Seay’s fourth career Tour victory ties him with Alex Bergeron for most all-time
He’s been in Victory Lane with his Summit Racing Equipment UMP Modified on DIRTVision before, and now he’s done it again. With his fourth career victory aboard the DIRTcar eSports Tour Wednesday night at the virtual Bristol Motor Speedway, Evan Seay now sits tied for the most Feature wins in Tour history.
Grabbing the lead at the drop of the green, Seay, of Chesnee, SC, pulled out to a big advantage over his competition early, turning the fastest lap of the race on Lap 2. It wasn’t until the halfway mark passed before Seay received his first challenge from a hard-charging Dylan Yeager, who started on the front row but had fallen all the way back to ninth on the initial start.
Yeager, of Hamilton, NJ, immediately hit the high side and began making up spots rapidly, reaching the runner-up spot by Lap 12. He then used that momentum to track down leader Seay as he approached lapped traffic.
[From top] Dustin Hall (331), Randall Carter (37) and Bergeron (12) battling for position (Joe Grabianowski Photo)“I told myself I was going to stick to the bottom the first few laps, and it ended up working out and getting me the lead. But all of a sudden, it just slowed way down a ton on the bottom about eight laps in. [Yeager] basically just caught me just running the top – the top was that much faster,” Seay said.
But a few costly mistakes on the treacherous high side of Bristol broke Yeager’s momentum on multiple occasions, giving Seay the edge he needed to pull away.
“As my dad always says, I race better when I’m pissed off, so I got up on the wheel and drove back up to P2,” Yeager said. “I was running down Evan at the end and then I started messing up and hitting the wall.”
Seay turned on the jets in the home stretch and brought home the $250 payday on cruise control. With an eighth-place finish last week with the Big Block Modifieds at Weedsport, Seay now sits inside the top-five of the points standings.
Defending Tour champion Kendal Tucker, of Mount Airy, NC, made his first appearance of the season Wednesday night and had a solid run going, tracking down Yeager in the final laps and making the pass in traffic to clinch a runner-up finish.
Tucker (00) and Yeager (48) battling for second late in the race (Joe Grabianowski Photo)
With all of the back-and-forth, ups-and-downs Yeager had over the 40-lap contest, it’s no surprise he was almost relieved to see the checkered fly by race’s end.
“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever sweated in a sim race before,” Yeager said.
The DIRTcar eSports Tour action continues next Wednesday night, April 7, with Round 3 of action at the Williams Grove Speedway. The Super DIRTcar Series Big Block Modifieds will be the vehicle of choice – catch all of the action live in the iRacing server or on DIRTVision at 8pm ET.
Eight consecutive top-fives for Tucker crown him Tour’s first-ever points champ while Seay starts, ends series with Victory Lane trip
Eight top-five finishes in eight weeks of racing. Now there’s a statistic worthy of a championship.
That’s exactly what iRacing Pro driver Kendal Tucker ended up with after the checkered fell in Wednesday night’s VP Racing Fuels Big-Block Modified Feature event at Lernerville Speedway. For his hard-fought efforts aboard the DIRTcar eSports Tour of Season 2, he now brings the first ever custom-made DIRTcar eSports Tour trophy home to his sim rig in Mt. Airy, NC.
Crossing the stripe right in front of him was the Feature winner, Evan Seay, who capped off his Season 2 campaign the same way he started it – in Victory Lane after leading green-to-checkered in the 50-lap contest.
“It’s definitely pretty cool to come out here and pick up the final win of the season,” Seay told announcer Chase Raudman in the DIRTVision post-race interview. “It’s a great cap to the second season of DIRTcar eSports.”
Over eight weeks of competition, Tucker never finished outside of the top-five. Not once. His worst finish came in Race #7, Pro Late Models at Eldora, where he placed fourth. Wednesday night marked his fourth runner-up finish of the season, just a few car-lengths back from Seay at the checkers.
“Season 2, it honestly couldn’t have gone any better, besides getting couple more wins,” Tucker said. “The ultimate goal at the end of the year, once we heard about this deal [DIRTcar eSports] was putting on, was just to be consistent.”
Tucker’s DIRTcar eSports Tour championship trophy
Seay led the points standings after Season 2’s opening round before Tucker took it over soon after his win with the Pro Late Models at The Dirt Track at Charlotte on December 9. He and Tucker kept it close at the top with their solid night-in and night-out finishes, but Seay sat out the fifth and sixth races on the Tour due to other non-sim commitments, forcing him to retire his horse in the points race.
