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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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