Lee Pulliam and Tommy Lemons Jr. have been the face of Late Model Stock racing for the better part of half a decade and will lead the field to green on Sunday for the Thanksgiving Classic at Southern National Motorsports Park.
Pulliam paced the 37-car field with a 15.407 second lap around the .4-mile track located in Lucama, North Carolina.
The four-time reigning and defending Whelen NASCAR All-American Series champion didn’t post a fast time in practice, allowing others to bolt on tires and lead the first two sessions but was fast when it finally counted. He won the Classic back in 2015.
“We had a good car all weekend,” Pulliam said. “The guys have been working hard. We had a couple different packages that we tried yesterday. We feel pretty good about it and think we’ve got a good piece for the race. I don’t normally like predicting results, but I think we’ve got a good shot at it. Hopefully we can be in the right place at the right time.”
Pulliam is typically a contender to win in the Thanksgiving Classic despite only having one win in the winter finale. Pulliam has been involved in wrecks and had parts failures take him out of contention in the race. Once again, he expects to be a contender on Sunday, but hopes to have luck on his side.
“It takes a lot of luck to win these races,” Pulliam said. “We’ve been in position to win this race five or six times and have only won one of them so we haven’t had a lot of luck in this race. We’ve got a good piece, that’s all you can do. I’m going to do the best I can behind the wheel and if we’re there at the end, they better be up on the wheel.”
Bobby McCarty, Mike Darne and Philip Morris completed the top-5 in time trials.
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series crew chief Matt McCall was fastest in the first two practice sessions and was sixth in qualifying.
The top-15 qualifiers automatically advance into the 200-lap main event on Sunday. The remainder of the field will be entered into a last chance race in which the top-16 advance to complete the 32-car starting lineup.
Alex Brock and Will Burns will start on the front row for that race.
The last chance race is scheduled for Noon with the main event taking place after a handful of local division races.
- Lee Pulliam- 15.407
- Tommy Lemons Jr.- 15.447
- Bobby McCarty- 15.465
- Mike Darne- 15.470
- Philip Morris- 15.474
- Matt McCall- 15.477
- Bradley McCaskill- 15.494
- Mason Diaz- 15.522
- Peyton Sellers- 15.547
- Jonathan Findley- 15.548
- Justin Johnson- 15.555
- Brenden Queen- 15.565
- Cameron Bowen- 15.660
- Tyler Matthews- 15.692
- Layne Riggs- 15.702
- Jason York- 15.754
- Alex Brock- 15.760
- Will Burns- 15.772
- Sam Mayer- 15.794
- Stacy Puryear- 15.800
- Mark Wertz- 15.831
- Devin Dodson- 15.843
- Colin Garrett- 15.868
- Terry Carroll- 15.871
- Robert Powell- 15.923
- Grayson Cullather- 15.936
- Ryan Haddock- 15.958
- Thad Moffitt- 15.975
- Cameron Burke: 16.009
- Adam Resnick- 16.062
- Mike Ganoe- 16.082
- Nolan Pope- 16.181
- Charlie Watson- 16.184
- Jason Barnes- 16.219
- Juan Gonzalez- 16.248
- Rodney Boyd- 16.450
- Rusty Daniels- no time
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