PGRL S3 R8 Recap

12 October 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 3 | Round 8
Premier Series | Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Scott Eckrich with GRAAFix LC Motorsports dominated the night to take the checkered flag tonight in the Make It Stop 125 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval with the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of Thomas George and Brian Yaczik. “This race track, this year, this car, is the hardest track we’ve been to yet by probably a pretty considerable margin”, Eckrich shared with us as the night came to a close, “There was a lot of fine management about how you had to hit your bumps and stuff not to destroy the car and how to get speed and not throw it sideways off of it and there was a whole lot of time to be gained if you could get the minor stuff down.”

Greg O’Berry led the 17-car field to the green flag with Michael Chrobok to his outside. O’Berry and Chrobok quickly single filed out ahead of the field going through the first corner. Cold tires caught a few drivers off guard in the opening laps with drivers such as Chance Manning sliding through a chicane losing a lot of time. Scott Eckrich and Jeff Ward were quickly pushing up through the pack up to 7th and 8th respectively with only 3 laps completed while O’Berry still held the lead ahead of Chrobok.

Only 8 laps into the night, Eckrich and Brian Yaczik came down pit road together for fuel and rejoined the track in 11th and 12th place with O’Berry still holding off Chrobok for the lead. Cody Dempster and Woody Mahan were battling aggressively over 3rd. Dempster was able to move up to 2nd when Chrobok came down pit road on lap 10 and made a move for the lead 1 lap later with Jeff Ward close behind moving into 2nd and pressuring Dempster. Harley Moss was quietly making his way up through the field running in 3rd and closing on the leaders with 15 laps completed.

Ward got alongside Dempster a few times before Dempster aggressively slammed the door shut going through the backstretch chicane regaining the lead. Eckrich was back up to 4th running almost 9 seconds behind the leaders as the field became spread out around the course as a result of different pit strategies. Dempster made his fuel stop going into lap 22 handing the lead over to Moss with Eckrich in 2nd already within 1.5 seconds. Dempster rejoined the course in 8th behind Mahan who was battling with Chrobok ahead.

As the drivers crossed the halfway point of the night, Moss came down pit road and Eckrich took the lead over 14 seconds ahead of Thomas George in 2nd place. Moss came back on track in 5th with Dempster close behind and the two drivers started battling side by side making slight contact as Dempster cleared ahead. With 25 laps remaining, Eckrich had extended his lead out to over 24 seconds ahead of George with Yaczik maintaining 3rd place ahead of Ward. Dempster was struggling falling back to 6th behind Moss and pulling away by 2 seconds.

Several drivers started coming down pit road on lap 33 including Eckrich in the lead for the final fuel stop. George came down on the following lap as Eckrich regained the lead with a 27 second gap ahead of George rejoining the track in 2nd place. Going into the final 15 laps, Eckrich continued to lead with George 20 seconds back and Yaczik another 11 seconds behind George. Ward got to the inside of Moss going into turn 1, but contact was made when Moss got loose sending both drivers around blocking the track for a moment. Ward was the first to get corrected and continued running in 4th.

Dempster was able to clear ahead of Moss before Moss could get his car spun back around in the right direction and fell back to 6th place. With 9 laps remaining, Eckrich caught the curb wrong in the chicane on the back stretch and spun himself around on the track but had a strong enough lead ahead of George to get his car faced back in the right direction and back up to speed with over a 7 second lead. Scott Eckrich led the remaining laps to take the checkered flag tonight in the Make It Stop 125 at Charlotte with Thomas George, Brian Yaczik, Cody Dempster, and Michael Chrobok rounding out the top 5 drivers.

Thomas George took the lead away from Brian Yaczik tonight by 2 points with 312 points overall. Michael Chrobok holds onto 3rd place with 267 points. Cody Dempster moved up into 4th with 256 points as Woody Mahan slid back one spot to 5th with 253 points rounding out the top 5. Next week, the Pretty Good Racing League heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 18th for the Galloping Horses 200 with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!