PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Erik Jones won his second consecutive Snowball Derby on Sunday night at Five Flags Speedway after original winner Chase Elliott was disqualified in post-race technical inspection.
Elliott had crossed the line first but his car was found to have an illegal block of tungsten as a replacement for the lead weighting that typically goes into a Super Late Model. The metal is heavier and more expensive than lead and could theoretically allow teams to place the weight in a more ideal manner.
Tungsten is strictly outlawed in the Snowball Derby rulebook and is typed in boldfaced print. The Elliott team said it was an oversight but chief technical inspector Ricky Brooks was forced to disqualify the No. 9 team.
Before he could be announced as the winner, Jones also had to pass technical inspection and was given the same thorough treatment by Brooks and his staff that Elliott received. Ultimately, Jones and his Kyle Busch No. 51 team passed inspection and was declared the winner.
It wasn't the most ideal way to win a race but Jones was thrilled to have won his second Tom Dawson Memorial trophy.
"A win is a win and we'll take it," Jones told SB Nation after he was declared the winner. "Going through tech, things started slowing down and I was starting to get nervous because I thought that maybe we could end up winning this deal now. And it's certainly the same emotion that we would have if we had gone out there and won on the track.
"Winning two Snowball Derbys is something I would have never dreamed of and to be able to get it now is pretty special."
A victory in the Derby caps off a very successful 2013 campaign for Jones, who also scored his first wins in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and ARCA Racing Series respectively.
Elliott could not be reached immediately following the tech failure but he tweeted the following response on his social media account.
Simply sorry to everyone. One Mistake on our part costed us the race. I Can't thank the ones who are still supporting us tonight enough.
— Chase Elliott (@chaseelliott) December 9, 2013
Grant Enfinger moved up to second in the revised order and remarkably was able to finish the race, near the front, despite losing a cylinder early in the race.
His Tracy Goodson team kept working on the car to provide it speed and track position and he said that the litany of green flag runs at the end of the race helped him maintain the spot throughout the closing stages.
"I'll tell you what, the car was so good on long runs surprisingly," Enfinger said. "If we had our full motor behind us, I think we would have been even better on take offs and the short runs. I'm more than pleased to be sitting here in third."
Austin Theriault, Hunter Robbins, John Hunter Nemechek, David Rogers, Kyle Benjamin, Ross Kenseth and Derek Thorn and Donnie Wilson completed the revised top-10.
Elliott had led 227 of 300 laps overall prior to his tech failure while Jones did not even lead a single lap as the winner.
In all, there were eight lead changes and the race was slowed by caution eight times for 67 laps. The complete results of the 2013 Snowball Derby can be found below.
- Erik Jones
- Grant Enfinger
- Austin Theriault
- Hunter Robbins
- John Hunter Nemechek
- David Rogers
- Kyle Benjamin
- Ross Kenseth
- Derek Thorn
- Donnie Wilson
- Landon Cassill
- Ben Kennedy
- Chad Finley
- Cale Gale
- Casey Smith
- Johanna Long
- Paul Shafer Jr.
- Jeremy Pate
- Clay Rogers
- Daniel Hemric
- Stephen Nasse
- Josh Hamner
- Mason Massey
- Spencer Davis
- Anderson Bowen
- Logan Boyett
- Zac Hausler
- David Ragan
- Mason Mingus
- Bubba Pollard
- Preston Peltier
- Chris Davidson
- T.J. Reaid
- Boris Jurkovic
- Mike Garvey
- Augie Grill
More from SB Nation Ranting and Raving
• Daniel Hemric finishes 20th in Snowball Derby but remains optimistic for 2014
• Exclusive Video: Alanis King and Matt Weaver interview NASCAR's Jeff Burton
• Grant Enfinger finishes second in Snowball Derby with dropped cylinder
• Chase Elliott wins dramatic Snowflake 100 Pro Late Model race