PGRL S2 R11 Recap

09 August 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 11
Premier Series | Michigan International Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Brian Yaczik with Loud Pedal Motorsports took his 3rd win of the season under caution flag conditions tonight in the “Yaz’s Sandwiches & More 200” at Michigan International Speedway with the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of Scott Eckrich and Chance Manning. “I’ve been to plenty of races at [Michigan International Speedway]. I love that facility, love the area”, Yaczik shared with us as the action came to a close, “Every time we get to come down to race here it’s always a little special to me.”

Chance Manning started on the pole tonight alongside James Krahula as the green flag was thrown out over the field. Manning had a good launch off the start, but soon found himself under pressure from Thomas George after the first few laps. Jeff Ward, the points leader going into the evening, had his race ended only 10 laps in with technical issues putting his hard-earned lead at risk late in the season. Manning continued to control the field with George pushing him from behind with the first 20 laps were completed as Scott Eckrich broke into the top 10.

George made a move around the inside of Manning for the lead on lap 25 taking control of the field as Eckrich’s charge to the front continued moving up to 5th and quickly closing on the leaders. Manning got alongside George and the two leaders started trading crossovers back and forth with neither driver wanting to give up the lead. The battling allowed Mike Rasimas to close in on the leading battle pressuring for position forcing Manning to concede for the moment falling back in line behind George.

Only 30 laps into the run, Manning, George, and Rasimas were three wide over the lead with Eckrich up to only 1.5 seconds behind them in 4th. The field started cycling through green flag pit stops throughout the leading battle with Manning and George coming down on lap 35 while Rasimas and Eckrich came down pit road on the following lap. George was the leading driver as the running order finished shuffling from the pit cycle with Manning in 2nd and Eckrich in 5th 2.8 seconds behind the leader.

As the drivers approached the second half of the night, Eckrich was making an aggressive charge back to the leaders overtaking Rasimas and George and closing in on Manning only a few laps after rejoining the track from pit road. A caution at the halfway point gave the field an opportune chance to make another pit stop with Eckrich winning the race off pit road and taking control of the field for the restart going into lap 52. The aggression was high with George and Manning banging doors over 2nd and making several attempts for the lead.

Cautions plagued the next 20 laps while feuds erupted between drivers throughout the field delaying the race further. The green flag came out as racing resumed on lap 73 with Rasimas jumping out in front taking control of the field with George and Manning again battling each other aggressively, this time over 2nd place. Brian Yaczik found himself position between the two while Eckrich cautiously maintained distance, back in 8th place, between himself and the battles ahead.

Going into the final 15 laps, Rasimas was still in lead with Manning close behind looking to the inside. George got to the outside of Manning and the two were again battling amongst themselves allowing Rasmias to pull away out front. Yaczik got between them pushing George to 5th back behind Eckrich as Yaczik and Manning closed back in on Rasimas overtaking the leader and battling each other for the lead with Eckrich running behind Yaczik in 3rd with 10 laps remaining. Eckrich pushed Yaczik into the lead as Manning fell back to 3rd. George, Carroll, and Rasimas went three wide over 4th place with Michael Chrobok getting his nose into the fight.

Manning got alongside Eckrich and started aggressively battling over 2nd place behind Yaczik with 6 laps remaining. Manning cleared ahead of Eckrich and quickly pushed for the lead again diving below Yaczik. Yaczik pulled a crossover taking the lead back with Eckrich pushing him. Eckrich continued to push Yaczik trying to move the lead battle away from Manning as the laps counted down. As they ran into the final 2 laps, the caution flag again came out over the field bringing the action to an end prematurely with Brian Yaczik taking the checkered flag under yellow flag conditions with Scott Eckrich, Chance Manning, Drew Carroll, and Mike Rasimas rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Michigan International Speedway.

