Lee Pulliam scored the pole for the 17th Thanksgiving Classic presented by Solid Rock Carriers on Saturday afternoon.
Pulliam, ran a 15.407 second lap around the 4/10-mile track in Lucama, North Carolina to claim the pole for Sunday’s Thanksgiving Classic. The Alton, Virginia driver previously won the race 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 remarked. “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.”
Defending Thanksgiving Classic winner Tommy Lemons, Jr. qualified second while Bobby McCarty, Mike Darne and Philip Morris rounded out the top-five qualifiers.
Also locking themselves into the race were Matt McCall, Bradley McCaskill, Mason Diaz, Peyton Sellers, Jonathan Findley, Justin Johnson, Brenden Queen, Cameron Bowen, Tyler Matthews and Layne Riggs. The rest of the field will have to race their way into the race in Sunday’s last chance qualifier.
Rusty Daniels is also locked in by virtue of winning the Eastern Carolina Late Model Mania championship.
Sunday’s action will get underway at 12pm EST.
CLICK HERE for our Jumpstart Motorsports RACEDAY Live Coverage of Saturday’s Qualifying and Limited Late Model race.
Qualifying Results:
1 – 5 Lee Pulliam- 15.407
2 – 27 Tommy Lemons Jr.- 15.447
3 – 22 Bobby McCarty- 15.465
4 – 21 Mike Darne- 15.470
5 – 01 Philip Morris- 15.474
6 – 51 Matt McCall- 15.477
7 – 07 Bradley McCaskill- 15.494
8 – 24 Mason Diaz- 15.522
9 – 26 Peyton Sellers- 15.547
10 – 4 Jonathan Findley- 15.548
11 – 44 Justin Johnson- 15.555
12 – 03 Brenden Queen- 15.565
13 – 19 Cameron Bowen- 15.660
14 – 63 Tyler Matthews- 15.692
15 – 99 Layne Riggs- 15.702
16 – 18 Jason York- 15.754
17 – 9 Alex Brock- 15.760
18 – 82 Will Burns- 15.772
19 – 41 Sam Mayer- 15.794
20 – 17 Stacy Puryear- 15.800
21 – 55 Mark Wertz- 15.831
22 – 9 Devin Dodson- 15.843
23 – 24 Colin Garrett- 15.868
24 – 90 Terry Carroll- 15.871
25 – 2 Robert Powell- 15.923
26 – 22 Grayson Cullather- 15.936
27 – 91 Justin Carroll- 15.953
28 – 33 Ryan Haddock- 15.958
29 – 46 Thad Moffitt- 15.975
30 – 82 Cameron Burke: 16.009
31 – 5 Adam Resnick- 16.062
32 – 82 Mike Ganoe- 16.082
33 – 15 Nolan Pope- 16.181
34 – 9 Charlie Watson- 16.184
35 – 28 Jason Barnes- 16.219
36 – 1 Juan Gonzalez- 16.248
37 – 9 Rodney Boyd- 16.450
38 – 16 Rusty Daniels- no time
