BRASELTON, GA – There’s two new Dirt Street Stock sheriffs in town on iRacing, and their names are Richie and Zane Yost.
These two brothers from Griffith, IN, laid down the fastest two laps in Qualifying, won their Heat Races and dominated the inaugural 30-lap Chevy Performance Street Stock League Feature in Wednesday night’s kickoff to DIRTcar eSports Season 2 on DIRTVision.
Richie led all but two laps around the virtual 3/8-mile oval of Lanier National Speedway, making the most of the bottom-middle groove to hold off brother Zane and fellow podium finisher, Jesse Wall.
Wall, of Chesnee, SC, applied steady pressure on the Yosts the entire race but could not seem to find the speed to get by. Several caution flags spotted throughout the event presented him with a few chances to make it happen, but the leaders were just too strong out front.
One final chance for Zane and Wall presented itself with just three laps remaining as the field was bunched back up once again for a green-white-checkered finish. Even with the two right on his rear bumper, Richie held strong and brought it back home for the final checkered flag of the evening.
Richie picked up $100 for his first DIRTcar eSports Feature win just one hour after competing in the Summit Racing Equipment UMP Modified Feature aboard the DIRTcar eSports Tour at the virtual Kokomo Speedway.
The Chevy Performance Street Stock League action continues on the DIRTcar eSports network next Wednesday night, Dec. 9, with the first of two visits on the Season 2 schedule to the USA International Speedway. Registration for this event will remain open for all new entrants until Monday, Dec. 7, at 8 p.m. ET.
Don’t miss a moment of the action! Tune into DIRTVision presented by Drydene every Wednesday night to catch both DIRTcar eSports League races, and visit iRacing.com to learn more about the best in motorsports simulation.
New points system, new Big-Block Modified racing, new points system and more beginning Dec. 2
CONCORD, NC – DIRTcar Racing’s newest venture into the virtual realm is back.
After a successful first season that began back in April, the DIRTcar eSports staff is proud to unveil its plans for Season 2 of action and continue its partnership with iRacing Motorsport Simulations.
Two separate leagues will run under the DIRTcar eSports banner for Season 2, each competing live on DIRTVision presented by Drydene every Wednesday night from Dec. 2 to Jan. 13, with the season finale events on Jan. 27 for a total of eight races in each league.
DIRTcar eSports Tour
The DIRTcar eSports Tour is the first of two default-fixed-setup leagues set for action in Season 2, keeping a similar style of competition with four rotating DIRTcar-branded divisions in iRacing Dirt: UMP Modifieds, Pro Late Models, 305/360 Sprint Cars, and the long-awaited addition to the platform scheduled for an early December release – the Super DIRTcar Series Big-Block Modifieds.
Each winner’s share is presented by the event’s sponsor, including DIRTcar Racing’s fine partners at Summit Racing Equipment, Drydene Performance Products, Bicknell Racing Products, NOS Energy Drink, Cometic Gasket, Hoosier Racing Tire and VP Racing Fuels.
Pro Late Models racing in the Season 1 finale at Limaland (Joe Grabianowski Photo)
A $20 registration fee is required of all entrants upon registration, which closes the Monday before each event at 8pm Eastern Time.
Should the car count warrant Preliminary Shows and/or Qualifying Rounds, those will be contested on Tuesday night, viewable exclusively to iRacing members. The 24 qualified drivers transferring out of the Preliminary Shows and into the Final Round will all hit the virtual track Wednesday night, free to all DIRTVision account holders.
Tuesday night Tour league Qualifying Rounds and/or Preliminary Shows, if necessary, will begin with a 10-minute open practice session at 6:50pm ET; Wednesday night’s action on DIRTVision will follow suit, beginning with open practice at 6:50pm ET.
New to the Tour league in Season 2 is the addition of a championship points system, modeled after the real-life DIRTcar Racing national points scale, which will award each driver who enters an event points toward the overall championship. A $250 championship check and custom DIRTcar eSports Tour Season 2 trophy will be awarded to the driver with the most points at the completion of all eight Tour races.
