SARVER, PA – In one of the most incredible battles seen in virtual racing action on DIRTVision presented by Drydene all year, Alex Bergeron became the first repeat winner in DIRTcar eSports competition Wednesday night at virtual Lernerville Speedway.
Bergeron and fellow iRacing pro license driver Kendal Tucker took center stage in the final six laps of the 30-lap DIRTcar 305 Sprint Car contest and engaged in a heated game of cat-and-mouse that ended with big contact between the two, sending Tucker almost completely around as Bergeron drove away for the $300 check and his first DIRTcar eSports victory since his win in the Pro Late Models at virtual Volusia Speedway Park on May 9.
“Tucker got into me a little bit on the front straightaway there, we were very close there. It was a close race, close battle, especially the start with Bryce [Bailey]. Sliders on sliders. But to be able to come out here and win another DIRTcar eSports race is awesome,” Bergeron told DIRTVision host Chase Raudman in the post-race interview.
Every story has two sides, and Tucker saw the contact between the two quite a bit differently than Bergeron.
“I think we had that one won, but I don’t know. I went to cross over under [Bergeron’s] slider, and I don’t know if the world champ can’t hold a line or what, but I was holding my line down below him and he just came right down into me,” Tucker said.
Tucker had led the race since wrestling the top spot away from Bergeron and third-place Bryce Bailey in a seven-lap side job fest that saw a new leader every other corner. Back-and-forth the three wheelmen traded slide jobs, inside-and-outside, putting on a fantastic show out front. Until Tucker made a superb door-slamming maneuver in Turns 1-2 on Lap 8 to cut Bergeron and Bailey off from any further bids for the lead.
“That was a fun race, for sure,” Bailey said, reflecting back on the ultimate duel for the lead in the early going. “The first 10 laps were just crazy. Whatever happened, happened. But the first 10 laps, that’s what we race for. It was just a blast.”
Tucker’s lead held up until just under 10 laps to go, when Bergeron finally wound-up enough momentum behind the Swindell SpeedLab #00 and threw a big slide job into Turn 3 to take the lead, only to have Tucker cross back underneath to steal it back as they crossed the flag stand. Bergeron tried it again two laps later and this time was successful, but not without some controversial nerf bar banging.
Tucker crossed back underneath Bergeron’s slide job coming out of Turn 4, and space between the two just plain ran out. They bounced off one another, Bergeron off the outside wall, but both kept it rolling into Turns 1-2 where even further contact was made.
“He went to slide me down there. On the straightaway, instead of keeping his car straight, he just decided to hook a hard left into me. I got my car all squirrely. I went down into Turn 1 the next lap and got into his tail tank and it about spun me out,” Tucker said of his view inside the cockpit.
“I came off of Turn 4 and the car got loose a little bit,” Bergeron said of the incident. “I was able to stay straight, but then [Tucker] came up a little bit. So, it was kind of a racing incident, pretty much. He came up, I came down, and we tangled up. I didn’t expect to stay in the wall like that on the front straightaway, I almost flipped my car there.”
Now with the lead and several lapped cars in between he and Tucker, Bergeron put his ABR #12 machine on cruise control and led the field back around to the checkered flag unchallenged for yet another virtual Sprint Car victory for the two-time World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car iRacing World Champion.
Shortly after the big three-car battle out front for the lead ended, Bailey broke his stride and slipped over the banking in Turns 1-2, losing several spots of track position in the process. But he was able to recover, using the lone caution flag and some smart passing to climb his way back up to a podium finish.
“I just made a mistake on the cushion. I just overdrove it. When those guys found the bottom, I’m not a very good bottom feeder, I just kinda jumped it,” Bailey said.
The DIRTcar eSports action continues in just two weeks’ time – DIRTcar Pro Late Models at virtual Eldora Speedway. Catch all the action on DIRTVision presented by Drydene – the broadcast home of DIRTcar eSports!
