MYRTLE BEACH, SC :: Travis Swaim got the holeshot on Greg Edwards with 12 laps to go to take the lead and score the victory in Saturday night’s Myrtle Beach 400 at Myrtle Beach Speedway.

Swaim, a former champion in the now-defunct UARA-STARS tour, was running in the top-five all race, leading on a couple of occasions but the 35-year-old veteran saved his best for last.  Four-time Langley Speedway track champion Greg Edwards dominated much of the second half of the race which was slowed by a spree of cautions after the first half was run without incident.  With 12 laps to go, Edwards couldn’t get going and that allowed Swaim to get by him to take the lead and the win.

“When the cautions started falling in the second race and we were up there around second, I thought we were in good position,” Swaim said after the race.  “Then, it was about catching breaks and smooth restarts and hoping nobody does anything dirty to you.  Everybody raced me clean and I’m just really happy about it.”

Swaim, who said he considered his Myrtle Beach triumph on Saturday to be the best and biggest win of his career, felt the shorter race distance and cooler temperatures played to his advantage.

“It was about 30 degrees tonight and that made a big difference and I think it kind of helped me because I’m not the best at saving tires but I think I’m starting to learn.”

Edwards felt like he had the car to beat all race prior to that lap 188 restart which came after a multi-car incident involving Myatt Snider, David Garbo, Deac McCaskill, Blake Stallings, Dylan Hall and Robert Tyler, among others, on the fronstretch.  Edwards felt that restart was the deciding moment in the race.

“One of those last restarts, I’d like to have over again,” Edwards remarked.  “We had that big accident on the front straightaway and there was a lot of dirt and debris up there.  When we went for the restart, it started spinning and the car behind me got in the back of me and picked my rear tires up.  Then it really spun bad and was able to get some guys by me.  We played the strategy right all day.  I felt like we actually had the fastest car, even on that last restart when I got clear.  We played it all out right but these late race restarts in these big money races, you never know what’s going to happen.”

Defending race winner Lee Pulliam was quiet through much of the event, running mid-pack in the first half of the race before racing his way back inside the top-five.  Throughout much of the final 50 laps, he raced side-by-side with Josh Berry.  Pulliam ended up prevailing in that battle, coming home with a third place finish.

“I think we had something for everybody except [Swaim],” Pulliam explained.  “I was running [Edwards] down there in the last couple of laps, just ran out of time.  I think we got a bad set of tires the first half of the race.  The heat race, we were rocking pretty good.  We put our set to start the feature on and it was was a bucket of junk.  It kind of slid around and hung around about 15th or 16th.  Then we made adjustments to those tires and put a good set of tires back on for the second half.  It kind of costs us a little bit.  I had to drive my car a little harder than I wanted in the beginning to get my track position back where we fell so far behind.  We had a pretty good rocket ship, just not quite enough.”

Southern National Motorsports Park track champion and 2013 MDCU 300 race winner Tommy Lemons, Jr. finished in the fourth position while Josh Berry, who won the track championship at Hickory Motor Speedway this season, finished fifth.  Payton Ryan, who had a strong run and led a handful of laps, finished in sixth.  Brandon Setzer quietly and methodically raced his way to a seventh place finish.  Autumn Classic race winner Brayton Haws finished in eighth while Justin Johnson and Chris Hudspeth rounded out the top-10.

Myrtle Beach Speedway regular Justin Milliken battled adversity all weekend long.  First, Milliken had to change engines on Friday after blowing a motor in practice.  Milliken won his heat race and ran up front for much of the 200-lap feature race before looping around and slamming into the outside wall in turn one.  Milliken’s car erupted in flames when he made contact with the concrete barrier.  That wreck ended his valiant effort.

Zach Brewer scored the victory in the 125-lap KOMA Unwind Modified Madness Series race over Burt Myers and Bobby Sheffield while Tim Lollis surged to the victory in the 100-lap Super Truck race, holding off Kyle Benjamin and Jamie Tate.

Race Results

1. #21 Travis Swaim
2. #97 Greg Edwards
3. #6 Lee Pulliam
4. #27 Tommy Lemons, Jr.
5. #88 Josh Berry
6. #23 Payton Ryan
7. #1 Brandon Setzer
8. #41 Brayton Haws
9. #44 Justin Johnson
10. #28 Chris Hudspeth
11. #20 Sam Yarbrough
12. #07 Spencer Davis
13. #32 Randy Porter
14. #5 Tyler English
15. #98 Todd Gilliland
16. #77 Alex Yontz
17. #60 RA Brown
18. #34 Matt Bowling
19. #31 Kaz Grala
20. #50 Jamey Caudill
21. #7 Justin Crider
22. #8 Kyle Plott
23. #2 Myatt Snider
24. #03 Robert Sterling
25. #25 Matt Piercy
26. #18 David Roberts
27. #72 Dennis Holdren
28. #89 Robert Tyler
29. #4 Dylan Hall
30. #46 Brandon Gdovic
31. #71 Blake Stallings
32. #34 Matt Waltz
33. #12 Trey Gibson
34. #10 Nick Smith
35. #08 Deac McCaskill
36. #81 David Garbo, Jr.
37. #02 Justin Milliken
38. #9 William Byron
39. #58 Tyler Ankrum
40. #51 Matt Cox
41. #00 Shane Lee
42. #75 Brian Vause