Images via Justin Melillo

After a dramatic and caution-filled 100 laps, Michael Conti scored his 12th career eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Tuesday night by pulling away from the field in the final few laps. It marked the second year in a row that the JR Motorsports driver punched his playoff ticket early, after winning last year’s opener at Daytona International Speedway, and holding off close friend and fellow series champion Nick Ottinger of William Byron eSports after the duo dominated most of the race.

Ottinger led the field to green, but just like last year, the caution flag first flew early as Mode Motorsports’ Cody Byus got the worst of an early racing incident while trying to split a gap between Spacestation Gaming’s Kyle Peddle and Williams Esports driver Vicente Salas going into Turn 1. Salas’ teammate Donovan Strauss spun in a similar place after contact of his own just a few laps later, sliding back up into the pack and collecting Letarte Esports’ Brian Mercurio and Team Dillon eSports’ Taylor Hurst.

Subsequent incidents as the race continued collected 2021 playoff drivers like Matt Bussa and Mitchell deJong, and even defending series champion Keegan Leahy with 30 laps to go. Two laps after the restart from Leahy’s incident, runner-up Logan Clampitt got the worst of yet another frontstretch accident as drivers continued to push the limits of the Next Gen car.

But while this year’s race had more cautions than 2021, and many of them fell later in the race, there was no overtime necessary to set up the finish. Conti managed to extend his gap to .775 seconds at the finish over Ottinger, with defending event winner Ryan Luza falling just short of third place to Charlotte Phoenix driver Graham Bowlin. Despite all of the carnage, 25 drivers—even including drivers like Leahy and Salas who took significant damage—were able to complete all 100 laps of the race.

eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series results from Las Vegas Motor Speedway were as follows:

Fin.

St.

No.

Name

Manufacturer

Laps

Interval

Led

Best

Pts

1 2 8 Michael Conti Chevrolet 100 0.000 75 29.762 40
2 1 25 Nick Ottinger Chevrolet 100 -0.774 19 29.699 35
3 17 48 Graham A. Bowlin Toyota 100 -0.950 0 29.787 34
4 6 4 Ryan  Luza Chevrolet 100 -0.956 0 29.610 33
5 20 95 Casey Kirwan Chevrolet 100 -0.961 0 29.806 32
6 25 3 Corey Vincent Chevrolet 100 -1.034 0 29.770 31
7 14 31 Garrett Manes Chevrolet 100 -1.208 0 29.812 30
8 21 9 Michael Guest Ford 100 -1.253 0 29.844 29
9 33 69 Collin Bowden Chevrolet 100 -1.892 0 29.731 28
10 27 79 Femi Olatunbosun Ford 100 -3.457 0 29.929 27
11 36 15 Blake Reynolds Ford 100 -3.561 0 29.770 26
12 10 51 Ray Alfalla Toyota 100 -3.723 0 29.726 25
13 29 46 Jimmy Mullis Chevrolet 100 -3.827 0 29.892 24
14 7 18 Bobby Zalenski Toyota 100 -3.828 0 29.843 23
15 23 21 Garrett Lowe Ford 100 -3.870 0 29.877 22
16 26 88 Briar LaPradd Chevrolet 100 -4.121 0 29.903 21
17 3 45 Keegan Leahy Toyota 100 -5.398 0 29.862 20
18 18 41 Dylan Duval Ford 100 -5.408 0 29.839 19
19 32 7 Malik Ray Ford 100 -8.559 0 29.769 18
20 8 75 Matt Bussa Ford 100 -9.526 0 29.910 17
21 39 16 Blade Whitt Ford 100 -11.207 0 29.915 16
22 11 10 Steven  Wilson Ford 100 -11.330 0 29.683 15
23 22 43 Kollin Keister Toyota 100 -11.333 0 29.822 14
24 34 6 Parker Retzlaff Ford 100 -14.633 0 29.891 13
25 16 19 Vicente Salas Toyota 100 -20.110 0 29.746 12
26 35 5 Zack Novak Chevrolet 99 -1 L 0 29.925 11
27 12 54 Kyle Peddle Toyota 99 -1 L 0 29.777 10
28 40 17 Kaden Honeycutt Ford 99 -1 L 0 30.072 9
29 24 2 Liam Brotherton Chevrolet 98 -2 L 0 29.992 8
30 28 36 Brian Mercurio Chevrolet 94 -6 L 0 29.925 7
31 5 40 Dylan Ault Chevrolet 93 -7 L 0 29.878 6
32 9 23 Mitchell deJong Toyota 91 -9 L 0 29.914 5
33 37 12 Derek Justis Ford 82 -18 L 0 29.907 4
34 4 42 Darik Bourdeau Chevrolet 81 -19 L 6 29.831 3
35 13 97 Logan Clampitt Chevrolet 78 -22 L 0 29.793 2
36 30 55 Allen Boes Toyota 78 -22 L 0 29.943 1
37 15 24 Cody Byus Ford 69 -31 L 0 31.688 1
38 19 20 Donovan Strauss Toyota 65 -35 L 0 29.954 1
39 31 33 Taylor Hurst Chevrolet 26 -74 L 0 30.037 1
40 38 14 Nickolas Shelton Ford 21 -79 L 0 32.012 1

 

eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series points through two rounds are as follows:

  1. Michael Conti, 73
  2. Femi Olatunbosun, 67
  3. Garrett Manes, 65
  4. Blake Reynolds, 57
  5. Jimmy Mullis, 56
  6. Casey Kirwan, 55
  7. Ryan Luza, 52
  8. Steven Wilson, 49
  9. Bobby Zalenski, 49
  10. Dylan Duval, 49

The eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series season continues at Atlanta Motor Speedway two weeks from now, where Clampitt won last spring to earn his way into the 2021 playoffs. Broadcast coverage begins on Tuesday, March 15 at 8:30PM ET with Countdown to Green before a 9PM ET green flag, and can be seen at enascar.com/live.

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.

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