LUCAMA, NC – 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.
For more information about Southern National Motorsports Park, check out SNMP’s website at www.snmpark.com, “like” Southern National Motorsports Park on Facebook or “follow” @SNM_Park on Twitter.
