STOCKTON — Escalon’s Eric Holmes made a valiant dash for the front in the late going of Saturday’s Pick-N-Pull 150 NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race at Stockton 99 Speedway, but was forced to settle for a hard earned second place finish behind Dylan Kwasniewski.

Kwasniewski, in the No. 03 Rockstar/Royal Purple Ford, started from the pole and dominated the 24-car field throughout the night, going wire-to-wire, to pick up the victory over Holmes.

“The car was absolutely perfect. It was great race and I had a blast,” said the 16-year-old, second-year driver from Las Vegas. “We were able to get through all the lapped traffic and avoid any incidents.”
Holmes started the race, scheduled for 150 laps, from the fourth position and patiently stalked the leaders until he was finally able to sneak around Cameron Hayley, of Calgary, Canada, on lap 40 to take over the third spot.

Holmes, driving the No. 20 Napa Auto Parts Toyota, was hot on the tail of second place car Greg Pursley of Newhall when a couple of back markers spun going into turn 1 on lap 60. Kwasniewski and Pursley were able to slip through, but Holmes was forced to a halt in order to avoid a serious collision and ended up in seventh when he finally got around the pile up.

Holmes spent the next 80 plus laps playing catch up, but was only able to get back to fourth behind Kwasniewski, Pursley and David Mayhew of Atascadero with only hand full of laps remaining. A caution with less than 10 laps to go closed the pack up and allowed Holmes to duck under Mayhew on lap 144 and then steam around Pursley a lap later while Kwasniewski pulled away from everybody.

Another yellow caution on lap 147 sent the race into a green-white-checkered overtime, giving Holmes one last crack at Kwasniewski.

When the race resumed on lap 154 Kwasniewski quickly pulled away from Holmes, crossing the finish line with a margin of victory of 0.490 seconds. Mayhew held on for third ahead of Pursley and Winton’s Jason Fensler came home fifth.

“I am proud of my team, they gave me another great car tonight,” said a disappointed Holmes. “We were cruising at the beginning, but I had to drive hard to get back up there and I just didn’t have enough for Dylan at the end. He had a great car.”

For Kwasniewski, who was making his first ever start on the high-banked Stockton quarter mile, it was his first win of the season and third of his career.

“Geez, I hated to see that last yellow. I was so nervous,” admitted Kwasniewski. “Eric Holmes had a chance to take me out and drive me rough, but he’s a great driver and I’m glad he did it respectively.”

Manteca’s Jacob Gomes, making his first start of the year in the series, started in 10th and had moved up a couple of positions before being forced to retire on lap 60 when his engine overheated.

“The car was running good and we were in position for maybe a top five finish,” said Gomes, driving the No. 16 Sunny Valley Smoked Meats Chevy. “I didn’t want to ruin it so we decided to park it.”

With the win Kwasniewski took over the lead in the K&N West Series championship standings. He leads with 173 points over Mayhew (167). Pursley (162) and Holmes (160) who is attempting to win his fourth championship.

The Pick-N-Pull 150 will air on SPEED on May 17 at 3 p.m. ET.

The next event on the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West schedule is the Graham Tire 150 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East-West combination race at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa on May 19.