Erik Jones has won his second consecutive Snowball Derby 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 expensive metal is heavier and more expensive than lead and allows 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 #9 team.
Before he could be announced as the winner, Jones also had to pass technical inspection and was given the same through treatment by Brooks and his staff that Elliott received. Ultimately, Jones and his Kyle Busch #51 team passed inspection and was declared the winner.
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. 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.
