Race Lasts Too Long for Newhall’s Pursley

Greg Pursley of Newhall barely missed collecting his second NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour victory in the Snap-On Tools/AAA 200 on Saturday at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma.

Jim Inglebright of Fairfield won the race after passing Pursley for the lead in turn 11 on lap 69 of the 70-lap race, which was scheduled for 64 laps but was extended because of a caution flag on lap 64.

“I had a lot of close calls, we just came up a little short,” said Pursley, who used to race motocross against Inglebright. “We were just sort of a sitting duck at the end. [The car was handling] loose, the tires were going away.”

Said Inglebright: “Me and him kind of got together the lap before. We had a good car at the end. Greg protected the inside a little more, but I got my momentum up coming out of nine and got him at 11.”

Pursley, selected Gatorade Front Runner after leading laps 43 through 68, also said Inglebright’s pass was clean.

“Inglebright drove me cleanly, we raced hard and really good green-white-checker racing,” Pursley said. “We’ve raced a lot of good races together. He had a good car at the end, better than ours, and I couldn’t hold him off.”

Road-racing specialist Boris Said of Carlsbad finished third, and Bob Lyon of Palmdale was ninth.

Defending NASCAR Winston West champion Sean Woodside of Saugus finished 10th after his car’s engine blew coming out of the last turn on the final lap.

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Bryan Herta of Valencia qualified 21st for the Freightliner/G.I. Joe’s 200 today at Portland International Raceway.

Herta, substituting for injured Tony Kanaan in the Mo Nunn Racing Reynard-Mercedes, registered 118.642 mph on the road course in his second day of driving the car.

Mechanical problems on Friday and Saturday limited Herta’s practice time in the car.

“We haven’t gotten nearly as many laps as we wish we could have,” Herta said. “This morning’s problems set us back even further. We just don’t have the car to my liking, yet. You need seat time to get that done.

“We’ll make some changes for tomorrow’s warm-up, see where we are, and make whatever adjustments we have to after that.”

Helio Castroneves qualified at 122.768 mph in a Roger Penske-owned Reynard-Honda to capture the pole and break Herta’s two-year-old track record.

Staff writer Shav Glick contributed to this notebook.