Casey Roderick Caps Double-Title Season With Win on Five Flags' Night of Champions

Casey Roderick put an exclamation mark on a championship season Saturday night at Five Flags Speedway.

Roderick won the Super Late Model portion of the Night of Champions #2 at the Pensacola half-mile, wrappping up the titles for both the ASA Southern Super Series and the Deep South Cranes Blizzard Series in the process.

Roderick is now a three-time Southern Super Series champion, with Saturday's win marking his 12th in the series. The Blizzard Series title gives him four in the Five Flags Speedway Super Late Model track championship.

"We've been working really hard to get to this point," said Roderick in victory lane. "Things are starting to click off here. We probably didn't have the best car here tonight."

Roderick had to earn the victory in the closing laps, battling with Cole Butcher for the win. Roderick took the lead on lap 98 after a back-and-forth fight, while Butcher was involved in an incident with Matt Craig behind Roderick.

On the ensuing restart, Roderick pulled away from John Bolen to secure the victory.

"Cole was really, really strong," said Roderick. "We hung in there and I got him on that restart, and that was a game changer for us. I feel like he was getting a little tight on the bottom and slipping off a little bit. It took his car a couple of laps on that last restart to get going a little bit.

"We were duking it out, and I don't know what happened behind us there but I was having fun racing him. I've known Cole for a long time, we've had a lot of good races together, and he's a heck of a wheelman, also."

Along with the Southern Super Series and Blizzard Series titles, Roderick also leads the points standings in the ASA STARS National Tour. However, he still wants to take time to appreciate his accomplishment on Saturday.

"We've got two more races to go in that. I'm so thankful to bring home the Southern Super Series championship for the third time and the Blizzard as well for the fourth time. That's pretty special to me. To get it in a winning fashion, that makes it even better."

Bolen finished second, a strong Super Late Model showing for the 2023 Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series champion. Bolen has been working with the Eury family to improve his Late Model efforts, and Saturday's performance was evidence of those gains.

"I have to thank all the guys," said Bolen. "We put a lot of work in the last couple of years to build this car. I'm really proud of all the effort, and it's starting to show off in the Supers.

"They're great people. They've meant a lot to me and helped elevates us to compete with guys like [Anthony] Campi, Donnie Wilson and all them. That's tough these days."

The hard charger of the race, 2023 Southern Super Series champion Gio Ruggiero qualified 20th but fought his way to a third-place finish.

"It was a super-hard race," said Ruggiero. "Battled so hard the whole time there, never gave up. Shoutout to everybody on this Wilson Motorsports crew. They worked so hard. We came into the pits there, and they worked their butts off trying to get it better for me. Still got some work to do for the next one here, but not bad for starting so far back."

While Roderick carried a healthy points lead into Saturday night for the Southern Super Series, he trailed Stephen Nasse by 11 markers in the Blizzard Series standings. For much of the race, the two drivers unofficially exchanged the points lead as they jockeyed for track position. However, Nasse fell out of the race three laps shy of the finish, finishing 15th and giving Roderick the cushion he needed to claim the title.

Michael HInde finished fourth, with Dylan Fetcho rounding out the top five.

With the Five Flags Speedway "regular season" in the books, all eyes at the track now turn to the 57th Annual Snowball Derby on December 5-8.

-Photo credit: Reid Scott, Liberty Racing Review

Blizzard Series Finale Unofficial Results