In a thrilling opening race of the 2023 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series season at Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday night, rookie Tucker Minter beat Malik Ray to score his first career victory. With his triumph, Minter becomes the third driver in eNASCAR history to win in their debut race.
“It’s unbelievable, I’ve been thinking of this race all off-season about what I was going to do and how it was going to turn out,” Minter said of his emotions after the race.
Minter explained that the win far and away exceeded the expectations he had set for himself before the season started.
“Rookies generally don’t win Coke Series races — I’d like to get a few top fives and avoid relegation. Now to have a win and lock myself into the playoffs, it’s huge.”
Casey Kirwan led coming to the white flag, and into the tri-oval until a late block caused him to get turned head-on into the wall. The defending champion settled for a fourth-place finish.
“You’re just kind of a sitting duck out front in this package. Nothing else I could’ve done, but Tucker timed it perfectly,” Kirwan said about his last lap move.
The anticipation for this season has been extremely high after the way 2022 ended. The series looks to be even more competitive this season with a mix of talented newcomers and experienced veterans.
TONIGHT’S ACTION
Tonight’s 80-lap event began with Stewart Haas eSports driver Dylan Duval on the pole. The anxious field of 40 drivers was unable to make it to turn one before we saw a crash in the back of the field. Eight cars were involved in the incident but none had to retire from the race.
One aspect of iRacing that has become more realistic in the last year is racing on superspeedways. In real life, we see how the top line is mostly the place to be at Daytona and Talladega. Tonight, it was the place to be when you had a well-formed line, although that didn’t happen all that often in the early goings.
With the lap one wreck behind them, the field settled in for a mostly calm outing as the first pit stops approached. The race reached halfway and there were only 25 cars in the lead pack with many of them being in a single file line.
It was very difficult to form the top line once the pack broke into two. Michael Cosey Jr. took over the race lead with help from Minter around lap 30 in a two-car tandem which is something we’re able to see with this Next-Gen car on…
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