There is nothing quite like a first career win in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series.
Daniel Faulkingham became the latest driver to experience that feat, utilizing pit strategy and holding off a hard-charging Steven Wilson to win at the virtual Indianapolis Motor Speedway and punch his ticket to the playoffs.
“I can’t believe we just won a Coke Series race man,” an emotional Faulkingham said on the Sunoco Post Race Report. “I’ve been on this server for seven, eight years now. To actually win at this level, I’m over the moon, loss for words.”
Faulkingham and Wilson were on opposite ends of a late-race strategy call, with Faulkingham staying out for track position while Wilson pitted for tires and fuel. For the defending series champion Wilson, the fresh rubber almost paid off.
“Yeah, I definitely thought I had a shot with fresher tires,” Wilson said about the last lap. “Honestly I thought we were the fastest car in the race. Congrats to [Daniel Faulkingham]. He’s been saying the past couple of days he was going to win this race, and he went out there and did it.”
Garrett Lowe finished third, followed by Casey Kirwan in fourth and polesitter Kollin Keister in fifth.
TONIGHT’S ACTION
Keister led the field to the yard of bricks for the initial green flag. It did not take long for the pack to string out and race mostly single file as drivers had a hard time completing passes.
The top four of Keister, Cody Byus, Vicente Salas and Dylan Duval maintained those starting spots until lap 16 when Wilson navigated to the outside of Duval to take the fourth position. By lap 20, Wilson got around both Byus and Salas for the second spot behind Keister.
On lap 27, the caution came out for the first time when Quami Scott and Tyler Garey got together after exiting pit road. The incident occurred in the middle of a green-flag pit cycle, shuffling the running order when a handful of drivers who already pitted stayed out while others came down for tires and fuel.
This plot twist put Lowe at the front of the field for the restart with half of the 60 laps complete. Lowe showed the way until Femi Olatunbosun took the lead with 19 laps to go, receiving drafting help from Wilson.
That pass occurred just before a wreck in turn 1 brought out the second yellow flag of the evening. Wyatt Tinsley, Matthew Zwack and Byus were among those involved. The caution led to another split in pit strategy, with about…
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