Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden
Post-race review and analysis from the eNASCAR Pro Invitational Series race at Richmond Raceway.
Who Won?
William Byron. He was unstoppable for the second race in a row, dominating and surviving a late restart to become the first two-time winner of the short-lived tour.
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Sim stars steal the show
Four races into in eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, one thing has been made abundantly clear – drivers with experience sim racing have an advantage over their Cup Series counterparts that are newer to the service.
The first quartet of events have all been dominated and won by drivers with detailed sim racing pasts – Denny Hamlin, Timmy Hill and William Byron.
Already considered one of the best on iRacing, Byron has shone bright in each race thus far, leading 319 laps in the races to date That including 94 of 154 laps in Sunday’s triumph, where he proved dominant in the closing stages.
Byron’s won two-consecutive races, and could easily have claimed a third if not for a well-timed bump from Hill at virtual Texas Motor Speedway.
Hill only has one win but has yet to finish worse than third. Experienced drivers like Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Parker Kligerman and Landon Cassill have all held a constant presence in the top-10, and the secondary Saturday Night Thunder races have been won by Logan Seavey, who started on iRacing around 2011, and Josh Berry, who has wins in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series.
That’s not to say some of the less-experienced drivers haven’t closed the gap. Kyle Busch has inched toward the front of the grid after a humbling debut at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and even finished fifth after a quiet run on Sunday. Brad Keselowski also showed strong pace, running as high as third before a pit road mistake dropped him down the grid.
Learning to drive within the confines of the simulator – a device that lacks some of the feel of a real car despite the great improvements in realism over the past decade – has proven challenging for the Cup Series’ best, particularly when it comes to managing tire wear.
“I think that what I saw this week was that there was a lot of — everyone was really equal on a short run in terms of speed, like even the guys with a little bit less experience,” Byron said of Sunday’s race. “I think the more experience is just running those longer runs and kind of knowing how the tires wear and stuff like that.”
As discussions in the political sphere have begun to shift toward the return of real racing, a big question about the current iRacing stretch is whether any inexperienced pros could surprise the regular sim competitors to bring home a win in the weeks that remain.
Byron sees potential from the two Cup champions that showed pace on Sunday.
“I think Kyle Busch is the obvious choice,” Byron said when asked about the most likely newcomer to win. “He’s run — in the practice race that I did, he ran third, and then he ran fifth today. So I think his talent and ability to kind of understand the cars is coming through.
“I thought Brad Keselowski was really impressive recently. I think he was running third at one point in this race. You know, it’s just little details here and there that make a difference, and everyone is really close now. I’d say the top five or seven could all win, I think, soon.
“I’d say those two guys, Brad and Kyle.”
They’ll each get a strong chance at an upset win next weekend in an unpredictable race at virtual Talladega Superspeedway.
Clean and (mostly) green
Two weeks ago a race at virtual Bristol Motor Speedway that was supposed to be exciting devolved into a caution-filled slog that sucked a lot of life out of the race.
With a second short-track coming up, NASCAR and FOX understood the need to avoid a similar crash-fest, so they implemented changes to mitigate the risk of another attrition-filled endeavor.
Thankfully for the sport and viewing audience, the changes largely worked.
Sunday’s race saw just 30 cars allowed into the main event – the smallest starting lineup in the esport tour’s four-race stint. Drivers that did compete did so without any fast repairs, a perk in iRacing that allows a competitor to essentially start fresh with a new car.
The first change limited the amount of competitors that could crash, while the latter made sure those that did shunt suffered appropriate repercussions and couldn’t continue causing incidents.
What resulted from the moves was a race that more closely resembled the real-life product.
Sunday’s 150-lap feature wasn’t without its issues. There were a few poor crashes on restarts, as well as a disconnected wheel that ended the day of Chris Buescher. A pair of drivers also interrupted the flow of the race in the middle stages with a trio of crashes – we’ll get to them in just a second.
But overall there was much more green-flag racing, with six cautions compared to the 12 at Bristol. Fans of a few specific drivers were probably disappointed – such as Clint Bowyer, who saw himself fall out in a crash with Bubba Wallace – but the race itself progressed in smoother fashion with more long runs.
