LUCAMA, NC :: Ronnie Bassett Jr. executed a textbook bump-and-run on Lee Pulliam with four laps to go, got under the two-time defending NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Champion and pulled away to win the Thanksgiving Classic on Sunday night at Southern National Motorsports Park.

Bassett was involved in the caution that he needed in order to obtain track position as Dean Shiflett spun off the nose of his No. 04. Following the cone selections, Bassett restarted second on the bottom with eight laps to go, behind Pulliam and Matt McCall.

The UARA-STARS regular quickly disposed of the latter within two laps of green flag racing and began working on Pulliam. With four laps to go, he successfully made his move and escaped from Pulliam and McCall in the closing laps.

“It was pretty cool,” Bassett said of the win. “We screwed up a few restarts before that and were racing some of the cars deeper back. So we decided to restart on the inside, with the cone, and the car was really fast… I can’t thank my guys enough who came down here for me on Thanksgiving to work on the car.”

McCall edged Pulliam for second while Deac McCaskill and Justin Snow completed the top-five.

McCaskill had the dominant car of the day, leading the most laps but just faded late. Meanwhile, Pulliam suspects that Bassett intentionally spun Shiflett to get closer to the front.

“I guess he spun out the lap car to bring out the caution,” Pulliam said. “But it was a good run for the Kiker team since this was our first time out.”

Roughly two months after his breakthrough triumph at Martinsville, Tommy Lemons Jr. had a disastrous race at Southern National, getting caught up in both major accidents of the day and was not around for the finish.

He was ultimately scored in the 28th position.

The accident that delivered the knockout to Lemons occurred on the lap 122 restart when Brenden Queen ramped over the damaged No. 27. All told the accident also involved Greg Edwards and Adam Murray and took 15 laps of caution to clean up the mess.

The first half of the race was largely a cleaner affair with the first 36 laps being contested under green flag conditions. Pulliam led the first three laps from the pole position but McCaskill was able to get a nose under the reigning and defending NASCAR champion and completed the pass by lap four.

McCaskill never really got away from his rival, especially in lap traffic where the No. 08 struggled to get around cars more so than Pulliam, who was driving the No. 5 this weekend for Kiker Motorsports.

The first accident involving Lemons took place on lap 66 when he was involved in a multicar accident, on the frontstretch, also involving Myatt Snider, Austin Thaxton, Brenden Queen and Craig Stallard.

Thaxton was towed off the track and did not finish the race from his eighth starting spot. Lemons resumed the race, with a damaged car, only to be caught up on the lack 122 accident.

The race was delayed nearly an hour from its scheduled 3:30 p.m. start as pre-race festivities took longer than anticipated. Once cars began circling the .4-mile oval, the Sun’s glare became a problem and the red flag was issued so teams could install tinted covers to their drivers’ helmets.

The race began shortly prior to 4:40 p.m. and ran deep into the nighttime hours, completing at approximately 7:20 p.m.

RACE22.com’s Andy Marquis contributed to this report.