PGRL S1 R2 Recap

22 Feb 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 1 | Round 2
Premier Series | Auto Club Speedway

Jeff Ward with Graafix LC Motorsports took the checkered flag in a one lap shootout tonight in the Going Back to Cali 200 presented by SnoopDawgyDon on Twitch.tv in the Pretty Good Racing League at the Auto Club Speedway beating Thomas George and Mike Rasimas to the line. Ward, who started in 21st place, took the lead from a caution with 7 laps to go jumping from 4th place when the two leaders at the time, Marc Cohn and Chad Mikosz, both got loose battling each other coming out of turn four.

“For the most part we got through there unscathed.”, Ward shared with us after claiming his win, “I just knew we had the tires. We had to get up there, we had like 13 laps to go, and I had one more chance there to make my move on those tires before they start to even out.” As many drivers tonight struggled with handling the car, Thomas George enjoys the Next Gen as he tells us, “They’re definitely more difficult to drive, but for me that’s a good thing. I like cars that drive like this.”

Tonight’s race raises a question: Is the Auto Club Speedway too tough to tame or is the NASCAR Next Gen Cup Car too difficult to recover from a spin? The main cause of cautions tonight were the cars getting loose coming out of the turns and drivers not being able to recover from the resulting spin often over correcting into the wall. Many drivers in the end decided to lock the car down rather than attempt to salvage positions in that situation so the drivers seem to be noticing an issue with the car handling when compared to the previous generation. Time will tell as we look to next week where the PGRL will head to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Memestonks Vegas 200.