Season 2 DIRTcar eSports Tour Schedule (all start times 6:50pm ET)
1) December 2 – UMP Modifieds at Kokomo, pres. by Summit Racing Equipment
2) December 9 – Pro Late Models at Charlotte, pres. by Drydene
3) December 16 – Big-Blocks at Weedsport pres. by Bicknell
4) December 23 – 360 Sprints at Knoxville pres. by NOS Energy Drink
5) December 30 – UMP Modifieds at Fairbury pres. by Summit Racing Equipment
6) January 6 – 305 Sprints at Chili Bowl pres. by NOS Energy Drink
7) January 13 – Pro Late Models at Eldora pres. by Hoosier Racing Tire
8) January 27 – Big-Blocks at Lernerville pres. by VP Racing Fuels
Chevy Performance Street Stock League
The Chevy Performance Street Stock League will run adjacent to the DIRTcar eSports Tour, Wednesday nights on DIRTVision and Preliminary/Qualifying Rounds (if necessary) on Tuesday nights. Servers will launch for open practice sessions at 7:50pm ET on both nights.
Devon Morgan (112), Barrett Bishop (3) and Alex Bergeron (12) battling for position in the final Street Stocks race of Season 1 at USA Int’l (Joe Grabianowski Photo)
Unlike the Tour league, this default-fixed-setup Street Stock League is open only to those drivers with Dirt Oval iRatings of 4800 and below (at the time of registration) and will not follow a championship points system over the eight scheduled races. This is designed in part to encourage more participation from the more casual/non-Pro iRacers and provide the Street Stock racing crowd with a great place to race for cash prizes.
Each Final Feature will be $100-to-win, courtesy of Chevy Performance. The runner-up will receive $75, $50 for third place and $10-to-start. A $10 registration fee is required of all entrants upon registration, which closes the Monday before each event at 8pm Eastern Time.
Californian becomes second repeat winner in eSports history in Drydene Pro Late Model Showdown
LIMA, OH – Four starts in DIRTcar eSports competition for iRacing Pro Dylan Wilson. Two Feature wins and two runner-up finishes to show for it.
And what a unique win it was for the Bakersfield, CA-native, having won on the brand-new simulation update from iRacing that was finalized just hours before the green flag was thrown. A new feature that accounts for the moisture in layers beneath the racing surface rolling to the bottom of the track in banked areas was added to all dirt ovals, including Ohio’s Limaland Motorsports Park – the site of Wednesday’s Drydene DIRTcar eSports Pro Late Model Showdown.
The drivers seemed quite pleased with the new update, but none more than Wilson, who picked up a total of $325 in winnings and contingency for his victory in the 11th DIRTcar eSports event of the season.
At the drop of the green, the 2019 iRacing World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series World Champion Blake Matjoulis grabbed the lead and began to set the pace out front.
However, it was Wilsons’s D1RT Racing #80 using the bottom-middle lane to make the pass for the lead on Lap 3.
“I tried that groove a lane off the bottom above the tires and thought it was actually good, so I went there on the start,” Wilson said. “It seemed to stay good all race. I kept watching the splits and they would grow just a hair, lap-after-lap. I just stayed right where I was and didn’t have to move around much.”
Wilson fought through several groups of lapped traffic but was able to keep the lead as the field found its first caution flag of the night on Lap 19 of the 40-lap Drydene Feature.
Back a bit further in the field was the two-time iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car World Champion Alex Bergeron battling with fellow iRacing Pros Devon Morgan and Kendal Tucker. They got it sorted out after the restart as Bergeron took second behind Wilson and Tucker chasing Morgan down for third.
Joe Grabianowski Photo
Tucker soon switched from the middle groove back to the top side and got a big run on Morgan for third on Lap 32. It took a slide job in Turns 3-4 to get it to work, but Tucker was able to hang on through Wilson’s rebuttal slider the very next corner and take the spot permanently.
Tucker gave a big tip-of-the-hat to the iRacing staff for its newest update – one he feels played a role in his, and everyone else’s, ability to run the bottom and the middle.
“I thought the racetrack was really good,” Tucker said of the simulation update. “Everybody was making the bottom to middle work, it seemed like. I was able to run the top just as fast, and there were definitely two-to-three grooves right there in that track.”