Jeff Ward leads in the point standings the 10th straight week in a row with 370 points. Brian Yaczik holds onto 2nd place now 32 points behind the leader. Scott Eckrich moves up two spots into 3rd with 328 points with Drew Carroll and Thomas George rounding out the top 5 in the standings going into the final round next week. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head down to Virgina for the “We Flex Our Muscles on Track 200 presented by #TeamLaps4MD” at Richmond Raceway on August 16th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R10 Recap

02 August 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 10
Premier Series | Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Drew Carroll with Loud Pedal Motorsports took the checkered flag by 0.003 in a drag race to the line tonight in the We Got a Partial Track Update; It Only Took 84 Years 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of Scott Eckrich and Jeff Ward. “I was driving the race of my life right there”, Carroll commented as the night came to a close, “I feel like we’ve been running really, really solid, and we just haven’t had the finishes to show for it… We just had some luck tonight”

Adam Jurski was in control of the 23-car field as the green flag came out with James Krahula alongside him on the front row. Jurski launched far out in front of the rest of the pack going to the first turn while several drivers were caught up in an incident off the start that Scott Eckrich was able to avoid altogether bypassing half of the field and moving up to 11th place. Jeff Ward also survived the green flag collisions and was inside of the top 10 as the field started to single file out around the course.

5 laps into the night, Jurski maintained the lead and had stretch out over 3 seconds ahead of Drew Carroll as Eckrich had maneuvered up to 6th and was closing in on Brian Yaczik ahead of him. Ward overshot a corner on a previous lap and was running in 8th behind Mike Rasimas. Carroll was closing the distance to Jurski after putting down the fastest laps on track for 2 laps in a row and was within 1 second of the leader with 8 laps completed. As the first quarter of the race was behind them, a lot of the expected names were making their way into the top 10.

Carroll had closed up on Jurski’s bumper and was aggressively looking for an opportunity to take the lead away but struggled to find the drive off speed coming out of the corners to beat Jurski into the next corner. Eckrich had made up 2 seconds on the leaders from 5th place as the lead battle continued and Jurski had reached the first signs of lap traffic on lap 13. Jurski was forced to checkup for a lap car and that gave Carroll the opportunity to get alongside the leader and Carroll was able to clear ahead of Jurski going into turn one.

Carroll started pulling away from Jurski while Eckrich was up to 4th place and continued to close the gap. Ward was up into 7th place behind Rasimas and Yaczik. In the second half of the night, with 21 laps remaining, Eckrich was the first driver to go down pit road after climbing up to 2nd place and within 3 seconds of the leader. Eckrich rejoined in 11th, but several drivers opted to run their pit cycles on the following lap to include the leader, Carroll. As Carroll rejoined the track in 7th, Eckrich was only a few car lengths behind him.

As the last of the drivers completed their pit stops, Carroll had regained control of the field with Eckrich running close on his rear bumper with 18 laps to go. As the laps counted down, Eckrich made many failed pass attempts for the lead but wasn’t able to complete the move around Carroll going into the final 10 laps. As the white flag came out, Eckrich started pushing much more aggressively for the lead but wasn’t able to make the pass and Drew Carroll crossed the line 0.003 ahead of Scott Eckrich in a drag race to the checkered flag with Jeff Ward, Brian Yaczik and Adam Jurski rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Jeff Ward leads in the point standings the 9th week in a row with 370 points. Brian Yaczik holds onto 2nd place now 50 points behind the leader. Drew Carroll moves up three spots into 3rd with 316 points after tonight’s win, only 4 points behind Yaczik. Thomas George fell back to 4th place with 300 points and Shane Parish holds onto 5th with 299 points. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head up to Michigan for the “Yaz’s Sandwiches & More 200” at Michigan International Speedway on August 9th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R9 Recap

26 July 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 9
Premier Series | Pocono Raceway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Thomas George with Steel Horse Racing claimed his first checkered flag of the season tonight with the Pretty Good Racing League in the Steel Horse Live 69 at Pocono Raceway ahead of Vincent Crow and Mike Rasimas. “I take it one lap at a time, that’s just kind of how I do things.”, George shared with us as the night wrapped up and he modestly added, “I didn’t come into this race expecting to lead like this. I struggle a bit at Pocono.”

