NiCCS Starts-Off With a Bang
August 13th, 2012 by DavidP
The NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) “trucked” into Pocono Raceway for Week One of the season. With its long straightaways and three very different turns, The Tricky Triangle always produces close competition and entertaining online racing.
A whopping 1,069 sim-racers competed in at least one points paying race this week. Five drivers had twenty or more starts throughout the week, headed by Brett Kniess and Tyler McClintock, who both had 24 starts. Neal Dobson and John Gregorio shared honors formost wins on the week (seven) and Richard Gravil led the most laps on the week with 349 laps led.
The highest SOF race of Week 1 was a 3,319 Strength of Field race at 8:45 PM on Friday. Tae Irvine led 30 of 50 laps and edged Tom Moustakas for the win by just over two tenths of a second and collected 208 points for his efforts. Dylan Roe finished third ahead of Keith Shoener, with Chris E Pence in the fifth spot, nearly two and one-half seconds behind the leader.
As the battle for the points championship begins to play out, we see a very close battle starting to form. Tom Moustakas, leaves Pocono with 195 points and the points lead thanks to the fact that Irvine ran more than two races. Just two points behind sits NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver, Chad Coleman. Brendan Burcroff sits just one point behind Coleman at 192 points. Pro driver Richard Dussett, and Pro hopeful, Benjamin Burmeister, are tied for fifth with 189 points each. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.
“[My] main competition will probably be Justin Brooks and/or some of the black stripers,” says Moustakas. “My teammate will be running for points this season and hope to do well racing with the big boys.”
Next week the NiCCS heads to the high banks of Daytona International Speedway, where there will be even more close racing and nail bitting. Expect big wrecks, close finishes, and a big shuffle in the points.