“Congrats to Kendal [Tucker] on the championship. We had to miss a couple races, but I think we would have been pretty close in the points if I’d have been able to do those couple that we missed,” Seay said.
Regardless, Seay made up for it in the end by leading all 50 laps of Wednesday night’s Feature – his first-ever venture out with the Big-Blocks at Lernerville, which made it all that much more impressive.
“Honestly, I didn’t even know how this night was going to go. I hadn’t run this track with the Big-Blocks yet, so I was kinda winging everything,” he said.
Seay went largely unchallenged for the lead during most of the race. Except on the final lap, where Tucker dove low hard in Turn 1 and pulled a big slide job on the #33. But it didn’t stick, and Seay was easily able to cross back underneath him and take the lead back down the backstretch. Seay held strong in Turn 4 and brought it back home, collecting $250 for the Feature win as the only Tour driver in Season 2 to win more than one main event.
Tucker doing donuts on the front-straightaway after the checkered (Joe Grabianowski Photo)
Overall, both drivers had a terrific season as regulars of the DIRTcar eSports Tour and have plans to chase a points title again in Season 3.
“Hopefully, we’ll be back to defend the title and pick up a couple more wins along the way,” Tucker said.
Feature (50 Laps) – 1. Evan Seay, 2. Kendal Tucker, 3. Logan Rumsey, 4. Richard Murtaugh Jr, 5. Dustin Hall, 6. Chris Hile, 7. Blake Matjoulis, 8. Kevin Dedmon, 9. Jesse Enterkin, 10. Ross Wece, 11. William Racine, 12. Michael Canady, 13. Matt Yorker, 14. Alex Bergeron, 15. Matty Watkins, 16. CJ LaVair, 17. Joe Grabianowski, 18. Joshua Kunstbeck, 19. Chance Carr, 20. Tyler Ducharme, 21. Jonathan Nause, 22. Boddie Parker, 23. Cody Zobrist, 24. Hayden Cardwell
North Carolinian scores second career eSports Tour victory, again in Pro Late Models
CONCORD, NC – If there’s one area of iRacing Dirt that Kendal Tucker really excels in on the DIRTcar eSports Tour, it’s surely with the Pro Late Models.
Holding off fellow iRacing Pros Dylan Houser and Evan Seay in the final laps, Tucker, of Mt. Airy, NC, scored his second career DIRTcar eSports Tour victory Wednesday night with the Drydene Pro Late Models at The Dirt Track at Charlotte after leading all but one lap en route to his $250 victory.
His previous Pro Late Model finishes with the Tour are impressive; three starts in three races and three podium finishes with a lone victory. Tucker experienced bad luck several times over the course of the Season 1 schedule, racking up a few “so close” moments that left him hungry for another trip to Victory Lane.
But to do it, he had to defend the top spot from one driver in particular, on a mission to finally put his name in the win column after several starts – Dylan Houser.
Tucker grabbed the lead from polesitter and Cometic Gasket Quick Time Award winner Sheldon Oberle on Lap 2 and rode the high line for the opening laps, until a caution came out with five laps complete. Tucker and his Swindell SpeedLab #00 then chose the bottom lane for the restart, and never strayed from it all race long.
“Probably one of the hardest things to do on here, in my opinion, is to stick that bottom,” Tucker told Tour announcer Chase Raudman after the race on the DIRTVision. “There’s a lot of guys that can go up there and bounce it off the fence, have their right-rear off the wall and pick up some speed. I’m just not one of those guys that can make it work. I’m more of a finesse-type of guy. I like to put the car in the middle-bottom area.”
With a 40-lap distance, the rest of the field behind Tucker had plenty of chances to make up the ground. Houser, of Ocala, FL, applied the pressure all race long from two grooves higher than Tucker, scraping his car right off the wall each lap, but could not reel the leader in. He made one final scramble for the lead on the final lap in Turns 3-4, rim-riding the cushion in search of a quick burst of speed, but came up just one spot short.
“I thought I was going to get [Tucker]; With about five-to-go, I threw everything out the window,” Houser said of his last-lap mentality. “Just started entering on the fence and threw it wide-open. I was closing in on it, just ran out of laps on that one.”
