By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer

Shades of Bubba Pollard two years ago at Richmond Raceway, this time it was Lee Pulliam who got his big shot to drive for JR Motorsports in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Martinsville Speedway.

And like his fellow short-track ace, Pulliam was up front.

“It’s just unbelievable to get to do this,” Pulliam said. “To be on a stage like this is something I’ve wanted to do my entire career.”

His gratitude led to results on Saturday, as the No. 9 Chevrolet led 40 laps on the day and finished fifth.

Those numbers, however, do not spell the entire story of Pulliam’s popular debut.

On lap 108, Pulliam was penalized for an uncontrolled tire, pushing him to the rear of the field near the end of Stage 2.

Crew Chief Phillip Bell took a tire strategy play to get Pulliam back to the front on lap-184 restart. And after leading 40 laps on the day, Pulliam experienced a missed shift on a restart with 15 laps to go, which sparked a 19-car pileup behind him.

With two ensuring restarts, the 37-year-old made through the gears and scored a fifth-place finish.

What. A. Day.

“Man, I felt like we were gonna have a good shot to contend for the win there and we had that uncontrolled tire,” he said. “When we got sent to the rear, I didn’t know what was gonna happen.

“Phillip [Bell, crew chief] gave me a shot. He called aggressive strategy, we took tires early. Once I got the lead, I set sail. I’ve worked really hard on myself physically, mentally to get back to a good racing shape.”

Despite the track position, tire grip on older tires was too big a hill to climb against Justin Allgaier.

“I just didn’t have enough rear tire to hold him off there at the end,” he said. “I just made a couple mistakes on those last restarts. I think just lining up against those guys who could launch a lot harder than me, I was trying to be aggressive, and just made a mistake.”

Shortly after exiting his racecar, Pulliam was seen in an emotional embrace with car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. on pit road.

“It was my inexperience mostly,” he said of the mistake. “Having older tires and a combination of me not ever doing this. Man, I just hate it. I was trying to clean [the tires] up hard and I just could not get going from second [gear] to third.

“I hate that it tore up some racecars but proud of everyone’s hard work.”