PGRL S3 R6 Recap

27 September 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 3 | Round 6
Premier Series | Texas Motor Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Thomas George with Steel Horse Racing took the checkered flag in the Almirola By Morning 250 after taking the lead on the final lap with the Pretty Good Racing League at Texas Motor Speedway ahead of Michael Chrobok and Mike Rasimas. “We had good short run speed. The car was good on the short run, fell off a little on the long run”, George commented as the action came to a close, “It’s time to put this Ford Mustang back in Victory Lane.”

Brady Cure was in control of the field as the green flag came out clearing ahead of Matthew Wheeler and leading 24-car line up speeding into turn one. Most of the field single filed out by the completion of the first lap with sporadic battles throughout. Woody Mahan and Brian Yaczik were able to get around Cure with only 5 laps completed with Cody Dempster pressuring Cure from 4th while Mahan and Yaczik pulled away from the rest of the field by over 1 second with 10 laps behind them.

Dempster took the 3rd position and found himself fighting to keep it against Thomas George getting his nose to the inside. George cleared ahead into 3rd with drivers all throughout the field struggling with loose conditions early on in the run. Yaczik took control of the field and built a 0.6 second lead over Mahan showing a strong pace with George slowly closing the gap to Mahan. Mike Rasimas was up into the top 5 going into lap 20 and gaining on Dempster ahead.

Dempster cleared around both Chance Manning and Mahan into 2nd place while Yaczik continued to lead the field. Manning put his nose to the inside of Dempster to take back the position but couldn’t complete the move settling back into 3rd ahead of George and Mahan battling over 4th directly behind him. Mahan slid up the track enough for Michael Chrobok to take advantage diving beneath him and moving up into 5th behind George on lap 47. Yaczik was slowly stretching out his lead running around 0.5 ahead of Dempster by lap 50 as the drivers started to find their grooves and check off some laps.

As the laps counted down, Yaczik showed his speed over the long run pulling further away from the rest of the field by over 1 second. Chrobok cleared into 2nd place ahead of George with Dempster falling back to 4th as the caution came out on lap 72. All drivers came into the pits with Yaczik winning the race off pit road and retaining the lead for the restart with George to his outside on the front row. Manning and Greg O’Berry battled side by side over 5th while the top 4 drivers single filed out quickly as the green flag came back out.

With 90 laps completed, Chrobok closed the gap to George in 2nd and was able to get to George’s inside before quickly clearing into the position and running away with it showing a very strong pace. Manning overtook Yaczik for the lead going into lap 106 after another restart but wasn’t able to hold it as Yaczik quickly took it back and Chrbok closed on the battle pressuring Manning for 2nd and taking the position on lap 109 showing that Manning possibly used up too much of his equipment going for the lead while he continued to fall back behind George.

After a rough start to the night, Mike Rasimas was back into the top 10 with 50 laps to go as drivers started to push more aggressively with the laps counting down to the end. Yaczik maintained control of the field with a gap of 0.7 over Chrobok behind him in 2nd. Lap 128 saw drivers starting to come down pit road under green flag conditions for the first time of the night with Dempster and Rasimas leading the charge. Chrobok came down on lap 131 from 2nd place while Yaczik stayed out in the lead with Tommy Gossett up to 2nd.

Each lap saw another small group of drivers come down pit road while Yaczik and Gossett battled over the lead. Yaczik made his stop on lap 140 as Gossett took the lead and coming down pit road on the following lap. Rasimas was the leading car from the pit cycle ahead of Chrobok going into the final 25 laps. Chrobok closed the gap and took the lead away from Rasimas with Yaczik back in 7th over 12 seconds behind the leader but was climbing through the field quickly.

Gossett lost control of his car spinning sideways down the backstretch with 16 laps remaining and bringing out a race changing caution closing the gap between Yaczik and the leaders. As the drivers stacked back up for the restart, Chrobok control of the field ahead of Rasimas in 2nd and Yaczik in 3rd. The green flag came back out with 11 laps remaining and Chrobok fumbled the start allowing Rasimas to get around him off the jump. Chrobok dove beneath Rasimas and reclaimed the lead with 8 to go.

Yaczik was pressuring George looking for an opening as George sent his car aggressively to the inside of Rasimas and Yaczik used the opportunity to push Rasimas back to 4th as the top 4 drivers pulled away from the rest of the field. George was starting to struggle in the corners going into the final 3 laps while the leaders battled hard for every inch. Thomas George took the lead for the final lap and held of Michael Chrobok to take the checkered flag with Mike Rasimas, Brian Yaczik, and Isaiah Dupre rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Texas Motor Speedway.

Brian Yaczik continues to lead in the point standings with 229 points. Thomas George maintains 2nd place only 5 points behind the leader with Michael Chrobok in 3rd with 213 points behind him. Woody Mahan sits in 4th with 198 points after a rough night and Code Dempster jumps up 2 spots to 5th place with 192 points. Next week, the Pretty Good Racing League heads to Talladega Superspeedway on October 4th for the Chuckles I’m in Danger 250 presented by MC2 Editing Services with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!