It was the most improbable finish of his career. It was wild and it was staggering, several times over. But if you’ve paid close attention, you could’ve seen this coming, because it was also methodical and surgical. It was Travis Braden showing how it’s done.
The Wheeling Wheelman rode his training, talent and grit to capture his biggest victory to date, taking the prestigious 2019 Snowball Derby Monday at the 5 Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla. It was Braden’s first time qualifying for the race, and even that was chancy, given the circumstances.
But to WIN? That, my friends, was remarkable.
To quickly recap: 1. Braden was wrecked in practice Friday, destroying the right side of the car. The crew replaced the entire suspension, got the ride ready and, despite no practice with “the new car,” Braden was able to qualify for the race. 2. He qualified 30th, which, on a short track with an old, slick, asphalt surface, put his car in the crosshairs for more beatin’ and bangin’ and perhaps another wreck. 3. He went a lap down on an early pit stop. 4. He was spun by another car in the last five laps.
But to pull himself and Team Platinum together and make a run to the front after all the issues? Braden, just 25, relied on his experience and talent. When the car went a lap down and fell to 34th, the crew gambled and took on new tires before any of the other cars. This allowed him to maneuver, dart and dodge his way to sixth, and put himself into position to make a run for the win.
Travis Braden is fast, and he’s smart. He’s got two degrees in engineering from West Virginia University — mechanical and aerospace — and knows his car inside and out.
“I can build a car from the ground up,” he admitted. “A lot of the drivers can’t say that.”
So, Braden can not only feel what the car is doing on the track, but he knows why it feels that way, and what exactly needs fixed. That feedback to the crew gives him the edge because, let’s face it, just about all of these drivers are ridiculously talented.
There was a crucial restart at the end of the race, after a wreck that collected Braden and several others. With five laps to go, race leader Ty Majeski was slow on the restart at a time when slow just ain’t gettin’ it. The ensuing crash took out a huge chunk of the field, and Braden was ready to pounce. He passed two cars on the outside down the stretch — not easy on a short track — and sailed toward the checkered.
The confidence to pass on the outside is borne from his upbringing on the short tracks at Columbus Motor Speedway and Kilkare Raceway in Xenia, Ohio. “Basically, those are my two home tracks, and they are among the most difficult in the world.”
But the drama in the Snowball Derby was just unfolding, as the checkered flag welcomed apparent race winner Stephen Nasse, with Braden second. The post-race car inspector got sassy with Nasse, however, and disqualified his car because of illegal titanium fittings in his brake system. Travis Braden, with a clean car, was declared the winner.
Titanium is verboten in late model racing. “It’s in the rule book in black and white,” chief technical inspector Ricky Brooks said in the post-race press conference from his Room of Doom. “It we don’t go by that, none of this matters.”
Nasse didn’t deny the rules infraction. As they say in the business, “If you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’.” But he suggested some nefarious pre-race communications between race officials and his former brake company, and believes he was allowed to run the race with the officials knowing that they were going to DQ him, anyway. That’s a pretty serious allegation.
Braden, meanwhile, has been there. He actually qualified for the Snowball Derby in 2014, but was DQ’ed before the race because of an improper balance on one side of the car. “Less than 0.1 percent,” he recalls. “But that’s the rule.”
And then there’s this: It’s the third time in the last 10 years of the Snowball Derby — this was its 52nd run — that the winner was disqualified. Notables: Chase Elliott had one taken away in 2013, and Kyle Busch barely escaped with an iffy motor in 2017 but was declared the winner.
So, Travis Braden has his prized trophy and a world of momentum. After two full seasons in ARCA — he finished fifth in points in 2018 and fourth in 2019 — he’s going to cherry-pick some late-model, short tracks and hopefully get some backing to break into a NASCAR series, either the trucks or Xfinity.
Let’s face it, he’s now accomplished just about everything he can to this point. We’re talking about a kid who won his very first ARCA race — in the gorgeous WVU-sponsored car, in fact — and he is a two-time CRA Racing champion (2013-14). He’s won a couple dozen professional races. But none, of course, can match this one.
“It’s cool to just have the opportunity to race here,” said Braden, who met his lovely girlfriend Jess Ballard at this track, in the grandstands, two years ago. “But to win here? A lot of things can come from it, and this is a really good time to have this happen. This legitimizes what I do, what my team does. It makes it that much easier to maybe open some doors.
“That’s the biggest thing here. The title that comes with winning this race. It’s the title below my name now. That’s a huge tool from here on. There’s no bigger title in short track racing.”
But after all that happened this past weekend, don’t you dare say that Travis Braden backed into this victory. He hasn’t backed into anything his entire life. Straight ahead, full throttle. He’s comin’.
