CAN’T RUN GO-KARTS? GO WIN THE SNOWFLAKE

The traditional Snowball Derby weekend fun night for many Snowball Derby drivers is the Snowball Showdown go-kart race at Fast Eddies down the road from the Five Flags Speedway. Both Derby and Snowflake 100 drivers show up and race against one another and fans for hours for bragging rights for another year.

Fourteen-year-old Hunter Robbins showed up to Fast Eddies Thursday night hoping to show his stuff against some of the best short track racers in the country in some fun go-kart action.

Cassill led from the drop of the green flag and checked out to a solid lead while the field fought hard for spots behind him. Cassill was challenged by Steven Davis early, but the 16-year-old held his lead through the middle stages of the race. With just 14 laps remaining, a small tap to the bumper from the hard charging Robbins was all it took for the lead change.

“He did a good job of making the pass,” said Cassill. “He knocked me out of the way a little bit but that’s exactly what he had to do and I would’ve done the same thing.”

A final caution flew five laps short of the checkers, slowing the field and allowing Cassill one shot to catch up to Robbins’s bumper. The massive cleanup for a six car pileup in turn one forced a red flag. Under the red, Cassill’s crew took a close look at the car’s left front tire that had suddenly gone down. The team prepared a new tire, but the Cassill decided to stay on the track to give Robbins a run for his money.

Robbins had to sit on the sidelines, however, as rules restrictions prohibit anyone under the age of 16 to compete at Fast Eddies.

Luckily for Robbins, there’s no such rule at the Snowball Derby.

The eighth grader took the lead from polesitter Landon Cassill on lap 86 and went on to take the checkers in the Snowflake 100, the precursor to Sunday’s Snowball Derby.

“It feels so incredible to win this race,” said Robbins. “I never ever would’ve imagined that I could win this race. I’m so happy. I knew we had a pretty good chance to win, but this is just incredible.”

“At first I thought the power steering went out,” said Cassill. “We’ve had a lot of power steering leaks this year, so when I found out it was just a tire going down I was actually relieved. Even with the flat, we refused to give up. That’s why I’m so proud of my team. They just never gave up and I wasn’t going to give up behind the wheel.”

When the red flag was lifted, five laps of green flag racing ensued with Robbins taking the advantage at the start. Cassill was slow to come up to speed but worked his way to Robbins’s bumper on the final lap. There was nothing Cassill could do. Robbins went on to take his second straight Pro Late Model feature win at Five Flags.

“I won the last race of the season here, but this is by far the biggest win of my career,” said Robbins.

With a trophy and a huge winner’s check in hand, Robbins will have a pretty cool story to tell his pals back at school on Monday morning.

“I’m going to tell them I just won $5000. All the money is going back into the car though, no trips to the mall or anything like that.”

SNOWFLAKE LEFTOVERS

CASSILL STARTS NIGHT RIGHT WITH SNOWFLAKE POLE

All it took was a little bit of luck for Landon Cassill to take the pole position for Saturday night’s Snowflake 100. Cassill was ecstatic with setting the second fastest time at the conclusion of time trials, but when fast timer Keeton Hanks was disqualified from his run, Cassill was the one with the Snowflake pole.

I think we have an awesome car tonight. I’ve been able to run it hard all day on old tires and the guys have worked on these cars so hard all weekend because we’ve struggled with both cars. The guys dug in and never gave up.

“If it was 10 years down the road and I had won a million races, then yeah, I’d go to the back,” said Cassill. “Not for the money, but for the fun of it. I love passing cars, but the best thing for me to do is to start from my starting spot because that’s what gives me the best shot at the win.”

Cassill’s choice was the right one judging by his second place finish.

DAVID HOLE CAN’T REPEAT

The first two finishers in Saturday night’s Snowflake 100 weren’t even able to see an R-rated movie. David Hole has been racing longer than either Robbins or Cassill have been alive. The veteran had a contending car all night long, but his charge cost him at the end.

“I think I used my tires up getting to the front,” said Hole. “But we had to try and get up front and pace myself when we got there. I did, but I think I used her up a little too much. I was giving her all she had there at the end. I might have been able to have something for them if we had a green-white-checkered because my car was good for those two laps, but for five laps, the tires just gave up too much and I was just holding on. I told my guy that those last three laps would get me.”

“The circumstances that we won the pole are unfortunate, but it’s nice having a front starting spot and hopefully I can run well for the guys,” said Cassill. “I had no idea that we’d even be close to having a shot at the pole in practice. We only had one sticker run in practice and we really just tried to get the car close. We wanted a clean lap in qualifying and we knew we had a good car, but I didn’t think we’d get the pole.”

With Cassill earning the pole position, he had a difficult decision to make. A local car dealership offered a $5000 bonus if the Snowflake polesitter elected to start the 100 lap feature from the rear of the field and won the race. What’s a guy to do?

Hole pitted for tires on lap 92 to make his car better for a run to the checkers. He was able to work his way back up to third with just six laps to go before Michael Williamson nudged Hole’s #0, costing Hole several positions. He crossed under the checkers in the sixth positions.

