Sheer determination, patience and some untimely luck for his competitors
combined this afternoon to see Jeff Purvis go to victory lane for the
first time in his Busch career. First time winners are known to have
actually have difficulty finding victory lane - as Purvis did.
Purvis's late race charge looked as if he would be rewared with his second top-5 of the finish, but he benifitted most from a series of cautions, lapped traffic and driver error.
Clarksville, TN native Jeff Purvis and team owner James Finch are proving that determination and a lot of hard work will pay off - all without any significant sponsorship offers.
Purvis showed during the winter test season that his Busch and Winston Cup Phoenix Contruction Monte Carlos would run well. Very well in fact.
At Daytona he put the Busch car on the pole as he did this week. Last week at Rockingham he equaled his best career Busch finish with a third and this week he improved on that by winning the Hardee's Fried Chicken Challenge 250 ahead of Joe Nemechek, David Green Mike Wallace and Curtis Markham.
Purvis's first win came in his 30th Busch Series event. It's the first time a Winston Cup regular isn't in victory lane this season. Steve Grissom won at Daytona, and Mark Martin won last week at Rockingham. Chevrolet leads Ford 2 to 1 in Busch victories on the season.
Purvis is the third driver to win this race from the pole position, only Sam Ard ('82) and Michael Waltrip ('90) had accomplished the feat before.
After holding onto the lead in the early going, Purvis relinquished the lead to Mark Martin and David Green. As Martin showed the field last week - he was going to be the car to beat. Green, in his new ride with the Buz Mccall Caterpiller team, was showing his true colors for the first time this year. He was Martin's top competition.
The challenge all the drivers faced was tire conservation. The Goodyear radials were not holding up well and on long green runs the Busch cars became a handful.
With less than 30 laps to go, Martin's day ended when he made contact with the wall exiting turn four. Martin was attempting to pass lapped cars, when Mike Wallace moved down on Martin sending him into the wall and an early trip home. "A lapped car, didn't want to get lapped. Mike Wallace was just afraid I was going to pass him there and there was no stopping it," Martin commented.
Randy LaJoie, second at the time, made a costly mistake following Martin onto pit road. To his dismay he realized the pits were closed after it was too late and suffered the penalty of being put to the end of the pack.
Joe Nemechek was next in line to move to the front, but his ill-handling car couldn't hold Purvis off in traffic and Purvis made the best of the final 6 laps. Purvis now has 4 top-5 and 7 top-10 finishes to his credit. With his earnings of $17,900 he nows has $158.677 in career Busch earnings.
There is more than a strong hint
that the Phoenix team might really have what it takes to run up
front at any level of professional stock car competition.
The world of NASCAR has been abuzz with talk of Jeff Purvis and his Phoenix Racing team and "where in the world did they come from?"
According to Purvis, 36, a former late model dirt national champion, the question was easy to answer. They'd been up-and- coming for more than 10 years -- especially over the last three seasons.
When the Winston Cup, Busch and ARCA campaigns were coming to a close in late 1995, Purvis strapped himself into a NASCAR All Pro Series Phoenix Racing-prepared Chevrolet and hit the short tracks of Nashville, Myrtle Beach and Pensacola. He scored wins at Nashville and Pensacola (Hooters Series) as well as winning runner-up honors at Myrtle Beach.
Dirt lovers say he's a short-track expert. Asphalt enthusiasts say he'll only run well on the superspeedways. If Purvis has his way, he'll make each eat their respective words.
The 1994 ARCA Super Series champion has also scored recent series wins on the Talladega, Daytona, Michigan International and Pocono superspeedways in Finch-owned Chevrolets.
After turning heads on the short (asphalt) tracks from October through December, Purvis made even more eyeballs pop after the Busch and Winston Cup series' January tests were over. In addition to the strong Winston Cup showing, he was second- fastest among 45 teams in Busch Series tests.
"Not bad for a part-time team," said owner Finch, a Panama City businessman and bachelor. "Right now, we're planning to run about five Winston Cup events in 1996 (both Daytonas, both Talladegas and Indy), but I'm pretty sure we're going to concentrate on running for the Busch Series championship if we don't secure a major Winston Cup sponsor. We'll run in the Busch series as long as funding holds out."
Finch is not a newcomer to having major sponsorship. But they just haven't been as "major" as he would have liked. There appears to be a lot of room on this Monte Carlo for a smart corporation. But, they better move quick!
