SOUTH BOSTON, VA :: With wins already this season at South Boston, Southern National and Caraway, 2012 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National champion Lee Pulliam continued his early season roll with another win at South Boston Speedway.
Young driver Austin Thaxton put his ride on the pole for the evening matinee with CE Falk who raced the night before at Myrtle Beach Speedway for another team grabbing the outside of the front row. Southern National Motorsports Park dominator Deac McCaskill and former NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Champion Peyton Sellers lined up in the second row. The third row was made up of the pole winner from race one Bobby McCarty and Pulliam as another National Champion Philip Morris lined up seventh.
Falk grabbed the lead early over the 20-car field as Thaxton was shuffled back to third with Sellers pulling up to second. Quin Houff, who had his best career qualifying effort in eighth, would be the first caution of the evening around lap 10. Falk was strong out front as he led through lap 30 when the second caution of the day came out when Thomas Scott spun.
Behind Falk, Pulliam was on the march to the front of the field and by lap 45 he had made his way to the second position. However Falk was still out front and looked to be the class of the field, although no one would have been surprised if Pulliam caught him but his three second lead appeared insurmountable. On lap 71, that lead disappeared as Josh Oakley and Thaxton got together and both would have heavy cosmetic damage but continued on.
At the halfway point it was Falk leading over Pulliam still with Morris having made his way up to third ahead of Sellers, McCaskill and Dennis Holdren who had charged from near the rear of the field to sixth position. On the next restart, Pulliam would get out to a slight advantage over Falk but a caution would wave soon enough as Jeff Oakley would spin on the frontstretch.
Falk’s car began to smoke and stopped briefly but he returned to his second running position before the restart. Falk battled Pulliam briefly on the restart for the lead but he then went up in smoke with presumably an engine failure. With Falk gon,e Pulliam began to grow his lead on rival Morris by five car lengths before the leaders encountered lapped traffic on lap 123. By lap 131, when a debris caution waved, Morris had fallen even further behind to Pulliam.
On a restart with 11 laps to go, Pulliam outgunned Morris and took the lead for the final time en route to his fourth win of the season and second at South Boston. Former National Champions Morris and Sellers finished second and third with McCaskill, Holdren, McCarty, Matt Bowling, Dustin Storm, Ronald Hill and Thaxton rounding out the top ten.
