SNOWBALL: Right out of the trailer, Johnny posted fast time in several of the practice sessions for the Snowball. In Friday night's time trials, Johnny ran a 17.080 for 9th fastest and spot in the Snowball. Cassius Clark, who decided to run the Snowball after his win at the Meltdown, posted a 17.066 for 8th versus the pole lap of 16.918 by Johnny Brazier.
Those cars outside the top 30 will run in two last chance qualifiers on Saturday night.
The Snowball Derby is set to take the green at 2:00 on Sunday.
Finish: Another 12th place for Johnny, one lap down. Top nine finished the full 300 laps.
(24 cars of 39 finished 298 laps or better.) Johnny Brazier won with Bobby Gill, Clay Rogers, Steve Wallace, and Ryan Crane filling out the top five. Cassius Clark placed 17th.
Upate to Finish: Brazier and Gill both disqualified in tech (Bazier for left side weight, Gill for tread width). Johnny up to 10th and Cassisus up to 15th. Speed51 recap HERE

SNOWFLAKE: The Meltdown car entered in the Snowflake 100 timed at 17.905 for 36th fastest. Johnny will run in one of the two 15 lap qualifiers. Three cars will transfer from each qualifier into the Snowflake which will run Saturday night at 7:00.
Update: Johnny into the Snowflake in 34th spot with a top three in the qualifier. 39 start.
Finish: A 12th place for Johnny. On the lead lap. 18 cars ran the full 100 laps.

CLARK LEARNS A LOT IN SNOWFLAKE

Johnny Clark came to the Snowball Derby with no intentions of running the Snowflake 100.

After Saturday night, he’s glad he did.

“We learned a lot for sure,” said Clark. “I’m not used to single-file restarts. There are a lot of tricks to them that these guys know with hanging back a little bit. You are not supposed to, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it. I got smoked a few times by guys hanging back.

“We came here to win (the Snowball Derby) and anything we can do to help us win the Derby we want to do. We wanted to run this car for fun, but then again I didn’t want to because I didn’t want it to take away from our big race. But I’m glad I did, because I did learn a lot, especially how some of these southern guys race.”

Clark ran as high as sixth in the event and eventually finished 12th.

QUICK JOHNNY CLARK DECIDES TO RUN DOUBLE DUTY

Fresh off his second-place finish at the Mason-Dixon Meltdown at South Boston Speedway (VA), Johnny Clark unloaded a rocketship at Five Flags. The Maine-native turned a lot of heads by turning the quickest laps in the first and fifth practice sessions, which put him second overall at the end of the day. It didn’t take long for Clark to take a liking to the worn out Pensacola pavement.

“It’s an awesome race track,” said Johnny. “It’s a driver’s track. You can bail ‘er off into the turns… on new tires of course. It reminds me a lot of Darlington, when I got to do the test (Gong Show) there with Roush. They say at Darlington you are screaming for tires after about five laps. I think I was crying for them after two laps here.”

Between the two big Super Late Model shows, Clark and his team had some help from Dennis Reno setting up the car at RPM Motorsports in Birmingham, Alabama. And as if the work involved in the quick turnaround wasn’t enough, the team decided late on Thursday to roll out their second car and enter it in the Snowflake 100 and pull a double-duty weekend. Johnny Clark's team brought out their second car to possibly run it in the Snowflake 100.

“We had the second car here and that car ran real good at South Boston. So we said ‘lets roll it out and put the same set up in it as we have in this car and try the Snowflake.’ I think it will help us out a lot for the Snowball and tell us a lot about the big race on Sunday.

But Clark said the team won’t lose their focus on the reason they made the long trip down south.

“I came here to win the Snowball Derby and that is what we are here to do. So far so good and it seems like we have a lot of speed.