Although he wasn’t able to defend his Snowflake title and lost a few positions at the close of the race, Hole took his top-10 run in stride.

“The #11 had better tires than me there at the end of the race,” said Hole. “That was just racing, no hard feelings there. Michael is a good racer.”

“Hell, we started 15th and finished fifth. We had a good car, I just wish we could have repeated last year’s win.”

COZZOLINO COMES UP SHORT

For not knowing what lied ahead in his first Snowball Snowflake 100 experience, Peter Cozzolino was pretty happy with finishing fourth on Saturday night.

“We came down here wondering if we would even make the show,” said Cozzolino. “We heard all kind of horror stories. We didn’t know what to expect.

“The car was really good,” said Cozzolino. “We just needed to start up a little further.”

A TOUGH NIGHT FROM THE START FOR NIESSNER

Zach Niessner was hopeful for a strong finish in the Snowflake. Qualifying second, Niessner was in the right position to challenge for the win, even though it was his first ever Pro Late Model series start after years of racing in the ASA and NASCAR Elite Division. When the green flag dropped however, Niessner’s optimism was shot down.

Niessner’s #52 failed to come up to speed on the start, causing a traffic jam going into the first corner behind him.

“Basically, it was just inexperience on the start by the driver,” said Niessner. “I never drove one of these types of cars with this type of transmission in it. I was in first and went to shift into second and it just hung up in first gear. By the time I realized what happened, I was like 20th or so.”

Cozzolino started deep in the field Saturday night. From the drop of the green flag, he worked from his 22nd starting spot all the way to the top five late in the race, using patience while wrestling an ill-handling car. A late pit stop forced Cozzolino to make one more run from deep in the field, but Cozzolino was up to the challenge and captured a fourth place finish.

“All I did was concentrate on not spinning the tires off of the corners,” said Cozzolino. “The guys in front of me were spinning theirs. We just played it really patient and then just picked them of when we had the opportunity. We didn’t try to force anything. Both runs we had, we went from 18th or 20th right up to the front.

Even when Niessner got back up to speed, things went sour. From the first lap until the last, Niessner was one of the most unlucky drivers in the Snowflake 100.

“Under caution, I was cruising around and a lapped car came up on my inside and hit the left side of my car,” said Niessner. “That knocked the toe out and made the car really tight. Then I jumped to the inside to come to the pits and another lapped car was scrubbing his tires and clobbered my right side. So we got a flat from that and went a lap down trying to get that changed.

All the bad luck that Niessner encountered resulted in a 27th place finish. After a long layoff from jumping behind

the wheel, Niessner was happy to be back at the track but disappointed in the result.

“We had a good car,” said Niessner. “If we hadn’t have gotten screwed up on the start, I don’t know if we would have had anything for the top-two, but we were a top-five car easily.

“I have mixed feelings about the weekend. It was frustrating to not do any better, but then again, I was back in a car and racing at the racetrack. So it was frustrating, but I was happy to just be back in a car and at the track.

VETERAN WILLIAMSON CAN’T CATCH THE KIDS

The top three finishers in the Snowflake 100 parked their cars along the frontstretch to participate in media interviews and to be celebrated by the fans in attendance. Both the winner and runner-up are under the age of 17. Third place man Mike Williamson is, well, many years past 17.

His experience was no match for the speed of Hunter Robbins and Landon Cassill, as Williamson had to settle for third in Saturday’s race

“I hate that I keep getting beat by these kids man,” said Williamson. “Hunter beat us and he beat us the last time he came up here for the season championship. Now I've got this boy here (Cassill). He had a flat tire and I still couldn't beat him.”

For Williamson to have the energy to strap in and have a podium finish is amazing in itself. Williamson is the crew chief for his father-in-law, Super Late Model driver Donald Long. Long destroyed his Snowball Derby entry on Friday, and Long had been hard at work getting Long’s backup car ready for Sunday’s 300 lapper.

“I haven't slept in about two days,” said Williamson. “We were trying to get the pole I guess and we ended up losing the car and ended up working all night long.

“We got about six laps into practice with my car. “It was the first time I had ever been in this car, and lost the clutch in it. It's been an exciting night. When you run up front it feels good.

TRACK CHAMP CARLSON FRUSTRATED

Carlson did everything he could to run well in the Snowflake, but he left the track on Saturday looking forward to running better next year.

“I brought a brand new car here for this and thought it was going to run good,” said Carlson. “It did but we struggled with the tires for some reason. It got real tight and pushed in the middle. The tires cooled down on the yellow flags and never came back.

“I came in here wanting to win so it is kind of upsetting. You just have to go to the next one and try to win it.”

Brandon Carlson won the 2005 Pro Late Model championship at Five Flags Speedway. With the track title already in hand, all Carlson wanted to do was back it up with a Snowball Derby weekend win in the Snowflake 100. Carlson wound up 11th after struggling most of the race, leaving him disappointed that he couldn’t run better at his home track in the biggest race of the year.

“I messed up qualifying and that put us way behind,” said Carlson. “These races we really don't get long green flag runs. We kind of burned our tires up there too. Then I got caught up in some of the wrecks.”