“I definitely was intrigued by how long the runs were,” Byron said. “I thought everyone did a really good job of studying and practicing, and we had a drivable setup that would allow guys to move around and really to make passes on each other.”
Whether the same format will, or even should, work on bigger tracks remains to be seen. The upcoming race at Talladega Superspeedway may require at least one fast repair to be provided, lest the field be left splintered if the ‘Big One’ strikes early.
There’s also a debate to be had about who does or doesn’t get guaranteed positions in the race, especially when some drivers and teams are devoting real effort and resources into providing value for sponsors during the stretch.
Michael McDowell, a Cup veteran and full-time competitor for Front Row Motorsports, was forced to race in the Last Chance Qualifier and failed to make the field on Sunday while teammate John Hunter Nemechek claimed an automatic spot. FOX chose Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Daniel Suarez for provisional starting spots, leaving both McDowell and Stewart-Haas Racing rookie Cole Custer among the drivers left out of the race.
But despite some potential questions about fairness and application, the less-is-more philosophy seemed to aid the product in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 150 presented by Toyota.
Giraffing me crazy
While far from the serious drama that hit Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson in the past two weeks, Sunday’s trip to the virtual Richmond Raceway didn’t come without its share of tempers and frustration.
Matt DiBenedetto and Ryan Preece found themselves at odds during the second half of the Toyota Owners 150 presented by Toyota, colliding three times in a short-track battle that cost both drivers a shot at top-10 finishes.
Preece and DiBenedetto were battling on Lap 98 of the scheduled 150 when contact sent Preece spinning and brought out the race’s fourth yellow.
That initial contact quickly resulted in a retaliatory crash from Preece, damaging DiBenedetto’s car in a crash that didn’t yield a yellow. Eager to get revenge, DiBenedetto rode around slowly on the inside of the track and demolished Preece’s No. 37 Chevrolet when he came around.
The crashes relegated Preece to a 19th-place result after he’d started from pole and led 59 laps in the race. DiBenedetto was removed from the server after the final incident and classified in 27th.
Afterward, DiBenedetto took to social media to defend his case, sharing a screenshot of Preece pinning him down to the apron while jokingly claiming he was ready to throw down.
Preece responded in jest, sharing a photo of DiBenedetto in a giraffe onesie posted earlier in the day.
I’ll give it to you if you show up like this pic.twitter.com/22dLHAQZTR
— Ryan Preece (@RyanPreece_) April 19, 2020
Minutes later, Dibenedetto – still in the onesie – shared a video describing his side of the accident.
Post race recap. I do not feel very intimidating currently but you guys can still sense my rage pic.twitter.com/I8uK1lMNrr
— Matt DiBenedetto (@mattdracing) April 19, 2020
“I got to (Preece), got underneath him getting into Turn 1 for about five minutes there,” DiBenedetto said. “He chopped down across my nose, spun himself out. I was like ‘ah, that sucks.’ Figured he would know that was on him.
“Clearly not, because then later we were on new tires, he comes from about five car-lengths back, sends it in there and crashes the hell out of me on purpose. I hated that (it) all started messing up the race and causing cautions, but I was going to get him back because that was stupid. So I did.
“Hate that, sorry we messed up the race with all that nonsense. But it’s alright, it’s just a game for fun.”
From there the pair’s tempers seemed to die down, their momentary frustration subsided.
The incident provided a dose of drama to the race. But thankfully it ended far short of the real-life, off-track issues that have plagued NASCAR competitors for the prior two weeks.
Other Notes
- How serious are some drivers taking this series? Well, race winner William Byron actually practiced how to react should a bump-and-run be attempted on him. His team shared an example after the race.
- On the other end of the spectrum is his teammate Alex Bowman, who didn’t realize that people were shifting during the race.
- These races have remained fluid in structure and format, up to and including the late stages of the race itself. On Sunday the race saw it’s potential green-white-checkered allotment shortened from three to one in the late stages as the race extended beyond its tv window.
- The industry has continued to try to have fun with the events, though. Mid-race drama between DiBenedetto and Preece yielded a humorous (and fake, obviously) penalty from NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell.
- Kevin Harvick made his debut in Sunday’s race, but found himself needing more than 20 minutes of repairs after mid-race crashes. Thankfully he had another duty to attend to.
