PGRL S2 R6 Recap

05 July 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 6
Premier Series | Road America
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Brian Yaczik with Loud Pedal Motorsports took the checkered flag tonight in the Grand Brie of Road ‘Merica benefiting Dog McStacks presented by Scott MacKenzie of Clipping That Apex with the Pretty Good Racing League at Road America ahead of Scott Eckrich and Jeff Ward. “We were just doing what we had to do to keep this #55 machine pointed forward and, in the lead,”, Yaczik commented after taking the win, “We learned some stuff the hard way [at Sonoma Raceway] and were able to apply that to Road America tonight.”

Mike Rasimas led the field to the green flag as the racing action began and the 26-car field streaked across the line. Rasimas had a great jump out ahead of the rest of the drivers with Mark Hertzog and Isaiah Dupre running in 2nd and 3rd place. Rasimas extended the gap between himself and Hertzog to over 1 second as drivers were still getting heat into their tires around the first lap as Brian Yaczik was already up into 5th place from 8th and closing on Drew Carroll ahead. Jeff Ward and Scott Eckrich were making a quick dash through the field as Ward moved up 6 places into the top 10 and Eckrich up 12 places to 14th going into the second lap.

Eckrich came down pit road very early on the 5th lap for fuel while Carroll closed in on the leader and cleared ahead of Rasimas and quickly put some distance between them. Ward was up to 5th and running around 4 seconds behind Yaczik. Eckrich rejoined the track in 14th with a large gap between himself and Thomas George ahead of him. Yaczik caught the rear bumper of Dupre and was able to overtake him for 3rd place and was quickly closing in on Rasimas. Yaczik came down pit road with 23 laps to go for fuel and dropped back to 11th place and Carroll continued to control the field as drivers were settling in the put some laps behind them as they became spread out around the course.

Eckrich was back up to 9th and was closing the 26 second gap to the leader quickly as Ward was up into 3rd as the running order was shuffled with many drivers opting to make a fuel stop with 21 laps remaining. Going into the late stages of the race, Eckrich had made his final stop with 18 laps to go and came back onto the track in 11th with fresh tires. Rasimas ran his fuel out as far as it would go before pitting and giving the lead to Yaczik. Fresh tires were causing problems around the track with several drivers overshooting corners and making hard contact into the wall ending their races early as 17 drivers were still running on track going into the final 15 laps.

Yaczik maintained the lead with Ward and Eckrich charging back through the field. Ward was up to 4th behind Carroll while Eckrich was up to 6th and running some of the fastest laps of any driver to that point in the race. Yaczik took his final pit stop with 11 laps to go and came back out on track in 5th with Shane Parish running close behind him. Rasimas took the lead with Ward 1 second behind him and Eckrich up to 4th. Ward made his final fuel stop with 8 laps remaining allowing Yaczik to jump back up to 3rd behind Eckrich. Rasimas went down pit road on the next lap giving the lead to Eckrich who still would need one more fuel stop before the end.

In the final 5 laps, Eckrich had to pit for a splash of fuel and fell back to 2nd place over 8 seconds behind Yaczik. Rasimas was running in 3rd with Ward pressuring from behind. 14 drivers were still on track with Cody Erdmann being the last driver on the lead lap in 9th place. A slight mistake from Rasimas gave Ward the opening he needed to take the last podium position away while Eckrich was putting down the fastest laps of the race chipping away at the gap to Yaczik in the lead. With 3 laps left in the race, Yaczik still had a 6 second lead over Eckrich. Going into the final stretch, Yaczik’s consistency was enough to maintain the lead as he took the checkered flag 1 second ahead of Eckrich with Ward, Rasimas, and Carroll rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Road America.

Jeff Ward leads in the point standings for the fifth straight week with 242 points overall. Brian Yaczik moved up into 2nd place after tonight’s win now 25 points behind the leader. Shane Parish and Thomas George are tied for 3rd place with 199 points each and Scott Eckrich moved into 5th place with 189 points. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head down to Georgia for the Chuckles I’m in Danger 200 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 12th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!