TOOELE — Even when he is driving a different type of car, Patrick Long finds a way to cultivate success in his trips to Utah.
Racing at Miller Motorsports Park for the second time in three months, Long turned in a dominant performance. He claimed the pole position in qualifying and followed up by claiming his first victory in a NASCAR race in the Camping World Series 125 on Saturday.
Long finished 5.007 seconds ahead of rookie driver Paulie Harraka to claim a first-place finish. Series points leader Jason Bowles finished 11.314 seconds back to claim third overall.
"They say that variety is the spice of life," Long said. "I've become such a winning sports car driver. To now win in a different type of category — that's been my goal from the beginning and that's why I came here to race."
It seemed fitting that Miller Motorsports Park ended up being the site where Long realized that goal. For the Thousand Oaks, Calif., native, it was his second victory on this track in 2009. Long also claimed a first-place finish in the GT2 class at the Utah Grand Prix in mid-May.
Winning erased some frustration Long endured with coming close to obtaining victories in previous NASCAR races at Sonoma and at Watkins Glen, only to fall short in the final laps.
Familiarity with the track in Tooele helped Long set the right tone from the first practice session. He posted top lap times in both practice sessions on Friday and did it again in qualifying on Saturday morning — earning him the coveted pole position.
Still, by the end of qualifying, Long knew other drivers had done their homework and the main race figured to be a tight one.
"We came out of the box yesterday like a rocket, but I knew it wasn't going to be easy in the race," Long said. "They kept me honest. There was even a little bit of bumping and banging on the last restart. That kept me focused. It kept me aware."
Long traded the lead with Bowles through the first few laps, but took the lead from him for good on the 14th lap. In the late stages of the race, Bowles' strategy became focused on getting the maximum points while playing it safe. He dropped down to sixth on his last pit stop before settling into third for the final 15 laps.
It helped him earn 23 more points than Eric Holmes, the eighth-place finisher, who he led by 33 points in the overall points standings going into Saturday's race.
"We knew we were going to lose a few spots, but we knew it was going to cycle around and we'd be OK," Bowles said. "We had to take the safe route. ... We couldn't pit too early because we couldn't afford to run out of gas and have a really bad points day."
A conservative approach proved essential on the final few laps when Bowles suffered a flat in his right rear tire. It didn't do enough damage to take him out of the race, but it forced Bowles to sweat out the last few laps as he lost more and more air from that tire.
"We hoped the tire didn't go all the way down and we could make it to the finish," Bowles said. "It was about 20 pounds low when we got here. It was a good day. We got lucky."
Harraka, a contender for the Sunoco Rookie of the Year award, enjoyed one of the most impressive individual performances of the afternoon. He started the main race 26th out of 26 cars. By the time the checkered flag came out, he had moved up to second and was closing in on Long for the lead.
It left Harraka feeling convinced that, with a little more time, he could have had a shot at overtaking Long for the victory.
"We had to come from the back and that takes a toll on a race car when you got to come from the back," Harraka said. "To still end up second after going through that, I'm really happy with the guys. They did an awesome job."
Roughly one-quarter of the 41-lap race ran under a caution flag.
e-mail: jcoon@desnews.com