SpeedFest's 20-Year History Features Icons, Rising Stars

SpeedFest celebrates its 20th running in 2025, a milestone for the Late Model showcase. In those years since the inaugural SpeedFest in 2005, it has grown into a huge event to start each year, one that frequently draws top Late Model competition and NASCAR stars alike to Cordele Motor Speedway each January.

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The Florida Years

The tradition of CRA SpeedFest began in 2005 at USA International Speedway in Lakeland, Florida. The 3/4-mile speedplant played host to a 38-car field, with drivers from across the country taking part. Charlie Menard won the inaugural SpeedFest, finishing ahead of Eddie Hoffman and Pat Kelly.

Mike Fritts won in 2006, with Eddie Hoffman taking the victory ahead of Butch Miller in 2007 and Jeff Choquette winning in 2008. Sadly, USA International Speedway closed following the 2008 season, and SpeedFest needed a new home.

SpeedFest Gets Rowdy

The 2009 edition of SpeedFest brought big changes. There was the addition of a Pro Late Model division, as well as the move to Lanier National Speedway in Braselton, Georgia.

It also brought the first of three SpeedFest wins for Kyle Busch, as he took the lead from Jason Hogan just past the halfway mark of the 200-lap Super Late Model race for the victory. Busch won again in 2010, leading 216 of 250 laps in that year’s race.

Busch’s win has set forth a trend of NASCAR competitors taking part in the January event as part of their offseason, a trend that has added plenty of star power to the event and continues to this day.

Chase Elliott Sweeps Last Lanier SpeedFest

2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott is part of the 2025 field at SpeedFest. It’s an event he’s won three times, starting in 2011 at just 15 years old. That year, Elliott crossed the line ahead of Bubba Pollard and Daniel Hemric for the victory … and won the Pro Late Model feature for good measure.

Much like with USA International Speedway before it, Lanier National Speedway ceased weekly racing operations following the 2011 season. This moved SpeedFest to its new home – and the location where it has remained ever since.

Kyle Busch Christens Cordele

With the new venue, it was still Kyle Busch to watch at the 2012 edition of SpeedFest. Busch won ahead of Pollard and David Ragan for the first SpeedFest victory at what was then known as Watermelon Capital Speedway.

Busch has competed in two more SpeedFests since the move to Cordele, including a runner-up finish in his most recent appearance in 2019.

Elliott Chases Down Busch

Jeff Choquette won the 2013 edition of SpeedFest, a race slowed 25 times by caution flags. Choquette led just three laps in that event, but it was enough for the victory.

Chase Elliott rattled off back-to-back victories in the race in 2014 and 2015. At the time, that made both Busch and Elliott the only multi-time winners of the Super Late Model event with three victories each.

Elliott also won the Pro Late Model event three straight years between 2011 and 2013. Another future NASCAR Cup Series competitor, John Hunter Nemechek, scored three consecutive SpeedFest Pro Late Model wins between 2014 and 2016.

SpeedFest Births New Stars

After several years of dominance between Busch and Elliott, 2016’s SpeedFest began a trend of new winners for the event. Bubba Pollard started that trend in a chaotic finish to that year’s event.

Contact between Pollard and William Byron sent Pollard into leader John Hunter Nemechek, who spun out of turns one and two on the final lap. With Byron penalized, Pollard held on for the win ahead of Harrison Burton and Zane Smith.

While Pollard’s 2016 win symbolized a short track veteran getting the proverbial SpeedFest monkey off his back, it was Burton’s turn in 2017 as he scored the victory ahead of Erik Jones and Stephen Nasse. 2018 saw another young gun, Georgia’s own Chandler Smith, cross the line first ahead of Pollard and Choquette.

When Kyle Busch returned in 2019, he was the favorite to leave Cordele with his fourth SpeedFest win. Instead, Connor Okrzesik scored the upset win, outdueling Busch in the closing laps.

The 2020 running of SpeedFest remains one of its most-discussed. It featured both a side-by-side door-banging finish between Georgia’s Corey Heim and Kyle Plott, as well as a controversial ending to the night for Pollard and Nasse as they clashed battling for the win in the closing laps.

Pollard’s SpeedFest Triple

After the heartbreak of 2020, Pollard and the rest of the Super Late Model stars had to wait two years for a chance at a SpeedFest win. COVID regulations prevented the running of SpeedFest in 2021, the only year without the event since its 2005 inception.

Since then? It has been all Bubba Pollard at SpeedFest. The Georgia short track icon has won the last three SpeedFest Super Late Model features, the first to accomplish that feat.

With the back-to-back-to-back wins, Pollard surpassed Busch and Elliott as a four-time SpeedFest winner. Will he add a fifth SpeedFest win in 2025? Will Elliott return and tie Pollard with a fourth win? Or will a new face join the list of SpeedFest winners?

Find out on Friday, January 17 as RacingAmerica.TV broadcasts Protect Your Melon - Buckle Up SpeedFest live from Cordele Motor Speedway. Coverage begins at 5 p.m. ET. Click here to subscribe today and catch all of the action.

SpeedFest Super Late Model Winners