The last trip Lee Pulliam made to Bristol Motor Speedway ended in a disastrous crash early in the event. On Saturday, he avenged his previous visit and exerted his might at the Last Great Colosseum in the Response Energy 100 for his second career tour win.
Myatt Snider, who won the tour’s last race at Bristol a year ago, picked up where he left off by claiming the Hedgecock Racing Pole Position for the 100-lap feature. Upon the drop of the green flag, the driver of the No. 2 motored out to the lead but the intensity began to quickly increase.
With only 13 laps complete, rain was noted within seven miles of the speedway, meaning competitors knew they may be racing to halfway or shortly thereafter if the weather were to arrive prior to the checkered flag. A caution for Bradley McCaskill’s stalled car in turn two on lap 32 hastened the nervousness and likely contributed to the turning point of the race.
As he often does in CARS Tour events, Snider picked to restart in the top lane of the .533-mile facility in hopes his momentum would rocket him past Pulliam. A mistake on the restart by Snider, however, allowed Pulliam to nose ahead into turn one and take the lead for the first time on the night. Snider’s miscue also allowed Layne Riggs to bypass him for second.
Riggs continued to give chase to Pulliam over the next portion of the race, ducking high, low and anywhere possible when he had a run on the No. 5 who he ran down from multiple car lengths back. Riggs appeared poised to make a sure move for the lead when officials were forced to throw the caution for lightning in the area on lap 64, 13 laps past the 51-lap distance required to make a CARS Response Energy Tour race official.
Soon after lightning entered the area, precipitation did too, forcing track and series officials to call the Response Energy 100 just 36 laps short of its scheduled conclusion. As the leader, Pulliam was credited with the victory followed by Riggs, Snider, Ty Gibbs and Josh Berry in the top five.
“There are no words to describe it,” Pulliam said following the event. “As a kid, I grew up idolizing all of these different racecar drivers, Dale Earnhardt specifically. One of his coolest wins to me was when he was down here at Bristol, when he moved Terry Labonte. It wasn’t a popular win, and the fans went crazy, and it was one of the few times where you heard Earnhardt get booed by 90% of the people. It’s a real cool memory for me as a kid growing up.
“Myatt was pretty good and he kinda used the momentum on the top at the beginning of the race, and got a good run on the top and just cleared me,” he continued. “After a few laps, my car would start running him down and it would start overheating every time I would get close to him, and I would back off and try to get some fresh air on the nose. Finally, we had that restart, and he had a pretty good start, and we were pretty even, and we raced hard into turns one and two, and he tried to close the door going into 3, but I was there.”
An old-school racer to his core, Pulliam is the type of racer who the U.S. Short Track Nationals was created for.
“I work on racecars and build racecars for other people,” he said when asked about the magnitude of this race. “We have three of four cars that race out of our shop at different tracks, but I just really wanted this deal bad. It was one thing I had on my list, and it was real cool to check off.”
The CARS Response Energy Tour late model stocks resume action at Ace Speedway on June 9 while the super late models will visit Anderson Motor Speedway in South Carolina on the same evening.
For more information on the CARS Tour, visit their website at www.carsracingtour.com. Fresh content and updates can also be found on the series Facebook page (@carstour), Twitter (@carstour), Instagram (@cars_tour), Snapchat (@carstour) and Youtube channel (/carstour). The series Roku app is also available for installation to see live and on-demand events by following the instructions available at www.carstour.tv.
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