Jackson continues dominance with podium effort; Axner charges 17th-to-5th
One of the most difficult lines to take around a glass-smooth Knoxville Raceway in a DIRTcar Street Stock on iRacing is right around the bottom. Fittingly, it was the very line Jordan Gage took en route to his first career DIRTcar eSports Chevy Performance Street Stock League Feature win Wednesday night on DIRTVision.
“I usually run the slider line here, but it was kind of wearing out faster than I liked,” Gage said. “These [races] are awesome when they come onto the table, especially when you can run them.”
Starting P1, Gage, of Whiting, IA, jumped out to the early lead and began fending off a hungry field of 23 other competitors behind him. Applying the most pressure early on was none other than the winningest driver in League history, Tyler Jackson.
Jackson, from Rockford, IL, started fifth and tried both the high and low lines to make the move on Gage, but was unsuccessful. After a late-race caution that brought a green-white-checkered finish at 22 laps, Thorne Zimmerman, of Sanderson, FL, was continuing his charge up from the seventh starting spot and got a great restart as the field came to two-to-go.
Zimmerman took the low line right behind Gage while Jackson followed suit, fending off a high-flying Carl Kilgore to his outside. The field rounded Turns 1-2, breeding a big run for Zimmerman down the backstretch. He tried the middle of the track in the final turns but came up just one spot short in the end.
“That white flag – I tried going in a little higher, so that maybe I could swing it under him, but I think [Gage] saw it coming and blocked the bottom to me,” Zimmerman said.
Jackson, a three-time winner in Season 2, crossed the line in third, continuing his stretch of success in the League that he began last December.
“Kinda got locked down there on the bottom at the end, but all-in-all for 12 green-flag laps, I guess we did all we could,” Jackson said.
The Chevy Performance Street Stocks are back in action next Wednesday night, March 31, at Limaland Motorsports Park for Round #2 of 10 in DIRTcar eSports Season 3. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision presented by Drydene!
Chevy Performance Feature (20 Laps) – 1. 0-Jordan Gage [1]; 2. 003-Thorne Zimmerman [7]; 3. 8-Tyler Jackson [5]; 4. 021-Carl Kilgore [11]; 5. 546-Randy Axner [17]; 6. 7-Chris Davis [13]; 7. 17-Brett Rowles [15]; 8. 44-Mason Hammel [8]; 9. 29-Lane Phillips [21]; 10. 71-Daniel Stiffler [9]; 11. 04-Joshua Dennison [14]; 12. 14-Kyle Vaughn [10]; 13. 48-Grant Parr [20]; 14. 93-Steve Miskolczi [24]; 15. 077-Holden English [18]; 16. 225-Nathan Lemons [12]; 17. 6-Mitch Erickson [19]; 18. 53-Aidan Skraha [3]; 19. 717-Bobby Rafferty [6]; 20. 69-Keith Hackney [2]; 21. 21-Jim Reavis [22]; 22. 1-Alex Breuer [4]; 23. 26-Sage Luther [16]; 24. 111-Jaron Valley [23]