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Tag: Greg Pursley

  • NASCAR’s Greg Pursley Continues Dream Season Defeating a Long-Time Nemesis

    NASCAR’s Greg Pursley Continues Dream Season Defeating a Long-Time Nemesis

    [media-credit name=”RacingWest/Charly Porter” align=”alignright” width=”210″][/media-credit]NASCAR’s K&N Pro Series West division rolled into Toyota Speedway at Irwindale on Saturday night for the Southern California Toyota Dealers 200 presented by King Taco, and the only obstacle in the way of point’s leader Greg Pursley continuing his dream season, was the fact he had never won in a West race in 11 starts at this track he calls his home.

    Pursley who drives the No. 26 Gene Price Motorsports/Star Nursery sponsored Ford in the West series, has been to victory lane 28 times at this progressively banked half mile including a Super Late Model championship in 2004.

    Pursley also became the NASCAR Whelen All-American series national champion that same season winning 13 of 18 races, and in 2007 picked up a Super Late Model win in the prestigious NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown. ”We have been trying many years in this car to win here. We have won everything there is to win here,” Pursley said while waiting for the first of two practice sessions to begin.

    The Newhall, California native wasted no time in preparing himself to overcome his nemesis by taking the pole, his third of the season and second-in-a-row at an oval track after deciding not to run the run the second practice session.

    “We have been here enough to where we know what’s gonna happen and don’t want to get yourself in trouble in practice. We’ll know what we got after qualifying and that will tell us how we are gonna run tonight,” said Pursley.

    Pursley also added that, “The communication is very well between myself and Jerry Pitts (Crew chief) and he understands what I like to feel in the car.  I can get in the car and not have to worry about it and it takes a lot of stuff off the back of my mind.”

    Once the green flag waved, Pursley quickly went to the front where he led the first 66 laps of the 200 lap feature race, which included a 10 minute break at the 100-lap mark to give the teams a chance to make adjustments.

    Before the break, Michael Self would lead the last 36 laps of the first 100-lap segment when Pursley let the faster driver go by to save his car for the second half of the race. “The first 100 when the 21 passed it was planned. I told them I wasn’t going any faster. So if they want to go ahead let him go. I knew we needed to save our tires so we just let him go,” Pursley said when talking about the reason he moved over and let Self pass.

    Once the cars came into the pits for the 10 minute break and restarted on lap 103, Pursley once again pulled away and led the next 55 laps when a caution came out because of a fire on pit road. The race restarted on lap 164 with Pursley showing the dominance he has shown all season when he pulled away from the rest of field, and took the checkered flag in front of a near sell-out crowd.

    The win gave Pursley his fifth win on the season, but more importantly he was able to defeat the track  that has eluded him throughout his K&N West Series career. “We have come so close so many times in this car and finally got one. When you’re on a roll like this you have to ride it as long as you can. Everyone knows in racing in can end like that you can go to the bottom as fast as you’re at the top,” Pursley said.

    Pursley also added that, “It’s a tribute to my team and the preparation of my car and I probably have a different mindset entering these races being a little more careful and being a smarter driver. If we can win one were gonna win one and if not we have to get out with the best finish we can. “

  • NASCAR’s Greg Pursley Goes Wire-To-Wire For Fourth Win of The Season

    At this stage during last year’s racing season, Parker, Arizona’s Greg Pursley was sitting sixth in points with only one top-five finish, and a total of 27 laps led in five starts. Pursley who drives the No. 26 Gene Price Motorsports sponsored Ford Fusion in NASCAR’s K&N Pro West touring series, would eventually close out the 2010 season fifth in points with two wins, four top-fives, and seven top-10 finishes while leading a total of 151 laps.

    [media-credit id=50 align=”alignright” width=”200″][/media-credit]The 43 year-old driver knew his team had the talent and determination to compete at this level, and proved it by going to victory lane twice in the last three races of the season. Pursley began the season finale by winning the Coors Light Pole award, while surpassing the record time he set at the one-mile Phoenix track in 2009.

    Pursley would pull away on a final restart with seven laps remaining to capture his first victory at the track he called his “absolute favorite,” which capped off a season plagued by bad luck that would carry over into the following year.

    The Newhall, California native got an early jump to start the 2011 season when he picked up where he left off the previous season, by going to victory lane in the season opener at Phoenix, for back-to-back wins at the Arizona one-mile track. In his first five starts, Pursley went to victory lane four times, with his only flaw coming at Roseville back in April where led a race high 133 laps before finishing third.

    What a difference a year has made when you not only look at the fact Pursley has already doubled the races he won, but also the amount of laps he has led with nine races still remaining on the schedule. Pursley said that, “Time has allowed our team to gel. Communication and preparation is the key and we have both going for us right now,” when talking about some of the changes that were looked at during the off-season.

    With an average finish of 1.4 and a 201 point lead over second place driver Moses Smith, Pursley’s blistering pace clearly makes him the driver the beat this season, and even more so after Saturday’s dominating performance in the O’Reilly 200 at the bullring in Las Vegas, Nevada. Once the teams unloaded for Saturday night’s feature race, Pursley wasted no time setting the pace when he broke the track record with a pole winning speed of 90.144 mph.

    Pursley who went out in the 16th qualifying spot, bettered that of his 16 year-old teammate Dylan Kwasniewski by 0.467 mph, who went out eighth and finished the race in second. After the pre-race festivities took place, the only thing left for the 27 drivers was to see who would prevail after 200 laps of fighting the Nevada heat once the green flag was waved to start the race.

    Pursley took the lead on the first lap of the race, as survival became the order of the night for the other 26 drivers when the first of 10 yellow flags for a Stan Silva solo spin less than 25 laps into the race. A total of 69 laps would be run under yellow before the end of the race, but none of that bothered Pursley as he dominated the race and became the only driver since 2009 to win a race from start to finish.

    The last wire-to-wire win in the series was by Eric Holmes at Roseburg, Oregon. As the laps clicked away and the Nevada heat began to slowly dissipate behind a nice warm breeze, Pursley continued to heat up the track once his biggest threat, Eric Holmes who is the three-time and defending series champion left the race because of mechanical problems.

    “Holmes was gonna be pretty good but I still kept the pace I wanted to keep and if he was gonna push me harder he would have had to go around me on the outside because I was not gonna give up the bottom and it probably would have been a good race.” Pursley said after the race.

    With 34 laps left to go, Taylor Cuzick spins coming out of turn two to bring out the final caution of the night. On the final restart of the night, Pursley pulled away from his 16-year-old teammate and never looked back leaving Kwasniewski, Jason Fensler, and Michael Self to battle for the second position.

    Pursley went on to win the race by 0.872 seconds over Kwasniewski who finished second, but more importantly extended his points lead along with picking-up his fourth win and setting the standard for the rest of the season.  “Finally when the last caution came out with about 30 to go I had to go. It showed at the end the guys at the shop gave me a great car and I can’t complain,” said Pursley.

    Pursley added this about his race winning strategy, “We had a great car strategy was to save the tires until lap 150. The good part about it is you when you start out front. You can pick your way around and I ran the pace I wanted to run and the guys behind me were pressing kind of hard and I didn’t let it bother. This was a dream for me.