Two lanes to choose from on Charlotte’s dirt surface made for some spectacular inside-outside racing, and Houser chose the more grueling of the two, in search of the momentum to carry him through the turns.
“It was really, really crazy up there,” Houser said. “I wasn’t going to go down there and run the bottom; I’m not one to get down there and run by the yuke tires, so I went up [high] and scraped every bit of paint that was on that wall off.”
Rounding out the podium was inaugural Tour Feature winner Evan Seay. Largely a top-five car for most the race, Seay, of Chesnee, SC, said the stipulation of the fixed car setup makes it challenging to overcome large deficits, and thus he was unable to catch the leaders in the end.
“Kendal, [Dylan] Houser, these guys are all Pro [iRacing license] guys, they’re fast and they don’t make a whole lot of mistakes,” Seay said. “It’s just very difficult to make that much ground up, even though it wasn’t a whole lot. But I’m still happy with third-place; did better than I thought I was going to do.”
The DIRTcar eSports Tour action continues next Wednesday night, Dec. 16, when the Super DIRTcar Series Big-Block Modifieds make their long-awaited debut on the Tour schedule at Weedsport Speedway. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision, or sign up to compete at DIRTcar.com/eSports.
KOKOMO, IN – He won the inaugural DIRTcar eSports Tour event back in April. And just like that, Evan Seay is now the Tour’s third multi-time Feature winner.
Forced to climb back up to the top after slipping back from his pole starting spot early in the Summit Racing Equipment UMP Modified Feature at the virtual Kokomo Speedway, Seay ran a strong yet patient race en route to the $250 victory, holding off a late-race charge from fellow iRacing Pro Kendal Tucker.
At the drop of the green, Seay, of Chesnee, SC, dropped back to second and proceeded to mix it up with the top-five through the first half of the race, trailing the likes of Alex Bergeron, of Drummondville, QC, and Blake Matjoulis as the race progressed.
A few caution flags bunched the field up for several restarts before halfway, setting the stage for a ferocious battle between leaders Bergeron and Matjoulis, of Ashville, NY. The two traded slide jobs several times before coming together out of Turn 2 on Lap 24, sending Matjoulis around into the wall and Bergeron around with contact from passing cars.
Both drivers restarted from much further back in the field from where they were as the leaders. Back to green the field went, Seay back to the lead now after assuming the spot after the incident.
Tucker, now back to the runner-up spot, gave Seay all he could handle as the laps wound down, chasing him on the high side. It seemed as though Seay was going to walk it on back to the checkers as he came to the stripe to take the white flag, but a yellow was suddenly thrown.
Seay was on top of his game, though, using that high-side momentum to carry himself through the green-white-checkered restart. After taking the white, Seay threw it to the bottom in the final two corners to protect the spot from Tucker trying to get by underneath. Some slight contact was made coming out of Turn 4, but Seay prevailed as he drove across the stripe first to collect $250 and 75 points toward the overall Tour championship.
Joe Grabianowski Photo
This was Seay’s second career DIRTcar eSports Feature victory and first with the UMP Modifieds. Coming home in third was the first non-Pro driver finish in the field – Magnolia, TX’s own Karter Battarbee, after a great run inside the top-six all night long.
The DIRTcar eSports Tour action continues next Wednesday night, Dec. 9, with the Drydene Pro Late Models from The Dirt Track at Charlotte. Catch all the action LIVE on DIRTVision!
South Carolina racer Evan Seay tops more than 110 Street Stock foes at virtual Fairbury Speedway
CONCORD, NC — More than 110 racers battled Saturday in the inaugural Weekly DIRTcar eSports Showdown at virtual Fairbury Speedway, where Evan Seay and his Street Stock did everything but knock down the walls to survive a full day of qualifying and preliminary events to ultimately capture the victory.
Seay, no stranger to the world of eSports as a winner in the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model iRacing Championship Series, rode the high line to Fairbury’s Victory Lane in the 50-lap DIRTcar Street Stock Chevrolet Performance Feature.
Dylan Wilson chased Seay across the finish line with Hoosier Racing Tire Preliminary Round 2 COMP Cams Qualifying Feature winner Hayden Cardwell in third.
“It honestly couldn’t have gone any better,” said Seay, of Chesnee, SC. “You gotta run the top and it’s tough especially with these guys right behind you. They don’t make a whole lot of mistakes so staying smooth is big.”
