Casey Kirwan, driver of the No. 95 XSET Chevrolet, came into the 12th race of the Coca-Cola iRacing Series season at Pocono Raceway in a precarious position. Although he was fourth in regular season points, Kirwan was only ninth in the playoff standings because he had yet to win in 2022.
Kirwan changed that in the most dramatic fashion by edging out Zack Novak and his No. 5 Rise eSports/Weis Chevrolet by a bumper in a side-by-side finish at the end of a third and final eNASCAR overtime period to get his first win of 2022. It is the third win of Kirwan’s Coca-Cola iRacing Series career, as he got one win each in 2019 and 2020.
“I am pretty sure I lost like 30 years of my life after that race,” Kirwan said jokingly in his post-race interview with Evan Posocco and Blake McCandless. “We definitely got the elbows up. I love Zack [Novak] and he is one of the cleanest guys you can race. That was not the person I wanted to use up, but this format awards winning, not consistency.”
HE DID IT! 🏁@CaseyKirwan23 SECURES THE WIN at @PoconoRaceway! #iRacing | #RepTheSet❌ pic.twitter.com/DInJQUvMw5
— XSET (@XSET) July 20, 2022
For Novak, Pocono is his fourth runner-up finish in the past five races, and it might arguably be his most gut-wrenching second place finish yet. When discussing the finish post-race, Novak was upset yet understanding of the situation he and Kirwan were in at the finish.
“I wouldn’t have done it that way, but you got do what you got to do,” Novak said. “He didn’t outright wreck me, but I would not approach it that way.”
Defending series champion Keegan Leahy had a great view of the finish from third place in his No. 45 Virtual Racing School/23XI Racing Toyota.
“I was not going to get to them in turn three, so my plan was to give myself the availability to got to the bottom if they wadded themselves up in the wall,” Leahy said of this strategy in the final lap.
The race was calm in its early stages. Polesitter Taylor Hurst took control and opened a gap of about half a second on the rest of the field. Hurst would stay in the top spot for 16 laps until Nick Ottinger made the pass for the lead in his No.25 Logitech/William Byron eSports Chevrolet. From there, Ottinger stayed on point for 12 laps until Kirwan came charging to the front for the first time and passed Ottinger with authority on lap 29.
As the drivers approached the halfway point of the race, green flag pit stops began to cycle through and shake up…
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