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Anderson, Ind. — After spending all night Saturday in pursuit of a stout Dalton Armstrong, Bubba Pollard was gifted one final chance to win the Redbud 300, but squandered it with a poor restart and an unintentional spin at the hands of William Byron.

The final caution of the night occurred with 11 laps remaining due to a Cole Anderson spin in Turn 3. Pollard wasn’t able to stay alongside Armstrong coming to the restart and quickly found himself under fire from Byron for second.

Pollard spun in Turn 2 from the top lane after contact from Byron but the 29-year-old was quick to call it a byproduct of racing the quarter-mile Anderson Speedway.

“It’s just these fast restarts at a short place like and it’s tough,” Pollard said. So it’s just part of racing. And these guys don’t give you any room and they shouldnt with five laps to go. So yeah, it’s just racing.”

Due to the attrition rate of the event, Byron and Pollard would restart fifth and sixth respectively. Pollard was able to get around Byron to retake a top-5 and that’s how they would finish.
For his part, Byron chalked it up to a racing incident as well.

“I feel like we were just fighting for the same real estate,” Byron said. “At that point, I don’t think there was an outside lane and he was just trying to get to the bottom. It’s just one of those deals. He struggled to get going in 3 and 4 and I was to his door and were just racing for second.”

Since Pollard spun off Byron’s nose, the current NASCAR Truck Series championship leader felt like he wasn’t a part of the incident and should have gotten his spot back, but that’s not how the CRA tower ruled it.

“I wish we could have gotten our spot back because I feel like some guys have gotten their spots back before in that deal,” Byron said. “So we’ll have to talk to them about that.”

The incident essentially eliminated the two best challengers Armstrong had and the eventual winner held off Wes Griffith and Rick Turner on the ensuing restart. So while Pollard wasn’t happy with a fifth, given his car, he conceded that he wasn’t likely going to defeat Armstrong on Saturday night.

“Dalton was fast,” Pollard said. “He was the class of the field. But yeah, it was just tough to pass. Maybe if we could have passed (Johnny VanDoorn) for second sooner and not have burned up our tires, we could have had a better shot at it. It was just hard racing.”

Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

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