Seay slung his DIRTcar Street Stock around Fairbury Speedway in 15.133 seconds during Racing Electronics Qualifying, which was good enough for pole position in the 50-lap Feature. Braden Johnson and COMP Cams Qualifying Feature winner DJ Kilanowski qualified less than a tenth behind in second and third.
“I knew I needed to qualify to be up there with the way this track races with Street Stocks,” Seay said. The main thing was getting the pole, keeping it clean, and not making any mistakes.”
In the early going it was a three-car contest for the lead with Seay holding off charges from Braden Johnson on the low side and Dylan Wilson on the top. On Lap 10, just seconds before the caution flag flew, Wilson made a steely pass on Johnson, who unfortunately finished in the back of the pack nine laps down.
Justin Fiedler Photo
Just as in real-life, the inaugural DIRTcar eSports Feature winner receives a VP Racing Fuels Victory Flag, Hoosier neckband, Feature winner wheel sign, plus two tickets to the World Short Track Championship Oct. 29-31 at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, in addition to the $250 payday.
Throughout multiple restarts, runner-up Wilson managed to keep the pressure on Seay. With a handful of laps to go Wilson took a chance and went for the lead.
“A slider in these cars takes about a year and a half,” Wilson joked. “He [Seay] made a mistake on a restart which allowed me to get a run on the straightaway and that was about all I had. I just wanted to settle into P2 and not throw away a good payday for second.”
Unfortunately, for Johnson, while running third a lapped car got crossed up in front of him and forced him to drop rapidly to the rear of the field. This allowed Cardwell to take advantage and move up into fourth. Cardwell then pounced on Kyle Sirratt in the closing stages to claim third.
Cardwell plans to return for the next two rounds of Weekly DIRTcar eSports Showdowns in a UMP Modified and Pro Late Model.
The jam-packed day of virtual racing started with the Racing Electronics Qualifying Round 1 when 114 DIRTcar eSports Street Stock drivers scraped and clawed around the virtual Fairbury Speedway until only 24 hungry iRacers were left standing.
Joe Grabianowski Photo
With the field cut after round one, 60 drivers entered Hoosier Racing Tire Preliminary Shows Round 2 featuring two COMP Cams Qualifying Features.
COMP Cams Qualifying Feature 1 took the green with Hayden Cardwell, Braden Johnson and Larry Barber Jr. locked in a battle in the early going.
After several cautions, Cardwell stayed smooth and fast and checked out on the field to take the win.
Notably, Joel Berkley was well within a transfer position but he was involved in a wreck on the front stretch at the end of the race. Berkley then missed the VP Race Fuels Final Round by just one position.
Blake Brown was the DIRTVision Hard Charger Award winner after passing 14 cars from the 22nd starting position.
COMP Cams Feature 2 got off to a wild start when multiple flips marred the first half of the Feature. DJ Killanowski started on the outside pole, took the lead, and never looked back at the field of Street Stocks nipping at his heels.
With five laps to go, Dylan Wilson threw a slide job on the leader, but Kilanowski saw it coming and powered back under Wilson to retain the lead.
At the white flag Evan Seay benefited from Wilson’s second slide job attempt, but this time he put Kalinowski up onto the wall. Although Seay was gifted the win, all drivers involved crossed the line to transfer in the VP Racing Fuels Final Round.
Justin Fiedler Photo
The COMP Cams Qualifying Feature winners received $25 and two tickets to the World Short Track Championship.
DIRTVision Hard Charger Tom Gajdorus picked up 11 spots to finish 10th.
Next week, Saturday, May 2, the Weekly DIRTcar sSports Showdown moves to Limaland Motorsports Park, where DIRTcar UMP Modifieds will battle on the virtual quarter-mile oval.
Real-world drivers and iRacers are encouraged to join the Weekly DIRTcar eSports Showdowns, which feature three rounds of competition, cash payouts, and professionally organized and race-directed sessions, with rounds two and three airing live on DIRTVision.
1st Place – DIRTcar Merchandise/VP Racing Fuels Victory Flag/Hoosier neckband/Feature Winner Wheel Sign/Two (2) tickets to World Short Track Championship.
2nd Place – DIRTcar Merchandise by Arizona Sports Shirts/Hoosier neckband
3rd Place – DIRTcar Merchandise by Arizona Sports Shirts/Hoosier neckband