Woody Mahan led the field to the green flag at the start of the night with Thomas George running alongside him to the outside. The two drivers battled hard over the lead for several laps until George was able to pull away enough to hold the front going into lap 4. Drew Carroll caught the lead battle and overtook Mahan for 2nd place as he closed the gap to George ahead with 10 laps completed. As the laps counted down, Carroll was able to stay with George, but couldn’t find the speed to make an attempt on the lead in the early stages of the night.

Scott Eckrich and Jeff Ward battled each other as they climbed up through the field with Eckrich breaking into the top 10 first on lap 20 and was closing in on Brian Yaczik. George gave up the lead going into lap 24 as he opted to take his first stop for fuel early giving control of the field to Mahan. The shuffle in the running order sent Eckrich and Ward up to 5th and 6th respectively with both drivers staying out on track for several more laps. As the last of the field came through their pit cycles, George was able to reclaim the lead 30 laps into the night.

Going into the 2nd half, Ward was up to 6th place with Eckrich drafting with Mike Rasimas using each other to push forward as Rasimas ran in 8th. Going into lap 36, Rasimas and Eckrich had closed the gap to Ward while George was still in control of the field with a lead of over 2 seconds ahead of Carroll as the entire field had become spread out around the track. Ward cleared Cody Erdmann for 5th place and Eckrich overtook Rasimas to stay on Ward’s rear bumper. Eckrich got to the inside of Ward and quickly cleared into the top 5 pushing Ward back to 6th ahead of Rasimas.

With 30 laps remaining, Eckrich wasted no time moving forward as he cut to the inside of Christopher Dewald for 4th. Lap 41 saw the first caution of the night caused by contact between Yaczik and Erdman sending both drivers around on the racing line without causing serious damage for either. That gave the field an opportune time for the final fuel stop and closing up the large gaps that had built up throughout. George took the green flag for the field with Eckrich to his inside in 2nd place. Ward had fallen back to 12th off pit road and had a lot of ground to make up in the last 25 laps.

George cleared Eckrich off the restart and Eckrich was quick to slide up behind him ahead of Vincent Crow. Ward was aggressively pushing forward up to 6th running behind Rasimas after the first lap. George maintained the lead going into the last 15 laps ahead of Eckrich who was staying tight on his bumper waiting for George to make a mistake. Rasimas overtook Carroll for 4th place while Ward held onto 6th ahead of Isaiah Dupre. The top 10 were all running single file close enough together that if any driver made a mistake whey would likely be dropped to the back of the line before finding a space to slot into.

The top 7 drivers were still packed tightly together going into the final 10 laps. George wasn’t giving Eckrich any opportunity to make a pass attempt while Eckrich was pushing George trying to separate their battle from the rest of the group. A late race incident brought out the 2nd caution of the night with 7 laps remaining brought everyone back together for a 3-lap shootout to the finish. Goerge stayed out on track while Eckrich and Ward opted to go down pit road for fresh tires rejoining the track in 9th and 10th. There was another incident off the restart in the middle of the field and brought the night to a close with George taking the win under yellow flag conditions with Crow, Rasimas, Chris Lanini, and Eckrich rounding out the top 5 finishers across the line tonight at Pocono Raceway.

Jeff Ward leads in the point standings the 8th week in a row with 342 points. Brian Yaczik holds onto 2nd place now 33 points behind the leader. Thomas George moves up into 3rd with 294 points after tonight’s win, only 15 points behind Yaczik. Shane Parish fell back to 4th place with 285 points and Vincent Crow holds onto 5th with 276 points. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head to Indianapolis for the “Do You Got an Updated Track? Be a Lot Cooler If You Did! 100” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 2nd with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R8 Recap

19 July 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 8
Premier Series | New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Jeff Ward with GRAAFix LC Motorsports claimed his 2nd win of the season tonight in a caution plagued night at the Circle Jerks: A Revival Motoring Podcast 150 with the Pretty Good Racing League at New Hampshire Motor Speedway ahead of Mike Rasimas and Vincent Crow. “We got destroyed last week at [Road Atlanta], had a DNF, but it helped us being able to start 2nd tonight.”, Ward claimed it was a deciding factor in tonight’s win, “That track position meant a lot and kept us out of trouble for the most part. It feels good to be in Victory Lane here.”

