SOUTH BOSTON, Va. — Lee Pulliam, the all-time leading winner of the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 at South Boston Speedway, returns for this year’s event — but with a twist.
The six-time Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 winner and four-time NASCAR national champion will pilot a car out of the JR Motorsports stable.
In doing so he will be competing against his own Lee Pulliam Performance team featuring NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular Brenden “Butterbean” Queen, and 17-year-old Carson Brown in the June 27 event.
It is a balancing act for Pulliam, but one he has experienced before.
“It’s not new to me,” Pulliam said of competing against his own team. “I got to do it a little bit earlier in my career when Corey Heim and different people drove for me at different times. I’m very proud of the product we put on the track at Lee Pulliam Performance. I will have my cars well-prepared at the shop, and I have great people working on them.
“Once we get to the race track, I’m there to beat them,” Pulliam added. “I’m going to be laser-focused on getting to victory lane. Dale Jr. and them have put me in this car to win the race. I’m not there to run second to anybody.”
Earlier this year, driving for his own team, Pulliam returned to victory lane at South Boston Speedway, winning the season-opening 100-lap Hitachi Energy Late Model feature. It was his first victory in six and-a-half years and his 53rd career Late Model win at SoBo.
While competing against his own team may not be a new experience for Pulliam, it will be something of a new experience for both Pulliam and Queen as they compete against each other in the kickoff race of the Virginia Triple Crown.
Pulliam and Queen enjoyed a highly-successful stint together in the zMAX CARS Tour, with Queen winning the tour’s 2024 Late Model Stock Car title with Lee Pulliam Performance.
However, their relationship goes much deeper than what they share at the racetrack. They are extremely close friends – so close that Pulliam says Queen “is like a little brother to me.”
“I think most people probably know it, but Lee and I talk almost every day,” Queen pointed out. “Even last year when I was ARCA racing, I texted Lee every race they were racing in and checked in on them and kept up with what their cars were doing.”
The pair’s schedules worked out to where Queen was available to drive one of Pulliam’s cars in select races this season – including the June 27 Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 at South Boston Speedway.
“Last year I was racing on the weekend of this race at SoBo,” Queen noted. “This year, I have a complete off week, and I’m like ‘man, I haven’t won that one and I’d love to have another shot at it.’”
Queen had to secure the blessing and support Chris Rice, CEO of Kaulig Racing, the team he competes for in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
“I’m excited they gave me the green light,” Queen said. “Chris approved all my races. He wasn’t going to turn down the one at South Boston Speedway. If he would have said ‘No,’ I’d have called his mom and asked her to tell him to let me run.”
Rice’s mother, by-the-way, is former longtime South Boston Speedway General Manager Cathy Rice.
Queen has competed in the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 nine times and has only one Top-5 finish, a second-place finish in 2023.
Pulliam, who is making his first start in the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 since 2019, has enjoyed great success in the event. He won the 200-lap race six years in a row (2011 through 2016). Overall, he has nine Top-5 finishes and 9 Top-10 finishes in his 10 previous starts in the event.
The pair have not raced against each other a great deal but look forward to the possibility in the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200.
“We don’t have a lot of personal battles, but it would be pretty cool to go heads-up with him in the “200,” Pulliam said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun racing against Lee,” Queen remarked. “It’s going to be tough to beat him, and I know that. I feel like either way it goes down, he and I are going to laugh and have a good time.
“If I was able to win this race, it would be a dream come true to win at SoBo, and also beat the GOAT and one of my brothers for the win,” Queen continued. “He and I have joked about it, that we hope we’re one-two, either way it goes down. If we’re beating and banging and moving each other, I think he and I are going to laugh the whole time.”
Queen told a story of one such memory.
“We raced go-karts in the rain last year at the end of the year,” Queen related. “Our women did not come outside to watch us because it was raining. I don’t think anybody believes our story, but we had a photo finish, and we got out and said to each other, if we could do this in a late model, that would be the best night ever, so, we’re hoping to recreate that memory.”
Pulliam feels his Lee Pulliam Performance team has as good of a shot as anyone to win the race with Queen and up and coming racer Carson Brown.
“Carson is a really good talent too,” Pulliam said. “It has been a lot of fun working with him. To be only 17-years-old he does a tremendous job. We will definitely have some bullets in the chamber.”
Pulliam says he is both thankful and excited to have the opportunity to race with JR Motorsports again. He piloted the JR Motorsports No. 88 in the 2025 Thanksgiving Classic at Southern National Motorsports Park, finishing second. Earlier this year, Pulliam and JR Motorsports teamed up for his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut at Martinsville Speedway, where Pulliam led laps and finished fifth, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
“It’s an honor to race with them,” Pulliam remarked. “I’m really excited to work with everybody at JR Motorsports again. It’s going to be special to get into the driver’s seat for them. I take a lot of pride in that, and growing up an Earnhardt fan myself, this is really a true honor.
“There is not going to be anyone there that wants to go to victory lane more than me,” Pulliam added. “I want to make everyone at JR Motorsports proud, and I thank Dale, Kelly, and L.W. for giving me the opportunity to do this.”