Bergeron came out on top of the mad scramble for second near the midway point of the race and said he truly could feel the difference in the way each of the grooves on the track came in throughout the night.
“With this new update, I feel like this really helped the racing,” Bergeron said. “A lot more lines, a lot more racing for sure. We tried some stuff, tried the outside, and to come away with second place is very, very good.”
Bergeron settled-in behind Wilson by the home stretch, and despite having won three DIRTcar eSports races prior, was satisfied with just a runner-up result Wednesday night.
“If I would have got to Wilson, I would have tried to pass him. But with the lapped cars there, I just wished for a good race and to be able to win it fair,” Bergeron said.
Joe Grabianowski Photo
“It’s tough to just go out there and pass somebody like that. We’re all very good, and you need them to make mistakes to be able to pass somebody.”
But in the end, nobody was catching Wilson. With only a few lapped cars still in his path, Wilson cruised across the line for his second career victory with the DIRTcar eSports league.
In the closing laps, Tucker was turning some of the fastest laps of the race. The problem – the leader was a full straight-away ahead. Despite not being able to catch Wilson in the closing laps, Tucker was confident he had the hot rod to do it, had the race been a bit longer distance.
“We were tracking down the leaders pretty quick,” Tucker said. “I just wish it might have been 50 laps. I don’t know if we could have got them, but we definitely would have got there to them at the rate we were going.”
“We just needed a caution right there. We had the speed again, just needed a little luck and it to play out differently.”
Taking the lead from Tyler Jackson in the final laps after a race-long battle with he and Kendal Tucker, Bergeron showed the DIRTVision presented by Drydene audience just how exciting and competitive the DIRTcar eSports league is every week.
“Qualified first, won the Heat Race and won the Feature, so I can’t ask for more,” Bergeron told announcer Chase Raudman in the DIRTVision post-race interview.
Bergeron may have won the war, but he initially did not win the battle of the opening stages, despite leading the first lap.
Jumping to the early race lead was DIRTcar Street Stock guru Tyler Jackson, who had a very impressive run inside the podium throughout the race, mixing it up with the iRacing Pro-license drivers while trying to become the very first non-Pro driver to win a DIRTcar eSports event.
Through the first three quarters of the race, it looked as though Jackson was going to break through and accomplish the feat, leading laps 2-27 of the 30-lap contest.
Bergeron was running third with four laps to go after chasing fellow iRacing Pro Kendal Tucker and leader Jackson for most of the race in traffic. With the race going caution-free, lapped traffic played a big role in the outcome, as a slower car was thrown right in the middle of the leaders’ race with just three circuits remaining.
The top-three of Bergeron (12), Tucker (10) and Jackson (1a) battle for position in lapped traffic. (Joe Grabianowski Photo)
Going down the backstretch with just five laps remaining, Jackson had committed to the low side of a lapped car heading into Turn 3 while Tucker went to his outside. The slower car bobbled and made contact with Tucker, sending both into the outside wall and opening the door for Bergeron to slip right through the middle for second.
“The lap car was there, Tucker went to the outside, I took the middle and just sent it in there. [Tucker] got shoved out, so I took the spot. I ran the top and just tried to be as fast as possible and get around Tyler [Jackson], and that’s what I did,” Bergeron said of the pass for second.
With Tucker behind him, Bergeron made a beeline for Jackson’s spot out front. Using that high side momentum, the Team ABR-pilot took advantage of another slower car right in Jackson’s middle groove just two laps later and took the lead away as they crossed the line with two-to-go.
Jackson and Tucker came together on the white-flag lap, allowing Tucker to scoot by for second and moving Jackson back to third. Back out front, it was all Bergeron, who crossed the line first on Lap 30 to pick up the $300 victory and the $25 bonus from VP Racing Fuels.
After the checkered, Bergeron commended Jackson and his skills, running out front with he and Tucker as a non-iRacing Pro.
“He was pretty good. I didn’t know who he was, but he was pretty good, for sure. I’m glad that he was able to get up here; it was a fun race,” Bergeron said of Jackson.
