Pursley Gains Points in Colorado Clash
Gene Price Motorsports Driver Greg Pursley Closes Gap in Standings after Fourth Place Finish
PARKER, ARIZONA (August 17, 2009) – Greg Pursley, driver of the Gene Price Motorsports Chevrolet on the NASCAR Camping World Series, kept his championship hopes alive after a fourth place finish Saturday night at Colorado National Speedway in the 11th race of the 2009 campaign. The finish allowed Pursley to shave off 21 points and move closer to his first series championship.
The day did not start as good as it ended for Pursley as he struggled with his car through two 45-minute practice sessions and a disappointing qualifying effort. “This car test really well but we just couldn’t make it turn,” Pursley said. “I just struggled with any sort of forward bite and to qualify ninth was a big disappointment for the team.”
Races and championship are won and lost in the little things and sometimes you have to make the most of a bad situation. That was where Pursley was at Saturday night. Over the first 100 laps of the race, Pursley was mired at the back half of the top ten just hanging on. “I was pretty frustrated in the car,” Pursley stated. “I just tried to dig and claw the entire race.”
His luck started to change over the second half of the race and by lap 100 he moved to within site of the top five, albeit at the expense of his championship rivals who had mechanical issues dropping them from the lead lap. An expense he did not mind paying.
Pursley moved into the fifth position on lap 101 and then took the fourth position on lap 120. He maintained the fourth position over the closing laps to register his seventh top five finish of the season and chipped away at the point leaders. “As tough as the car was to drive, to come out of here with a fourth place finish feels real good,” Pursley said. “It is nights like these that can make a big difference and we made the most of it. This championship is not over and if we can continue to finish ahead of Jason (Bowles) and Eric (Holmes) and they have bad luck then it is going to be an exciting finish to the season.”
The Gene Price Motorsports team continues to impress in their first year on the tour. “Gene has put together a first class team and Danny Crafton (crew chief) and the rest of the team do an awesome job at the shop and at the track. This is a great team to be associated with and I thrilled to drive for Gene and the team.”
With his second consecutive fourth place finish, Pursley maintains the third position in the standings only 119 points behind second place and 156 points out of first place with two races left on the 2009 NCWS schedule. In his first season for Gene Price Motorsports, Pursley has one win, seven top five and nine top ten finishes in eleven starts.
Greg Pursley, in his second full season of competition in the NCWS, made his NCWS series debut back in 1999 at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield, CA and has 27 career series starts with one win (Thunder Hill 2009), nine top five and 14 top ten performances. Pursley is the 2004 NASCAR Whelen All American Series national champion where he competed at Toyota Speedway and was a multi-time winner on the now defunct NASCAR Southwest Tour where he competed for many years. The Toyota/NAPA “150” at Colorado National Speedway will be televised on SPEED Channel Thursday, August 20 at 12 noon PT. The NASCAR Camping World Series is in its 56th season of competition and is one of the nation’s oldest stock car racing series. The next event for Gene Price Motorsports and driver Greg Pursley is Friday, September 4 at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa.