DIRTcar eSPORTS HOOSIER RACING TIRE 305 SPRINT CAR SHOWDOWN RESULTS; June 3, 2020 at Lernerville Speedway
Kevin Dedmon holds off iRacing stars to earn first DIRTcar eSports win at virtual Lanier National Speedway
BRASELTON, GA — May 20, 2020 — On any other day of the week, Kevin Dedmon is the lead singer and fiddler of his own country band, but on Wednesday night at virtual Lanier National Speedway, the Dirty Grass Soul frontman laid a serious licking on the DIRTcar Street Stock field to win his first DIRTcar eSports Showdown.
Beating out fellow iRacing pro Kendal Tucker and DIRTcar Street Stock regular DJ Kilanowski, Dedmon took his Team VLR #0 to Victory Lane as the fourth different winner in as many races on the DIRTcar eSports circuit.
“This was my first-ever DIRTcar race,” Dedmon said. “I had a blast, and got to sweep the night, so it was fun.”
Indeed, he did. Dedmon was also the victor in the Hoosier Racing Tire Preliminary Round #1 COMP Cams Feature, which transferred him into the VP Racing Fuels Final Round. With a third-place Racing Electronics Qualifying effort, Dedmon got a great start at the drop of the green and immediately began digging to the inside on leader Tucker.
For several of the opening laps in the 50-lap Chevy Performance Feature, Dedmon and Tucker rode side-by-side, lap-after-lap until Dedmon pulled a big slide job on Tucker on Lap 12, to swipe the lead away. Tucker came back at him on the next restart, putting the pressure on Dedmon from behind. In their side-by-side battles, a bit of scraping and rubbing was seen, but nothing extreme. Just enough to turn the heat up early on.
“It was awesome, me and Kendal were beatin’ and bangin’ doors there in the first half of the race,” Dedmon told DIRTVision broadcast host Chase Raudman in the post-race interview. “It was all clean racing, in my opinion. He got into me a little bit and I got into him a little bit, but that’s kinda what you gotta do in these. I wasn’t holding anything against him for that.”
“I really would have liked to have gotten a better start and got out front,” Tucker said. “Probably could’ve just used the old mirror and held ’em off, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
A few yellows thrown intermittently from that point on broke the competitive tension between Dedmon and Tucker, but Dedmon did seem to have a better line in the long run, which gave him the advantage he needed to stay out front of Tucker and a hard-pressing Kilanowski as the laps clicked off.
Tucker and Kilanowski chased Dedmon down through the closing laps, where they got their best chance to make a move on the leader. With seven laps left on the board, the leaders caught the rear of a lapped car out of Turn 4. Dedmon just barely tapped the driver-side door of the slower car while passing on the inside, while Tucker made a bit more significant contact, cutting into his momentum just enough to allow Dedmon to open up the gap and drive away with the win.
“I pinched one of the lapped cars off pretty good, and actually got him with my right-rear. I was running that kinda slider-line out of Turns 3-4 and coming in high, so I was like, ‘Man, I gotta go! Can’t be waiting,’” Dedmon said of his lane choice in the closing laps.
“I kept trying that line in Turns 3-4 that [Dedmon] was running,” Tucker said of his view from the cockpit. “Every time I went to that line, he was just yanking me so much harder. I don’t know how much harder I could have drove this thing, it’s only running about 60 miles an hour.”
This was Tucker’s third venture into the DIRTcar eSports world, and the third time he’s been seen up front without a win. In his mind, though, persistence is key.
“We’ve been up front in all of ‘em, just need some things to go our way. You need a lot of luck on this sim to win. As long as we can keep being up front, we’ll get one eventually,” Tucker said.
“I was kinda sitting back, waiting to see if they’d go two-wide and just pick the dominant lane and hopefully get up to second,” Kilanowski said. “Kendal was keeping the car wide enough that I couldn’t get to another lane to pass him. So, I was happy running third.”
The fifth round of DIRTcar eSports action continues in two weeks’ time; track and car class to be announced in the coming days. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision!
Weekly DIRTcar eSports Showdown RESULTS; May 20, 2020 at Lanier National Speedway