Back in second, behind Bergeron for what is now the third time in his DIRTcar eSports career, and fifth runner-up finish overall, Tucker felt the bad luck falling on him again Wednesday night.
Jackson (1a) battling with Bergeron (12) for position early in the race. (Joe Grabianowski Photo)
“Honestly, just another Kendal Tucker-type of run,” Tucker said after the race. “Always up front, and something just always happens. I was able to catch back up to Tyler [Jackson] right there with about four-to-go, and I was going to make a move on him… I guess the dude who was apologizing was the lapper who slid all the way up the front stretch and pretty much ended all hope for me in winning that race.”
As for the Street Stock prodigy and his impressive run up front, Jackson was just thrilled to even be up front with such great competition, especially in a car class he very rarely is seen in.
“I’m pretty excited to run that well, but it sucks leading all those laps and losing,” Jackson said. “But, [Bergeron and Tucker] are pros for a reason. I don’t really even drive the Sprint Cars much, I just drive Street Stocks and Late Models.”
UP NEXT
The DIRTcar eSports league action continues in just two weeks’ time – DIRTcar Pro Late Models tackle the Limaland Motorsports Park on Sept. 9. Fixed setups, $20 registration fee with $300 going to the winner. $200 for second, $100 for third and contingencies for all qualifying events available.
Catch all the action LIVE on DIRTVision presented by Drydene!
With $250 on the line and a field of 23 other hungry drivers behind him, Greenville, SC’s Devin Morgan never cracked once under the pressure in the Chevy Performance Final Feature, leading all but one circuit in the 30-lap contest for the first DIRTcar eSports victory of his iRacing career.
“I was feeling the pressure there,” Morgan told DIRTcar eSports announcer Chase Raudman in his DIRTVision post-race interview. “It’s been forever since I’ve ran a Street Stock race, and I was really surprised to even be as quick as I was.”
Morgan and 73 of his fellow virtual competitors were first split up into two preliminary events to kick off the night’s racing action. The top 12 finishers from each of the preliminary Features were then called back to answer the bell for the Chevy Performance Final and a chance at the $250 top prize.
Chris Owens Photo
Setting Cometic Gaskets Quick Time in Racing Electronics Qualifying to earn the pole for the Final Feature of the night, Morgan jumped out to the lead right away and immediately went on the defensive with the likes of Barrett Bishop, Alex Bergeron and Braden Johnson knocking on the door behind him.
Johnson got a big run to Morgan’s outside on Lap 3 and crossed the stripe ahead of him, scoring the only lap throughout the rest of the race not led by Morgan’s #112. Heading back into Turns 3-4 on the next lap, Morgan threw a slide job on Johnson and reclaimed the lead, going right back on defense as he crossed the line to complete Lap 4.
Chris Owens Photo
From that point onward, Morgan had a full rearview mirror as he fended-off charges to his inside and outside for the lead from Johnson and Bishop. Inaugural DIRTcar eSports winner Evan Seay soon made a late-race push for a spot on the podium but got into Johnson while attempting a pass to his inside with seven laps remaining and gave up wholesale track position, allowing Bishop to scoot on by with the final podium spot.
In their valiant efforts to catch race leader Morgan, Johnson and Bishop were handed a ripe opportunity to make a move in the closing laps. Morgan was having trouble clearing the lapped car of Trent Beaver and was being held up a bit on the bottom, allowing Johnson and Bishop to close the gap.
But in the end, they couldn’t get close enough to make the pass. Bishop got around Johnson after being held up by more traffic with two-to-go but was unsuccessful in his final pursuit of Morgan.
Chris Owens Photo
Crossing the finish line, now $250 richer, Morgan certainly took notice of Bishop’s speed in the final laps and suggested things may have gotten dicey had the race extended a few laps longer.
“About the middle part of the race, I started driving away and then Barrett [Bishop] got to second, he was a lot faster and was putting the pressure on me. It probably would have been a good race with another lap or two,” Morgan said.
Bishop crossed the line in second with DJ Kilanowski nipping Johnson at the line for third – both career bests for those drivers with the DIRTcar eSports league. Former eSports Street Stock Showdown winner Kevin Dedmon completed the top-five.