Norm Pelletier led the 27-car field to the green flag with Jeff Ward running to his outside. Pelletier cleared into the lead, but Ward wasted no time going after the lead off the start diving below Pelletier and taking away control of the field. The early stages of the race were chaotic with drivers throughout the field struggling to find grip on cold tires and several drivers found themselves sliding through the infield grass after losing the rear end of the car on corner entry. Eckrich was cautiously negotiating through traffic on his way to the front and was up 10 spots running in 17th place going into the 20th lap.

Pelletier held onto 2nd place as Thomas George moved up to battle Danny Gutierrez for 3rd. Unfortunately, contact between George and Gutierrez turned both cars around and collected Adam Jurski bringing out a caution on lap 36. Several drivers shuffled down pit road jumping Eckrich up to 4th place for the restart. Eckrich quickly maneuvered around Isaiah Dupre and Pelletier securing 2nd place and went to work closing the gap to Ward little by little with each lap. Ward and Eckrich ran away with the lead battle over 1 second ahead of Pelletier in 3rd with 45 laps completed.

Ward and Eckrich both came down pit road on lap 53 under caution and rejoined the track still on the front row with Ward still in control the field. Mike Rasimas was up into 4th off the restart overtaking Cody Erdmann from the outside line. Approaching the second half of the night, Rasimas was sent around after contact with Chance Manning bringing out another caution and allowing the drivers to try to stretch the fuel to the end. Ward and Eckrich both went down pit road and rejoined the field in 2nd and 3rd respectively behind Vincent Crow as the green flag came back out and racing resumed with 75 laps remaining.

A fumbled restart caused by an incident in the back half of the field brought the caution back out immediately causing a checkup that the field wasn’t expecting resulting in Eckrich being sent hard into the outside wall and falling far back in the running order and multiple laps down with serious right front damage. Racing again resumed on lap 80 and Ward was able to take the lead away from Crow with Erdmann following him into 2nd. Rasimas was back into the top 10 and consistently moving forward through traffic and Brian Yaczik was up to 6th behind Brown.

Another pit cycle under the caution on lap 103 shuffled the running order around with Ward rejoining in 3rd. Jonathan Cogswell as leading the field for the first time of the night with Pelletier in 2nd as racing resumed with 45 laps remaining. Ward showed his speed as he quickly dove beneath Pelletier into turn one off the restart and then Cogswell going into turn three taking back the race lead as they crossed the line after one lap green. Rasimas maneuvered his car up into 2nd place ahead of Erdmann while Crow and Brown battled side by side over 4th.

With 24 laps to go, Ward and Rasimas had extended the gap ahead of Erdmann in 3rd by over 1 second as the field started running more aggressively going for any positions, they could get with the laps quickly counting down. Ward was able to break away from Rasimas pulling the lead out by over 1.5 seconds going into the final 10 laps. Ward maintained his lead and took the checkered flag with Rasimas, Crow, Erdmann, and Rhyne rounding out the top 5 drivers at the line to bring the night to a close at New Hampshire.

Jeff Ward leads in the point standings the 7th week in a row with 308 points. Brian Yaczik holds onto 2nd place now 29 points behind the leader. Shane Parish sits in 3rd with 257 points, only 22 points behind Yaczik. Thomas George holds 4th place with 245 points and Vincent Crow moved up into 5th with 236 points. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head over to Pennsylvania for the Steel Horse Live 69 Nice at Pocono Raceway on July 26th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R7 Recap

12 July 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 7
Premier Series | Atlanta Motor Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Scott Eckrich with GRAAFix LC Motorsports took the checkered flag tonight in the “Chuckles, We’re in Danger 200” with the Pretty Good Racing League at Atlanta Motor Speedway ahead of Shane Parish and Chance Manning. “I really don’t know why [the officials] put me up there, but I guess we’ll take it?”, Eckrich commented on the confusing shuffling of the racing order in the end. Eckrich says he was playing it safe for the first half of the night, “[I was] trying to avoid the first melee. It didn’t happen so that was cool, but yeah just trying to bide our time, keep tires under this thing and just make sure we didn’t knock ourselves out of the race before it started.”

