Buchberger Trucks Ahead at Bristol

Two wins in two starts seals overall victory

From the biggest track on the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) schedule to the smallest, the teams of the popular series headed to the Bristol Motor Speedway for Round Two on the 2011 Season One campaign. Like Daytona, the racing at Bristol can be unpredictable at best with high banks, tight turns and short track tempers fueling the pilots at the helm of the trucks. That didn’t deter some of the top names on the iRacing.com service to try their hand at the Tennessee half-mile as many big time sim racers appeared near the top of the heap after seven grueling days of paint swapping, side-by-side, online racing action!

Illinois driver Brandon Buchberger topped the charts this week as he took home two wins in his two starts at Bristol. During his first start on Tuesday he led 61 of the 120 laps of the event en route to the victory over Tim Axton and DJ Lyon. Twenty-four hours later it was Buchberger taking the checkers first over Taylor Webb and Kile Gottula. The strength of field (SOF) ratings were high for those races, tipping the scales at 3464 and 3662 respectively.

Jody Green (#2) runs out of time as he finishes second to Dylan Duval (#4) on Monday.

Rounding out the podium in the overall standings at Bristol were Josh Berry and Brad Wright. The two NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship (NiSWC) drivers each had one win at Bristol with Wright making one more start that Berry’s pair of race appearances. Ironically it was Wright who bested Berry in the first start of the week for the Mid-South driver on Sunday. The roles would be reversed twenty-two hours later though as Berry got the best of Wright on the final day of competition. When the points were tallied, the two would be separated by four points with Berry ahead of Wright.

When it came to starts on the week it was Division Seven drivers Gregory Bryant and Michael Atkins Jr. leading by a sizable margin over the other 1,223 drivers who took a green flag at Thunder Valley. Bryant went under the green silk 33 times, scoring three wins and completing 2850 laps – 203 of those ahead of the field. In contrast, Atkins made one less start than his Division Seven counterpart, scored one less win but completed 3005 laps (the most among his peers) with an even 200 of those being laps led. Steve Moore was third in the starts category with 23.

Moore would also be on the podium when it comes to overall wins, sharing the third spot with Kevin Jones with five wins. Mark Hewitt’s six wins put the Benelux club driver in second with Tyler D Hudson winning the most checkered flags with seven. Hudson also led the most laps of all competitors in Week Two with 653.

The fastest lap of the week when it came to qualifying was turned in by Mid-South’s Brian Viola with a time of 15.802s. Richie Davidowitz, Michael Main, Berry and Wright completed the top five. At press time, Harrison Widelitz was the best Time Trial competitor at Bristol, topping Simon Crochart, Bill Bledsoe, Jason Vannatta and Michael Tasillo. James Howard leads the overall standings for the Time Trial championship with Virginia’s Vannatta and Rock Harris in the top three spots just two weeks into the season.

Jack Sedgwick (#3) chases down Jarl Teien (#1) during one of Monday’s races at Bristol.

After the completion of two weeks of racing in the NiCCS, Hudson held his spot atop the overall standings with 478 points. NASCAR Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year contender Timmy Hill sits second with 408 points after his one win performance at Bristol. Brandon Buie sits third just four points behind Hill with David Rattler and Marty Arnett completing the top five. Division Two sees Sascha Henken on top while Division Three is led by Dean Heck and Peter Kastanaras. William Lark has a double-digit lead on Kevin Bradshaw in Division Four with Jay Adair and Michael Peters being separated by a single marker in Division Five.  Harold James has the advantage in Division Six, Atkins Jr. holds the lead in Division Seven and Bill Schoonover has the rest of his peers behind him in Division Eight. Division Nine and Ten see David Trogdon and Justin Hirst at the top of the board. In all, six divisions (Two, Three, Five, Eight, Nine and Ten) have point battles which have one or two point margins – making this season one of the tightest in history after two weeks.

Next up for the NiCCS is the Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, Virginia. The Richmond track is the second of three short tracks (tracks less than one mile in length) this season and is the second consecutive on the schedule. Last season it was Wright besting Davidowitz and Berry with Adair winning the most races among the 981 drivers who ran at the Virginia oval in 2010 Season Four. inRacingNews will have all the coverage from Week Three here next week.

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

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