PGRL S3 R5 Recap

20 September 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 3 | Round 5
Premier Series | Bristol Motor Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Scott Eckrich with GRAAFix LC Motorsports came away with the checkered flag in the Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Month 250 after a long, hard-fought night at Bristol Motor Speedway with the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of Thomas George and Mike Rasimas. “Just really happy to get a win here”, Eckrich commented as the night came to a close, “It’s been a little bit of bad luck, so it feels good to get one to go my way.”

Jonathan Cogswell led the field to the green flag to kick off the 250-lap night race around Bristol with Greg O’Berry to his outside. Cogswell cleared ahead into the lead as O’Berry battled Seif Faries for 2nd. 5 laps into the night, Faires overtook Cogswell and started to pull away from the field running a very high line along the outside wall. By lap 14, Faires had already caught the rear of the field and was putting drivers a lap down as he extended his lead out to over 1 second over Cogswell and O’Berry.

Cody Dempster was quickly pushing up through the field and was running in 2nd with Thomas George following him through traffic before making an attempt on 2nd place himself 30 laps into the night getting his nose to the inside of Dempster and able to clear into the position several laps later using lap traffic to block Dempster’s path. George closed in on the leader and overtook Faries soon thereafter taking control of the field while Scott Eckrich was quietly moving up through the field and running in 7th, from a 27th place starting position, behind Michael Chrobok going into lap 43.

Faries cleared back around George into the lead with Dempster following him into 2nd place, but in a shocking upset, Faries had a hardware malfunction that ended his night on lap 64 giving the lead to Dempster with Cogswell in 2nd. O’Berry closed the gap to the leaders and overtook Cogswell before running to the outside of Dempster to battle for the lead. Dempster stayed low and the two drivers fought over the lead for lap after lap slowing both of their paces overall and allowed the top 7 to close up on the battle with Mike Rasimas running in the back of the lead pack before Dempster was finally able to clear into the lead for the moment before Chrobok took advantage of the situation to take away the lead as they crossed the 100-lap mark.

Eckrich has caught the back of the lead pack and started pushing through running the low line and quickly moving up to 3rd behind Jette. O’Berry and Dempster were showing signs of excessive wear as they fell back into the field far off the leading pace after running side by side for so long. Rasimas and George closed up on the leaders making a 5-car pack for the lead as Jette cleared around the outside of Chrobok. Eckrich took control of the field going into lap 127 with Rasimas challenging him from the outside. Brian Yaczik joined the battle up front battling with Jette for 3rd place.

Rasimas cleared ahead of Eckrich with Jette moving up and trying to take the lead for himself running the inside line. Chase Manning and Cogswell caught the battle and Manning wasted no time getting his nose to the inside of Rasimas going after 2nd place. Manning was able to hold the position for a few laps before Rasimas reclaimed 2nd running up along the outside wall. Jette was able to stretch his lead out to over 3 seconds as he seemed to be aggressively pushing his pace to get as far out front as possible while others were running more conservatively saving their stuff expecting a long green flag run.

With 100 laps remaining, Eckrich was leading a long train of cars from 5th place running a very consistent pace lap after lap and Jette was showing the first signs of wear as his pace started to fall off with Rasimas closing the gap quickly. Eckrich’s group of cars had reached the rear of the lead pack and started pushing past Cogswell and Manning. Rasimas caught the leader and quickly cleared ahead of Jette on lap 169 with Eckrich and Yaczik running in 3rd and 4th respectively and closing on the leaders quickly. Rasimas was aggressively negotiating through lap traffic putting as many cars between himself and Eckrich as possible while Eckrich and Yaczik continued to gain lap after lap.

Eckrich was in control of the field going into the final 50 laps of the night with Rasimas in 2nd place ahead of Yaczik and Chrobok battling over 3rd. The drivers were being much more aggressive as the laps counted down pushing their cars to the limit with several drivers having close calls getting loose coming out of the corners. Rasimas got a nose to the outside of Eckrich challenging for the lead as Manning moved up to 3rd with George directly behind him. Eckrich was holding to the inside and stayed side by side with Rasimas for several laps before clearing back into the lead with 27 laps remaining.

With 15 laps remaining, George cleared around the outside of Rasimas into 2nd place. George was able to close up on Eckrich and tried to get to his inside but couldn’t get complete the move with Eckrich running along the outside wall using the corner exit momentum to maintain the lead. Extending his lead out to 0.6 seconds, Scott Eckrich took the checkered flag tonight in the Muscular Dystrophy Awareness month 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway with Thomas George, Mike Rasimas, Chance Manning, and Michael Chrobok rounding out the top 5 finishers.

Brian Yaczik continues to lead in the point standings with 187 points. Thomas George moved up to 2nd place with 175 points with Michael Chrobok moving up into 3rd only 2 points behind him. Woody Mahan fell back to 4th with 172 points after a rough night and Adam Jurski holds onto 5th place with 160 points. Next week, the Pretty Good Racing League heads to Texas Motor Speedway on September 27th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!