Hulbert Barely Wins at VIR

For this week, the iRacing Skip Barber Series dropped by Virginia International Raceway. They will utilize the Full Course. The track was opened in 1957, but closed in 1974, becoming a cow pasture afterwards. It reopened in 2000 thanks to Harvey Siegel,  New Yorker. So far, the only major race series to have ever visited the track was the American Le Mans Series and Rolex Sports Car Series.

Intense is certainly a word to describe this race

The competitors were ready to take the start of this 4045 strength of field race. Rudi Reinkort took the pole position. Behind him was Simon Hulbert, Ramon Sprecher, Michel Dudognon and Paul F Grillo. After the green lights were shown, every one executed the first corner without trouble. However, at the following turn, Ricardo Ferreira spun out. Thankfully, he span into the grass, therefore no one hit him. Grillo was really unlucky during this first lap, as he went wide in two places: at the same turn where Ferreira spun and in Turn 12. He fell from fifth to thirteenth. It got worse: he span out in the first corner during the beginning of the second lap. He decided to get his car towed back to his pit stall to continue the race, but he was a lap down. On lap five, Reinkort attempted a brave overtake on Hulbert, who was leading at the time. Coming into the 14^th corner, the two were side-by-side, but Hulbert didn’t seem to realize that Reinkort was next to him. They both made contact, but it was didn’t affect anything. On the next lap, Hulbert tried the same thing, but he broke too late coming into the corner and went wide. He dropped all the way to fifth place. During the next few laps, the top four were having an intense battle as they kept overtaking each other. However, that mass amount of overtaking gave a chance to Hulbert to catch up to that train of cars. Shockingly, Mattia Branchini lost control and spun his car at the last turn into the car of Dudognon. Fortunately, he overcorrected his car and spun into the grass, collecting no one in the process. With three laps to go, Dudognon cut Turn 6 and was forced to slow down to give up the time gained. During the final lap, Reinkort and Hulbert were separated by nearly a tenth or two of a second. Reinkort was giving everything he had to defend his position, but Hulbert was charging hard. It was on the Back Straight that the decisive pass was made; Hulbert took the lead from Reinkort.

Hulbert won the race infront of Reinkort, who was 0.272 seconds behind. Third place finisher was Sprecher, forth was Dudognon and fifth was Dawid Hyzy.

Meanwhile, in the point’s standings, Grillo leads with 1722 points, followed by Sprecher (1701), Hulbert (1683), Reinkort (1548) and Jeron Ganzeveld (1475).

For the penultimate week of the Barber Series, the drivers will be going to Road Atlanta, famous for its American Le Mans Series round; the Petit Le Mans. Tune in next week to find out what will happen when they will be heading to this fast and twisty track.

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