Gresham brings it home

JEFFERSON, Ga. — Max Gresham got to celebrate in front of his home crowd Saturday night, but it wasn’t without a fight. The 18-year-old from Griffin, Ga., earned the win at Gresham Motorsports Park following a wild green-white-checkered finish to the Slack Auto Parts 150.

Gresham and Darrell Wallace were side-by-side on the front row on the final restart when they washed up the track in Turn 2, and Matt DiBenedetto briefly made it three-wide for the lead. But Gresham rocketed back in front on the backstretch en route to his first win of the season and third of his career.

The win comes at Gresham’s family-owned track. Gresham, a Joe Gibbs Racing development driver won the 21 Means 21 Pole Award presented by Coors Light earlier in the day. After waiting through a 2 1/2-hour rain delay, he led a race-high 98 laps.

Gresham was 12th last season in the series debut on the refurbished half-mile.

DiBenedetto held on for second Saturday, followed by rookie Andrew Smith. Wallace, who led 57 laps in the middle of the race, finished fourth and Corey Lajoie fifth.

Eddie MacDonald was sixth, followed by Chad Finchum, Dylan Presnell, Cody Hodgson and Benny Gordon.

Wallace maintained the championship points lead by five over Gresham and 12 over DiBenedetto.

The Slack Auto Parts 150 will air on SPEED on Thursday, June 16 at 6 p.m. ET.

The next event on the 2011 schedule for the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East will be the VisitHamptonVa 175 at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Va., on Saturday, June 18.