Ordinarily, when Philip Morris and Lee Pulliam show up to a short track, they are the undisputed favorites to win on any given Saturday night.
Ordinarily.
But both showed up to Hickory Motor Speedway for the Bobby Isaac Memorial 150 with a combined zero Late Model Stock starts at the Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars.
Pulliam arrived because his 2017 home track (Myrtle Beach Speedway) has the weekend off and Morris is making his Hickory debut because Motor Mile Speedway was rained out due to the remnants of Hurricane Harvey.
“This is my first time here period,” Morris said. “In fact, my guys pulled up some Youtube videos to give me idea of where the line was and let me tell you, it’s nothing like the video. This place is bumpy. It has character.”
Unlike, Morris, Pulliam does have some experience at Hickory, having made a start there back in 2013 in the old X1R Pro Cup Series. He started second and finished fifth.
He made the trip because he has a narrow one point lead over Trevor Huddleston in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series championship standings. The 20-car field is enough to give him full field points should he win.
“We’re points racing,” Pulliam said. “We had hoped to be able to test before the race but we showed up with no practice. We got some practice and feel okay about it. We’ve worked hard today. Our car isn’t quite where it needs to be but we’ll figure it out.”
Morris faced some degree of adversity getting to Hickory however, as he was involved in an incident on the way to North Carolina.
“Well, we didn’t find out until a few hours ago that our race at Motor Mile was canceled and then we thrashed to get here,” Morris said. “We had a four-wide on a three-lane road and we just didn’t fit. It was too big of a tug and caught the rear end of the truck and that put us behind so missed practice.
“I handicapped us a bit in qualifying but our guys have an idea so we should be better.”
Ty Gibbs, son of NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs qualified on the pole. The starting lineup for the Bobby Isaac Memorial 150 can be found below.
- Ty Gibbs 15.074
- Justin Carroll 15.136
- Josh Berry 15.150
- Ryan Millington 15.170
- Anthony Alfredo 15.179
- Will Burns 15.185
- Lee Pulliam 15.185
- Cole Glasson 15.198
- Thomas Beane 15.207
- Annabeth Barnes-Crum 15.295
- Landon Huffman 15.303
- Matt Leicht 15.332
- Sam Mayer 15.333
- Charlie Watson 15.341
- Philip Morris 15.342
- Kevin Leicht 15.343
- Thomas Scott 15.479
- Juan Gonzalez 15.531
- Tomas Gasperak 15.757
- William Lester 16.687
Read more Short Track Scene:
- Stephen Nasse won’t embrace championship until he wins
- CARS Tour to run partial Super Late Model schedule in 2018
- Josh Berry wins at Concord to set up epic CARS Tour finale
If you like what you read here, become a Short Track Scene Patreon and support short track journalism!
Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.