🚦 The Snowball Derby returns to Pensacola with one of its most star-studded fields ever, blending NASCAR champions, short-track legends, and rising young talents.
🔥 The 300-lap showdown at Five Flags Speedway remains the ultimate test of skill, tire management, and mental toughness on one of America’s most unforgiving tracks.
🏆 When the green flag drops Sunday, only one driver will leave with the Tom Dawson Trophy — the most coveted prize in Super Late Model racing
Few events in short-track racing carry the weight, mystique and heartbreak of the Snowball Derby.
For more than half a century, the first weekend of December showdown at Five Flags Speedway has delivered triumphs that define careers — and disappointments that linger for years.
It’s a race where legends are built, favorites are humbled and underdogs occasionally rise to steal the sport’s biggest spotlight.
Five Flags is a track that demands everything. Its rough, abrasive surface chews up tires, punishing those who get aggressive too early. It’s tight racing grooves that punish impatience. And the unforgiving 300-lap distance often separates contenders from pretenders long before the checkered flag waves.
No driver lucks into a Snowball Derby win. Every lap earned is a battle.
The 2025 edition brings another stacked field to Pensacola. NASCAR stars return seeking another crown jewel. Short-track aces arrive with unfinished business. And some of the sport’s brightest young talents look to make their names on the same stage where so many future Cup stars first turned heads.
The pursuit of the Tom Dawson Trophy has united these storylines into one pressure-packed weekend. For many, it’s the race that’s missing from their résumé. For others, it’s a chance to repeat history.
For all of them, it’s a once-a-year opportunity to conquer the toughest test in Super Late Model racing.
On Sunday afternoon, when the helmets go on and the grandstands rise as the green flag waves, only one truth matters: history will be made at the end of 300 laps at “the Super Bowl of short-track racing.”
The Snowball Derby is one of the most prestigious pavement short-track races in the United States.
First held in 1968, the event is a 300-lap Super Late Model race contested each December at Five Flags Speedway, a high-banked half-mile asphalt oval in Pensacola, Florida.
Often referred to as the “Super Bowl of short-track racing,” the Derby attracts the best drivers from across the country — including NASCAR Cup, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and Craftsman Truck Series competitors, along with elite regional and national short-track stars.
The race is known for having an extensive entry list, a very intense qualifying procedure and an abrasive track surface that rewards tire management.
The winner of the event takes home the Tom Dawson Trophy, named after the event’s founder, and is one of the most coveted prizes in American stock car racing.
Super Late Models represent the most advanced, most powerful and most aggressive form of asphalt late model racing in the United States.
They are the natural evolution of decades of short-track innovation — a branch of the sport that grew out of racers continually pushing beyond the limits of traditional “late model stock” rules.
To understand a Super Late Model, you first have to know where late model racing began. Originally, “late models” were simply current-year factory production cars, required to be nearly stock when NASCAR first formalized the division in 1949.
As short-track racing exploded across the country, local tracks adopted NASCAR’s rules. Still, competitors quickly found ways to bend, and eventually break, the idea of “stock” by swapping newer bodies onto older frames. By the mid-1960s, the sport had embraced purpose-built racing chassis instead of actual street cars.
Through the 1970s, as costs escalated and late-model asphalt racing became increasingly specialized, some racers wanted to go even further — to build the fastest, most technologically advanced cars possible.
This tension eventually created three branches of late models: limited late models, late model stocks, and the top-level Super Late Model.
Super Late Models differ from Late Model Stocks in several crucial ways, as “supers” are more aerodynamic, featuring more aggressive body work and a fixed 90-degree rear spoiler.
Super Late Models also are lighter and have 50 more horsepower than a late model stock, with maximum power output of 700 horsepower. “Supers” also weigh 300 pounds less than a late model stock, with a max weight of 2,750 pounds.
The defining difference between the two vehicles is that a Super Late Model has a straight-rail (offset) chassis, while the late model stock uses a perimeter chassis with symmetrical frame rails.
The offset chassis allows the car to get more rotation through the middle of the corner, allowing higher minimum speeds.
The Snowball Derby qualifying record was set by Ty Majeski in 2015, with a lap time of 16.120, or an average speed of 111.7 miles-per-hour.
As of Dec. 3, a total of 46 drivers have committed to running in the 58th Annual Snowball Derby — and the star power is undeniable.
The field is headlined by two-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion and 2017 Snowball Derby winner, Kyle Busch, who returns to chase another crown jewel victory.
Joining Busch from the NASCAR ranks is Erik Jones, a current Cup Series driver and two-time Snowball Derby Champion, as well as Noah Gragson, the 2018 Snowball Derby winner and fellow full-time Cup competitor. Also entered is Ty Majeski, the 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Champion and a two-time Derby champion, adding even more firepower to the front of the field.
Rounding out the NASCAR contingent is Ryan Preece, a current Cup Series driver and the 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Champion, and 2016 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Champion Johnny Sauter, who will also attempt to make the Derby field.
What makes the Snowball Derby one of the biggest races in the country is the amount of starpower from short-track racing series that come to Pensacola each year for a chance to leave with the Tom Dawson Trophy.
Derek Thorn is one of the most accomplished pavement short-track racers of the past decade and a dominant force on the West Coast. A multi-time SRL Southwest Tour Champion, Thorn is known for his elite qualifying ability and long-run consistency. He finally broke through to win the 2022 Snowball Derby, capping back-to-back runner-up finishes in the sport’s biggest Super Late Model race.
Joining Thorn as a former Snowball Derby winner is 2024 Snowball Derby Champion, Kaden Honeycutt, who is one of short-track racing’s rising stars.
The 2024 CARS Pro Late Model Champion, Honeycutt, is the youngest Snowball Derby Champion in event history at 21 years old and has made 57 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts. In 2025, he had his best finish to date in the Truck Series, finishing second at the Fall Martinsville race towards the end of the 2025 season.
Joining them is crowd favorite Bubba Pollard, one of the most successful Super Late Model drivers in recent years. With more than 150 career victories and a winner of other prestigious short-track races, Pollard has won events such as the All-American 400, Slinger Nationals, Rattler 250, Red Eye 100 and Oxford 250.
However, a Snowball Derby victory has eluded Pollard his entire career.
Rounding out the short-track aces is Stephen Nasse, one of the most polarizing and controversial drivers in late model racing.
A respected winner in his own right, winning races such as the Winchester 400 and All-American 400, Nasse was the winner of the 2019 Snowball Derby, yet was disqualified in post-race inspection for an illegal modification.
Other names to look out for include Dawson Sutton, who won the 2025 All-American 400 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, and Cole Butcher, who is the 2025 ASA STARS National Tour, ASA Southern Super Series and Deep South Crane Blizzard Series Champion.
While Wednesday saw haulers enter the hallowed grounds of Five Flags Speedway, Thursday marks the beginning of on-track action. The weekend schedule is as follows and can change due to weather threatening the area.
Thursday, Dec. 4
Friday, Dec. 5
Saturday, Dec. 6
To watch the 58th Annual Snowball Derby, viewers can watch all the weekend’s action, including support races, online at FloRacing via a subscription purchase.
For action at the track, follow Mid Bay News on our Facebook page or follow Mid Bay News reporter Collin Bestor on Twitter/X @MBNBestor.
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