eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series Race Preview: Pocono
July 31st, 2023 by Chris Leone
The 2023 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series regular season wraps up on Tuesday night with a visit to Pocono Raceway, with drivers running equal fixed setups in their final shot to score a playoff berth. 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: Upset with getting pushed out of the way for a win at Nashville, Garrett Lowe and Jim Beaver eSports were out for revenge last week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Both Lowe and teammate Malik Ray ran black-and-silver schemes harkening back to Felix Sabates’ infamous protest cars in 1996, carrying “TODO ES JUSTO EN AMOR Y CARRERAS”—roughly, “all is fair in love and racing”—to express their frustration with the Nashville finish. Two weeks later, Lowe and JBeS righted the record in their minds, dominating the latter stages of the Maconi Setup Shop 101 to earn a playoff berth and the team’s first-ever eNASCAR win.
In doing so, Lowe snapped the three-race NHMS win streak of Rise eSports’ Jimmy Mullis, the driver who moved him for the win at Nashville. Where Mullis had to defend the point from Lowe at Nashville on older tires, Lowe had to do the same on multiple late restarts this time around, with Mullis’ teammate Zack Novak the driver on newer tires behind him. But Novak never got a chance to make the pass, as Lowe had one of multiple strong restarts in eNASCAR overtime and Novak had to fight Williams eSports’ Donovan Strauss for second.
Last Year: The finish of last year’s Pocono race proved highly consequential to last year’s playoffs. In a full-contact drag race to the finish line, XSET’s Casey Kirwan forced his way past Novak to take the win and playoff berth, relegating the 2019 series champion to one of multiple second place finishes on the year. That win got Kirwan into the playoffs, while Novak was on the outside looking in; a few short months later, Kirwan was $100,000 richer as he held up the Dale Earnhardt Jr. Trophy at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte as eNASCAR’s newest champion.
Track Facts: Known as “The Tricky Triangle,” Long Pond, Pennsylvania’s Pocono Raceway is one of the longest ovals on the NASCAR schedule at 2.5 miles. Designed by open-wheel racing legend Rodger Ward, it borrows its 14-degree Turn 1 design from the former Trenton Speedway, Turn 2 from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Turn 3 from the Milwaukee Mile. Pocono first welcomed the NASCAR Cup Series in the 1970s and added a second race from 1982 to 2021, with both races stacked in a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader in 2020 and 2021.
Next Up: Following Pocono, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series playoffs begin at Michigan International Speedway on Tuesday, August 15 at 9 p.m. ET. Playoff drivers will have three shots to win their way into the Championship 4, but at least one driver will get there on points. Current William Byron eSports driver Matt Bussa won the most recent race at Michigan in 2021.
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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