Bristol Week kicked off last Wednesday with the running of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational. iracing is as close as you can get to real racing without actually getting into a car.
Veteran drivers had a difficult time handling the dirt and the top 10 finishers were all drivers that are usally midpack back on Sunday.
William Byron who grew up on iRacing was the winner and showcased his virtual ability while Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson were in the top 10 other drivers were Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Timmy Hill, Garrett Smithley, and James Davison.
iRacing is probably what saved NASCAR last year until the series could get back on solid ground and start racing again, even though no fans were present. Dale Jr. has been a large supporter of iRacing and now works for the company.
Now back to reality. The trucks and cup cars started practicing on Friday with the first round starting at 3 p.m. Truck qualifying races started on Saturday at 4:30
Mother Nature impacted the whole weekend at Bristol. I had my snacks, turned off my phone and was ready to watch qualifying and heat races, then the severe rain came and it kept coming.
Give them credit they tried to run heat races, but the mud put a quick end to that as it coated the windshields and clogged the grills raising the water temperature. Then the waiting began.
NASCAR waited as long as possible before moving everything to Sunday and based placement on Atlanta. This led to a bit of controversy as four trucks were immediately disqualified. This move ruined one of the story lines as Jessica Friesen was not given an attempt to qualify for the race. If she would have qualified it would have been the first NASCAR sanctioned event in which a husband (Stewart Friesen) and wife would have competed against each other.
The races were moved to Monday but later than press time. Kyle Larson seems to be the odds on favorite, but don’t sleep on Christopher Bell who is a strong dirt racer. The trucks are more of a toss up, but Sheldon Creed is where I would put my money.
The Lucas Oil Late Models had the first leg of three big events scheduled for the weekend at Cherokee Speedway, but the Saturday night feature was washed out. At this time no make up date has been announced, but they are looking for a date.
They did run a twin feature on Friday night. In the first feature Jimmy Owens outlasted the field and came away with the win. As Chris Madden and Kyle Strickler battled going into the turn Owens did a slide job on both and took the lead. Tire wear became a problem as the race progressed and brought out the caution flag multiple times.While the two gave Owens trouble on the restarts both would eventually have tire problems. Jonathan Davenport came in second followed by Trent Ivey and Tim McCreadie.
In the second feature Dale McDowell held the lead and seemed to be on his way to a win when Brandon Sheppard claimed second spot with a few laps to go. Sheppard caught up with him with two laps to go and used lap traffic to pen McDowell down low and passed him for the lead and held on for the win. Local driver Darrell Lanigan placed 11th on the night.
So did any racing happen this weekend? Sure did as Florence Speedway held a show in which Verona, Kentucky driver Scott James won the $5,000 purse over Tyler Erb and Scott James.
Also the WoO Sprints ran on Saturday at Lake Ozark Speedway and Brad Sweet pulled out the win over Sheldon Haudenschild for $15,000 stretching his lead to around a second with five laps to go in the race. Haudenschild couldn’t find the grip or speed to close the gap. The race was red flagged early on when Jacob Allen flipped his car coming out of Turn 2 after running near the front.
