Warren Wins at Iowa
December 27th, 2011 by DavidP
Alex Warren took one big step forward in his quest to become NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) champion in 2011 Season Four during Week Seven by taking the overall win at the Iowa Speedway. Warren, who competes on the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS), is locked-in to a title hunt in both series in this final 12 week season of the 2011 year.
Warren’s big win came on Saturday when the Illinois sim racer crossed the line first over Brodie Kostecki, Gary Cooksey, Chris Overland and Mitch McCracken. Kostecki led the most laps (52) in the 100-lap race while Warren led 22 en route to the win. The race featured four yellow flags and five lead changes amongst four drivers. The race was rated at 3459 Strength of Field (SoF) and Warren would bag 218 points for the win in the event.
That wasn’t the highest rated race of the week though. Second place driver for the week Brad Wright made four starts on the week including a second place run to Richard Dusett in Sunday’s 3919 SoF race. Dusett led 24 laps in the online race which featured eight lead changes and an equal number of cautions. The pole-sitter crossed the line first on Lap 100 over Wright, Garret Archer, Overland and G Allen Lewis. Wright led the most laps in the race (38) after starting ninth in the event. Wright’s week ending point total would wind up being 216 points. Meanwhile, Dusett went on to make an additional ten starts on the week, winning in three and finishing the week with 195 points.
Thomas D Smith finished third best on the week at the Iowa short track. Smith can credit his 212 points to Tuesday’s 3361 SoF race in which he bested Derek Cash, Michael Tasillo, Jason Fuchs and Danny “Mark” Hansen. The race featured eight yellow flags and ten lead changes with Smith leading the most laps, pacing the field for 29 circuits after starting from the pole position.
Fourth place for the week went to Brandon Atkinson. The driver nicknamed “The Boss” finished second to NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver Josh Berry in a 4033 sof race on Sunday. Berry led 16 laps in the race while Atkinson paced the field for 40 circuits, four less than third place finisher Brodie Kostecki. Phil Juhring and Wright completed the top five in a race featuring five cautions and four lead changes. Atkinson, as with Berry, started multiple races on the week which brought down their point totals. Atkinson completed the week with 211 points, while Berry’s 195 points put him eighth overall for the week.
2011 Season Three champion Ashley Miller was credited with fifth for the week at Iowa. Miller’s 206 points came from a win on Friday in which he led all other sim racers in the 3296 SoF race to the checkers. Miller had to work from the tenth place starting spot but did so quickly, leading 62 of the 100-laps in the race. Brandon Six came home second, followed by Juhring, Wendell James and Phil Brown. The race featured six cautions and saw the lead exchanged nine times.
Alan Jones made the most starts of the week at Iowa, seeing 35 green flags over the seven day period. Josh Laughton, Jimmy Wills and Hal James topped the charts as the most successful drivers of the week, each bringing home seven wins. Jared Crawford was the quickest in qualifying, putting-in a time of 23.080 seconds around Iowa. Laughton, Jason Karlavige, Smith and Kostecki rounded-out the top five of the 353 who took times in qualifying. Smith was the best in the Time Trial competition, out-running Tasillo, Derrick Stone, Justin Collver and Albert Schultz.
With the win, Warren moves into top spot in NiCCS points by 131 over Smith, 1485 to 1354. Brandon Buchberger slipped back to third with 1340 points. Division Two leader Greg Evans is fourth overall with 1292 points with Adam Gilliland completing the top five overall with 1263 markers. Divisional leaders from Divisions Three to Ten include William Dick, Michael Norris, Milt Matice, Morgan Schooley, Kevin Sockow, Dan Hass, Brian Guedesse3 and Frank Hudson. Norris’ lead is just six points in Division Four as he leads Andrew Perry 681-675, while every other Division leader has more than a 42 point advantage on their respective competition.
Next up for the NASCAR iRacing Class C Series is the “wildcard” of the Talladega Superspeedway. With five weeks to go, who will be the one to strike at the only plate track on the schedule? Find out here, next week, at inRacingNews.
Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!