Rich Jette started the night off on the pole to the inside of Joe Hassert as the green flag came out and the 30-car field roared across the line and into the first corner. The drivers stayed mostly side by side far back into the field for the first few laps before Greg O’Berry was able to clear into the front leading the outside line very much in a superspeedway fashion. 10 laps into the race, O’Berry held the lead from the front of the outside line while Hassert led the inside line and was running within a car length of O’Berry with both lines running similar paces.

Going into lap 30, the drivers were mostly running patiently in line as the narrow track made running 3 wide a risky move for so early in the night. O’Berry was still out front leading the outside line with Christopher Dewald on his door leading the inside line. Eckrich was running in 24th, 9 positions behind Jeff Ward, and wasn’t yet making any aggressive moves toward the front yet. Lap 43 saw the first round of drivers pulling down pit road with Eckrich coming in on lap 48 and Ward on the following lap. Many of the drivers struggled to get onto pit road without incident making contact with another car or missing the entrance altogether.

The pit cycle was completed through the field on lap 53 and Eckrich had jumped up to 6th place behind Brian Yaczik.. Adam Jurski was in control of the field ahead of Chance Manning. Lap 57 saw the first caution of the night from Don Runkle Jr making hard contact with the outside wall and collecting Ward unfortunately ending Ward’s night very early. Mike Rasimas controlled the field as the green flag came back out and racing resumed going into lap 61. The inside line had the better start which allowed Eckrich to jump further up through the pack into 2nd place with Yaczik in 3rd.

Eckrich went up to take control of the outside line and that gave Yaczik an opening to slingshot around both leaders and clear into the front of the field before he also went up in front of Eckrich as the top line started to pull away from the rest. Lap 71 saw the “big one” as the middle of the field imploded collecting roughly a third of the drivers, those being the drivers who weren’t lucky enough to find a path through the carnage as the track turned into a parking lot. Practically the entire field opted to use the opportunity to go down pit road for their second stop of the night.

Eckrich, Yaczik, and Thomas George went 3 wide over the lead off the restart with Yaczik holding the position in the end and Eckrich fell back to 5th from the shuffle. Drew Carroll moved up into 2nd ahead of George as the outside line again started to pull away from the rest of the field. With 30 laps remaining, Tommy Rhyne was in the lead ahead of Carroll. There were several failed attempts to build the inside line back up and the top 6 drivers ending with Eckrich were all running single file along the top. Going into the final stretch, Yaczik and Eckrich led the final round of pit stops with 25 laps to go.

The last thing Eckrich and Yaczik wanted to see happened in the final 18 laps as the caution flag came out once again and ruined their pit strategy to leap ahead of the field and started from the back end of the lead lap going into the final few laps. Rhyne and Paul Pepper were side by side on the front row as racing resumed with 16 laps remaining. Rhyne had a great launch with, but Carroll dove up into the gap between Rhyne and Pepper and led the high line into the front of the field. Rasimas slid up behind Carroll as a third line started to form down the center. An incident in the final laps brought the caution back and the field line back up for a 2-lap shootout.

