PGRL S4 R3 Recap

07 March 2023
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 4 | Round 3
Premier Series | Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Vincent Crow with Team Watson Racing claimed his 2nd win of the new season tonight in the MARSS Properties Vacation Rentals 200 with the Pretty Good Racing League at Las Vegas Motor Speedway ahead of Scott Eckrich and Cosmin Ioanesiu. “Stage win and the race win, I feel like I proved I’m not a hack. This race should’ve been called the ‘Vincent Crow’s not a Hack 500′”, Crow joked with us as the night came to a close, “It’s a really good feel-good win. Daytona was, I was blown out of my mind I won the race and now this race is like ‘Cool, I’m ready for Phoenix’.”

Tyler Graaf with GRAAFix eSports led the 42-car field around to take the green flag with Angel Jaime to his outside. Graaf jumped out to an early lead with much of the field spreading out using multiple lines around the corners. Scott Eckrich was making an unexpected push to the front, up to 7th in the first few laps, as he has been known for patiently moving up through the field last season. Only 10 laps into the run, Graff had pulled away from the rest of the field by 2.5 seconds with Creighton Carter running in 2nd place clearly saving his equipment for a longer run.

Cody Dempster was aggressively maneuvering around traffic up into 3rd with a large pack of drivers battling hard from 8th back past 30th place all running 2 and 3-wide as the drivers started to feel more comfortable. With the first 15 laps behind them, the front runners were quickly closing on Graaf up front who was quickly falling off the pace. Carter dove under Graaf and was able to clear into the lead with Dempster running close behind. Eckrich was up to 4th and broke away from the large pack of drivers as he started reeling in the leaders.

Dempster wasted no time going after the lead as the caution came out on lap 23 from contact between Will Farmer and Saif Faries resulted in a several drivers getting caught out. Dempster maintained the lead after completing his pit cycle with Eckrich in 2nd. Racing resumed with Eckrich staying alongside Dempster off the jump taking the lead away going into lap 27. Jaime was able to close in on Eckrich taking the lead for himself a few laps later with much of the field shuffling for position.

Vincent Crow was moving up toward the front on the field clearing around Dempster into 3rd and looking to challenge Eckrich for 2nd place. Cosmin Ioanesiu, last week’s winner at Auto Club Speedway, was quietly moving up through the field into 6th place as Eckrich was starting to drop back giving up positions to Crow and Dempster. The field continued making aggressive moves throughout to close out the first half of the night with Crow and Jaime battling hard over the lead.

Crow was holding the lead over Dempster as they crossed the halfway point in the race to secure the bonus stage points before handing the lead over to Dempster. Ioanesiu was maintaining a strong pace running up to 3rd and looking under Crow for 2nd with Colton Salek close behind. Cautions plagued the 2nd half of the race with drivers making more aggressive moves resulting in shuffling the running order around as differing pit strategies staggered the field. Crow was in control of the field over Ioanesiu with 30 laps remaining.

With drivers running into more problems, cautions helped Eckrich get back within reach of the lead with Mike Rasimas breaking into the top 5 going into the last 10 laps. Crow still had a strong hold on the race lead and broke away from the field with Ioanesiu in tow as Eckrich and Rasimas went side by side over 3rd place. One last caution came out restacking the field for a 3-lap shootout with Crow still in the lead. Vincent Crow held the lead unchallenged to take the checkered flag with Scott Eckrich taking 2nd place away from Cosmin Ioanesiu in the end. Colton Salek and Mike Rasimas round out the top 5 tonight at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Vincent Crow further extends his lead with 215 points with Jake Silvia now 36 points behind him. Cosmin Ioanesiu jumps up 5 spots into 3rd with 166 points, Thomas George drops back to 4th with 165 points, and Jeff Ward rounds out the top 5 with 163 points. The Pretty Good Racing League next heads to Phoenix Raceway for the “MARSS Properties Vacation Rentals 250K” on March 14th with all the action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!