TOOELE, Utah — Greg Pursley picked up his second straight win at Miller Motorsports Park. And Saturday's victory in the Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix came in similar good-luck fashion as his win in 2010 on the road course just outside Salt Lake City.
Pursley held off Moses Smith's furious challenge as a pair of green-white-checkered attempts pushed the scheduled 50-lap race to 63 laps.
It was the second win of the season for Pursley, the points leader, and the fourth in the last six NASCAR K&N Pro Series West events dating back to last year.
Eric Holmes seemed poised to collect his first road-course win. The three-time series champion, however, ran out of fuel on Lap 59 under caution after a stalled car forced a second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. Last year, Pursley inherited the lead late in the race when the dominate car of Patrick Long cut a tire in the closing laps.
Holmes had passed Pursley on Lap 46 in Turn 10 of the 15-turn, 2.2-mile course and remained out front en route to the victory. Holmes had lost the lead to Pursley, the defending race winner, on a Lap 43 restart. A stalled car on the course brought out the caution just before the leaders took the white flag. The first green-white-checkered finish was then interrupted by a multi-car incident that resulted in two more cars stopped on the race track.
That appeared to set up a duel between Holmes and Pursley, before Holmes ran out of gas and coasted to a stop in Turn 11.
Jim Inglebright finished third, followed by Jonathon Gomez and David Mayhew. Luis Martinez Jr., Brian Wong, Michael Self, Carl Harr and Greg Rayl rounded out the top 10.
Andrew Ranger won the Coors Light Pole Award and led the first 17 laps before pitting. He lost two laps on a subsequent pit stop when the team had to raise the hood and address a mechanical issue. He returned to the track and was as fast as the leaders, but was unable to get either of his laps back and he finished 20th.
The NASCAR K&N Pro Series West will return to the track on Saturday, May 21, in the annual East-West Combination Race presented by Tompkins Industries at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa.
