Greg Puskarich took the lead on lap 14 and won the August 7th 35 lap Street Stock main event, presented by Best Western-Crystal Palace Inn and Suites, at Bakersfield's Mesa Marin Raceway. The qualifying order of the entire field was inverted and that meant the division hot shoes had to make quick work of racing their way to the front.
Bakersfield's Jason Devries led the 15 starters under the initial green flag and held the point until lap 7 when Bakersfield's David Hutchins took the lead. By now Puskarich had raced his way into the top five and by lap nine was in second. A lap ten caution flag allowed Puskarich to close the gap on Hutchins. The two drivers have been running neck and neck all season long for the division points lead and the Mesa Marin crowd was ready for another shoot out between them.
The pair raced it out for three more laps when the final caution flag of the race flew on lap 13. On the ensuing restart Hutchins slipped a little high and that gave Puskarich the green light he needed to make his winning pass on lap 14. Paul Ebersbacher was third while Howie Smith and Anthony Gillespie rounded out the top five.
In victory lane a very happy Puskarich celebrated his fourth win of the year and said "we had to get through the traffic early because they inverted the whole field but once I got into second behind David I just tried to stay right on him and tried to get him to make a mistake. He got a little loose and I was able to get underneath him."
Commenting of the very tight Street Stock points race Puskarich said "in the back of my mind the points are there but I figure if you go out there and win or at least run good in every race the points will fall into place. We came here tonight tied and now we're five points ahead. That's not very much so we're going to have to run hard and try to win everything we can."
