PGRL S3 R11 Recap

01 November 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 3 | Round 11
Premier Series | Martinsville Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Michael Chrobok with Loud Pedal Motorsports took the checkered flag in a very chaotic run at Martinsville Speedway in the The Joy of Driving Martinsville 500 with the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of Adam Jurski and Greg O’Berry. “The strategy just kind of worked out for and fell into our cards with the timing of the cautions and stuff”, Chrobok shared with us as the night came to a close, “I kind of just tried to run a pace… at the end and kind of hold a track position.”

Greg O’Berry was in control of the 19-car field as the green flag came out to kick off the night’s action with Christopher Dewald to his outside. The front 3 drivers quickly went single file off the jump with James Moore quickly looking to advance up into 2nd around Dewald. In the opening laps, many drivers were struggling through the corners over driving on entry and running up high before recovering as well as losing the rear end of the car on corner exit sliding sideways down the straights.

Thomas George was quietly pushing up through the field up into 3rd with Scott Eckrich directly behind him while the field still struggled to get sorted out. Brian Yaczik ran into trouble early on being sent around after making contact with the inside curb and getting his car high centered only 15 laps into the run. Frequent cautions and restarts plagued the early race causing more problems as the field was not able to get settled in and space themselves out around the track.

27 laps into the night, George was sent around after contact with Tim Winecoff. Luckily for George, the approaching traffic was able to avoid making further contact and George was able to rejoin the track from 14th with minor damage. Winecoff ran into troubles of his own a few laps later making hard contact with the inside wall receiving significant damage as James Moore made a move for the lead holding it briefly before O’Berry took it back a lap later with Eckrich running in 3rd.

Yaczik and George came together after Yaczik got loose coming out of turn 2 also making contact with Adam Jurski 40 laps in with O’Berry still holding the lead. Michael Chrobok was the first driver to come down pit road so far in the race under the latest caution without being involved in an incident. As racing resumed, Mike Rasimas was up to 4th as Eckrich made a quick move to the inside of Moore for 2nd place. Yaczik was able to get back into the top 10 with George up to 8th with 60 laps completed with the field being able to get mostly single filed out for the first time of the night.

With 100 laps completed, the drivers were over 30 laps into the first long green flag run of the night. Chrobok was holding the lead with O’Berry and Eckrich following almost 1 second behind on gap on fresher tires. George was running in 4th and Yaczik in 6th behind Norm Pelletier. Yaczik was able to move up into 5th putting pressure on George going forward as the drivers all seemed to find their grooves with the laps continuing to count down approaching the halfway point of the night.

Eckrich cleared around O’Berry into 2nd and immediately closed on Chrobok in the lead. A few moments later, George was also able to get around O’Berry putting some distance between himself and Yaczik going into lap 128. 2 laps later, Eckrich got under Chrobok taking away the lead with George following him around into 2nd. Yaczik had cleared around O’Berry and soon overtook Chrobok for 3rd running the outside line. With 100 laps remaining, Eckrich was able to stretch his lead out to over 3 seconds as Yaczik closed the gap to George and cleared into 2nd place.

As the laps counted down, the field was mostly single file spread out around the track with Eckrich still in the lead. Yaczik held onto 2nd place with O’Berry holding off George for 3rd. After going through the final pit cycle under a caution, George took the lead ahead of Adam Jurski and Chrobok. Yaczik was back in 5th with Eckrich running in 7th with 50 laps remaining. The field was again shuffled after several chaotic restarts giving the lead over to Chrobok with Jurski directly behind him with 20 laps to go.

Eckrich was aggressively pushing back up through the field running in 4th and pressuring O’Berry hard for 3rd. Yaczik was back in 6th ahead of George with Rasimas consistently pushing up through the field in 8th. On lap 238, Eckrich made a move to the inside of O’Berry but contact was made as Eckrich tried to clear ahead putting Eckrich hard into the outside wall with race ending damage. The race stayed green from the incident and Michael Chrobok maintained the lead to take the checkered flag with Adam Jurski, Greg O’Berry, Brian yaczik, and Thomas George rounding out the top 5 tonight at Martinsville Speedway.

Michael Chrobok jumped up two spots into the lead with 378 points over Thomas George with 369 points. Brian Yaczik fell back to 3rd place with 360 points. Scott Eckrich holds onto 4th with 327 points and Woody Mahan rounds out the top 5 with 299 points. Next week, the Pretty Good Racing League heads to Phoenix Raceway on November 8th for the season finale in the MC2 Editing Services Leading the Way 250K with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!