PGRL S4 R4 Recap

14 March 2023
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 4 | Round 4
Premier Series | Phoenix Raceway

Adam Jurski with Steel Horse Racing takes the checkered flag tonight in the MARSS Properties Vacation Rentals 250k with the Pretty Good Racing League at Phoenix Raceway ahead of Scott Eckrich and Vincent Crow. “I just had to believe there wouldn’t be a caution, which I wasn’t 100% sure there wouldn’t be at the very end there, but things just played out”, Jurski shared with us at the end of the night, “It kind of got strung out single file up front and it was fairly easy to drive to the front, so I can’t complain about that.”

Clarence Bonner with Apex Simsport led the 30-car field around to take the green flag with Alex Graetz to his outside. Bonner was able to clear out ahead of the field off the jump, but Graetz stayed close behind and started challenging for the lead only 4 laps into the run with Ryan Rose closing the gap to the leaders. Cody Dempster was making a hard charge toward the front early up to 4th going into lap 16 with multiple drivers running very aggressively early on.

Many of the rookie drivers were charging up through the field while familiar names from previous seasons were showing restraint patiently running further back in the running order seemingly knowing something that wasn’t apparent to the others. An incident in the middle of the field brought the first caution of the night with 24 laps behind them allowing everyone an early pit stop for tires that most drivers took advantage of. Going back to green on lap 28, Dempster quickly overtook Ryan Rose for the lead off the jump.

Michael Chrobok was pushing up quickly to challenge Dempster for the lead coming up to the halfway point taking control of the field on lap 57. Mike Rasimas was working hard to reel Chrobok back in pressuring the leader but wasn’t able to make anything of it before getting loose and falling back over 1 second behind Chrobok who was able to claim the bonus stage points just in time as a caution came out a few laps later halting the action with the majority of drivers opting to come back through pit road.

Chrobok was still in control of the field to take the green flag starting off the 2nd half of the night going into lap 85 ahead of Thomas George. Chrobok was able to defend the lead going forward as the familiar names decided it was time to go to include Scott Eckrich, Woody Mahan, Jeff Ward, and Mike Rasimas finding themselves running single file in 3rd through 6th place directly behind George and Chrobok. George was starting to struggle a bit as Eckrich, Mahan, and Ward all cleared around George with around 50 laps to go.

Going into the last 30 laps, Ward got out of shape and made hard contact with the outside wall bringing out another caution. Chrobok made a rare error on pit road costing him time and falling back to 4th as he rejoined the track. Eckrich was in control of the field as racing resumed jumping out to a strong lead with Chrobok going 3-wide over 2nd place overtaking both Rasimas and Brian Yaczik for the position.

A late race caution came out when Yaczik lost his car from contact with the apron sending himself around in turn 4. The top 7 drivers stayed out on track with Adam Jurski being the first driver in line with fresh tires running in 8th as the green flag came back out for the final time with 8 laps remaining. Eckrich had another strong start but Jurski was carving through the field quickly closing on the leader. Adam Jurski was able to take the lead away from Scott Eckrich going into final 2 laps and ran away with the lead to take the checkered flag with Vincent Crow, Jordan Harnish, and Mike Rasimas rounding out the top 5 tonight at Phoenix Raceway.

Vincent Crow holds onto the lead in the point standings with 276 points. Michael Chrobok jumps up 4 spots into 2nd with 229 poitns after a strong run tonight. Thomas George reclaims 3rd with 222 points, Adam Jurski leaps up 6 spots into 4th with 215 points after tonight’s win and is now tied with Scott Eckrich in the points rounding out the top 5. The Pretty Good Racing League next heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the “Everything Gets Better with Age 250 presented by GamingGuyL” on March 21st with all the action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!