campbell and Johnny Belott also have one win apiece.

For more information about the upcoming 2015 racing season for all four touring series’ within Champion Racing Association Powered by JEGS, go to the series website at: www.cra-racing.com You can also follow along with all of CRA's touring series' all season long on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ChampionRacingAssociation and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CRAracing Finally, for more information about Toledo Speedway, the host track for the 2015 season opener for points for the ARCA/CRA Super Series, go to the track website at: www.toledospeedway.com

 Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. Closing in on completing its sixth decade after hundreds of thousands of miles of racing, ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in four professional touring series and local weekly events including the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards as well as the ARCA/CRA Super Series Powered by JEGS, the ARCA Midwest Tour and the ARCA Trucks Series. In addition, weekly racing is held at Toledo and Flat Rock Speedways. 

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Glenn Luckett - Champion Racing Association - Office: (812) 883-0455