eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series Race Preview: Las Vegas
May 1st, 2023 by Chris Leone
After a week off, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series returns to action on Tuesday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for its seventh round of the 2023 season. As always, race coverage begins at 9 p.m. ET at eNASCAR.com/live and across iRacing social media channels, while Countdown to Green will kick off at 8:30 p.m. ET to preview the action.
Last Race: In a dramatic last-second move, defending eNASCAR champion Casey Kirwan of XSET passed Jim Beaver eSports’ Malik Ray coming out of the tri-oval to return to the winner’s circle at Talladega Superspeedway in the Wendy’s Biggie Bag $5.00. After Ray had to block other drivers charging behind him, Kirwan was able to ride his momentum across the line to take his first win of the season—denying Ray his first career series win by a heartbreaking .036 seconds.
In the first fixed-setup race in series history, owing to the lack of a break week between Talladega and the previous round at Monza, the lead changed hands 36 times between 15 drivers. While there were multiple wrecks over the course of the night, all but three drivers completed all 71 laps of the race.
Last Year: In the second round of the 2022 season, it was JR Motorsports’ Michael Conti who survived a caution-heavy race to lead 75 laps and win eNASCAR’s most recent Las Vegas visit. Despite the many yellows, the race only went its scheduled 100 laps, with Conti pulling out nearly a second on runner-up Nick Ottinger of William Byron eSports at the line. It was the second year in a row that a former series champion won at Las Vegas, after XSET’s Ryan Luza took the victory in 2021.
Track Facts: Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s 1.5-mile tri-oval opened in 1996, welcomed its first NASCAR Xfinity Series race in 1997, and added a NASCAR Cup Series race in March 1998 (and a long-awaited second Cup date in 2018). The superspeedway was reconfigured in 2006 with progressive banking up to 20 degrees in its corners to increase side-by-side racing. Like many other Speedway Motorsports facilities, LVMS also has a drag strip and dirt oval on site, as well as roval configurations and even a paved short track called The Bullring.
Next Up: Following Las Vegas, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series will head to Darlington Raceway on Tuesday, May 16 at 9 p.m. ET. Last year’s Darlington round served as the cutoff before the playoffs, with Steven Wilson taking his third of four wins on the year for Stewart-Haas Racing and Zalenski securing the final available playoff spot on points with a third place run.
For more information on the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, visit www.enascar.com or www.iracing.com/enascar. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.
Image via Justin Melillo
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