From 18 Points Down to the Crown: Chris Hammett Sweeps Charlotte Finale for the Championship

The 15th and final round of the Red Light Racing Checkered Flag Auto Supply Scrambler Series Season 22 brought the 27-car field to Charlotte Motor Speedway for a high-stakes championship climax in the iRacing ARCA vehicle. Opened in 1960 as the original cookie-cutter intermediate oval, Charlotte presented a grueling technical test across its heavily aged, abrasive track surface—a virtual asphalt cheese grater that severely punished worn rubber. Mechanically, the ARCA chassis demanded constant vigilance, particularly over a disruptive bump entering Turn 1 that unseated chassis balance, stripped away front downforce, and pushed cars up the banking in a perilous tight handling condition during side-by-side battles. Turn 3 offered an even more insidious trap, tempting drivers with an initial sensation of entry stability before mechanical grip abruptly vanished, shredding right-front tire rubber across long runs. Under these uncompromising physical conditions, securing clean air and methodically conserving front tire wear over long runs stood as the absolute prerequisites for survival and victory.

Heading into the season finale, the championship fight revolved around calculated mathematical permutations centered on seven-time series champion Maxime Theriault and his primary challenger, Chris Hammett. Theriault arrived in NASCAR’s backyard holding an 18-point cushion over Hammett, meaning a simple top-11 finish would lock up his eighth career series title regardless of bonus points. Conversely, Hammett faced a formidable task that required a victory, bonus points for leading laps, and significant trouble for Theriault to engineer an upset. Driving the No. 6 Hazel Jeans Princess Cafe machine—a car dedicated to his expecting newborn daughter, Hazel Jean—Hammett carried a mix of personal motivation and intense focus into the cockpit, knowing he needed to execute a flawless race from the green flag.

When the green flag dropped, pole-sitter Shawn Butler launched his No. 52 alongside Zack Mitchell in the No. 8 to lead the field down into Turn 1. Behind the front row, Luke Logan Allen aggressively piloted his No. 31 machine along the high side, sweeping through Turns 3 and 4 to thrust himself directly into lead contention, while Sean Single in the No. 11 and James Skelton in the No. 86 traded paint in a tight battle just behind them. As the race reached Lap 15, Charlotte’s harsh asphalt began taking a severe toll on the ARCA tires. Side-by-side stability deteriorated across the field, sending plumes of white tire smoke rising off the outside SAFER barriers. The handling struggles were compounded by iRacing’s updated visual tire smoke physics, which laid down thick, opaque sheets of smoke across the racing groove during slides, leaving trailing drivers completely blind. Navigating through this mid-pack friction, Hammett methodically picked his way forward, eventually pulling up to Theriault’s rear quarter-panel as handling balance degraded across the entire running order.

The inherent dangers of green-flag pit entry at Charlotte materialized around Lap 26 as the leaders approached their initial pit window. Todd Sargent in the No. 87 attempted to check up and dive down toward pit lane, triggering a chain-reaction check-up behind him that sent cars sliding onto the apron and summoned the night’s first yellow flag. The caution prompted a frantic pit cycle as the leaders flooded pit road for fresh rubber and fuel. Luke Logan Allen, Zack Mitchell, James Skelton, and Chris Hammett executed rapid, clean pit stops, successfully controlling the top four spots off pit road and resetting the running order for the restart.

Chaos erupted on the subsequent restart as the field compressed tightly entering Turn 1. Bradley Stefane in the No. 89 lost control off the corner and slammed the outside wall, initiating a violent chain reaction that collected Alex Sullivan’s No. 20 and Sean Single’s No. 11, sending Single airborne along the backstretch. Navigating blindly into the dense wall of tire smoke, championship leader Maxime Theriault spun his No. 51 onto the apron to avoid the wreckage. Theriault pulled off a miraculous escape, escaping all structural wall and car contact completely unscathed. Recognizing an opportunity to step out of the mid-pack hornets’ nest, Theriault brought his undamaged machine down pit lane for strategic insurance, topping off his fuel cell so he could split the remaining distance into two short, manageable stints.

However, Theriault’s fortune ran out on the next caution-and-restart cycle. Further back in dense traffic, another mid-pack stack-up left the heavy, damaged machine of Ryan Oldani (No. 98) sitting dead in the main racing groove. With zero reaction time coming off Turn 4, Theriault slammed directly into Oldani’s stalled car. The heavy impact completely tore off Theriault’s front nose piece and destroyed his left-front suspension. Forced to limp back to pit road under a heavy meatball flag, Theriault brought his car to his pit stall, but with no fast repairs available in the series, the damage proved terminal. The seven-time champion was forced to retire from the race in 20th place, blowing the championship battle wide open and handing complete control of the title race over to Hammett.

With Theriault officially sidelined in the garage, the final green-flag pit sequence unfolded around Lap 60 under intense strategic pressure. Leaders intentionally delayed their pit entries as long as possible to avoid the devastating risk of short-pitting only to be trapped a lap down by an untimely yellow flag, or caught in another catastrophic pit-entry check-up. When the window finally opened, Hammett dived onto pit road from the lead alongside Skelton and Ethan Troutman. The exit off pit road proved equally nerve-wracking: Skelton in the No. 86 danced on the absolute boundary of the apron, nearly stepping over onto the racing surface, while Hammett re-entered the track inches away from drawing a championship-ending unsafe pit exit penalty. Hammett executed the cycle cleanly to retain the net lead, instantly maximizing clean air. In the ARCA vehicle, pursuers could use Charlotte’s powerful aerodynamic draft to close in rapidly, but once they arrived within two-tenths of a second, dirty air severely disrupted their front-end downforce. Hammett used precise line choices through the double dogleg to keep a charging train—consisting of Jeffrey Souza (No. 4), Skelton (No. 86), Troutman (No. 62), and a fast-closing Connor Blasco (No. 95)—trapped in his wake.

The final ten laps delivered peak tension as Jeffrey Souza mounted a relentless assault, applying heavy pressure directly to Hammett’s rear bumper. However, with four laps remaining, Souza overdrove the entry to Turn 2 and brushed the outside wall, opening the door for Connor Blasco to slide past into second place. Blasco immediately launched a frantic last-lap charge, driving his No. 95 up to Hammett’s outside quarter-panel through Turns 3 and 4 in a side-by-side drag race off the final corner. Hammett held his line on the bottom, holding off Blasco by a fraction of a second at the line, with Souza crossing in third. By winning the Season 22 finale in his No. 6 Hazel Jeans Princess Cafe machine, Chris Hammett dramatically overturned the 18-point deficit entering the night to win the Season 22 RLR Scrambler Series Championship by 13 points—securing his third career series title in emotional and spectacular fashion.