Carroll and Rasimas shared the front row as the green flag came out for the final time. Eckrich was running behind Yaczik on the low line behind Rasimas. Carroll jumped out to an early lead being pushing by Pepper. As the drivers were shuffling around for position another large wreck collected Carroll, Yaczik, Eckrich, Pepper, and others as Shane Parish dove through the chaos and into the lead but in a shocking upset with the timing and scoring Eckrich was found to be the leader at the time the caution flag actually came out and, after the racing officials gave him his track position back, Eckrich claimed the win with Rasimas, Parish, Manning, and Rhyne rounding out the top 5 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Jeff Ward holds onto the lead in the point standings for his 6th straight week with 255 points. Brian Yaczik trails behind by only 10 points with Shane Parish 16 points behind the leader. Scott Eckrich moved up to 4th place after the night’s win and now has 238 points as Thomas George dropped back to 5th with 224 points. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head up to New Hampshire for the Circle Jerks: A Revival Motoring Podcast 150 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 19th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R6 Recap

05 July 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 6
Premier Series | Road America
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Brian Yaczik with Loud Pedal Motorsports took the checkered flag tonight in the Grand Brie of Road ‘Merica benefiting Dog McStacks presented by Scott MacKenzie of Clipping That Apex with the Pretty Good Racing League at Road America ahead of Scott Eckrich and Jeff Ward. “We were just doing what we had to do to keep this #55 machine pointed forward and, in the lead,”, Yaczik commented after taking the win, “We learned some stuff the hard way [at Sonoma Raceway] and were able to apply that to Road America tonight.”

Mike Rasimas led the field to the green flag as the racing action began and the 26-car field streaked across the line. Rasimas had a great jump out ahead of the rest of the drivers with Mark Hertzog and Isaiah Dupre running in 2nd and 3rd place. Rasimas extended the gap between himself and Hertzog to over 1 second as drivers were still getting heat into their tires around the first lap as Brian Yaczik was already up into 5th place from 8th and closing on Drew Carroll ahead. Jeff Ward and Scott Eckrich were making a quick dash through the field as Ward moved up 6 places into the top 10 and Eckrich up 12 places to 14th going into the second lap.

Eckrich came down pit road very early on the 5th lap for fuel while Carroll closed in on the leader and cleared ahead of Rasimas and quickly put some distance between them. Ward was up to 5th and running around 4 seconds behind Yaczik. Eckrich rejoined the track in 14th with a large gap between himself and Thomas George ahead of him. Yaczik caught the rear bumper of Dupre and was able to overtake him for 3rd place and was quickly closing in on Rasimas. Yaczik came down pit road with 23 laps to go for fuel and dropped back to 11th place and Carroll continued to control the field as drivers were settling in the put some laps behind them as they became spread out around the course.

Eckrich was back up to 9th and was closing the 26 second gap to the leader quickly as Ward was up into 3rd as the running order was shuffled with many drivers opting to make a fuel stop with 21 laps remaining. Going into the late stages of the race, Eckrich had made his final stop with 18 laps to go and came back onto the track in 11th with fresh tires. Rasimas ran his fuel out as far as it would go before pitting and giving the lead to Yaczik. Fresh tires were causing problems around the track with several drivers overshooting corners and making hard contact into the wall ending their races early as 17 drivers were still running on track going into the final 15 laps.

Yaczik maintained the lead with Ward and Eckrich charging back through the field. Ward was up to 4th behind Carroll while Eckrich was up to 6th and running some of the fastest laps of any driver to that point in the race. Yaczik took his final pit stop with 11 laps to go and came back out on track in 5th with Shane Parish running close behind him. Rasimas took the lead with Ward 1 second behind him and Eckrich up to 4th. Ward made his final fuel stop with 8 laps remaining allowing Yaczik to jump back up to 3rd behind Eckrich. Rasimas went down pit road on the next lap giving the lead to Eckrich who still would need one more fuel stop before the end.

In the final 5 laps, Eckrich had to pit for a splash of fuel and fell back to 2nd place over 8 seconds behind Yaczik. Rasimas was running in 3rd with Ward pressuring from behind. 14 drivers were still on track with Cody Erdmann being the last driver on the lead lap in 9th place. A slight mistake from Rasimas gave Ward the opening he needed to take the last podium position away while Eckrich was putting down the fastest laps of the race chipping away at the gap to Yaczik in the lead. With 3 laps left in the race, Yaczik still had a 6 second lead over Eckrich. Going into the final stretch, Yaczik’s consistency was enough to maintain the lead as he took the checkered flag 1 second ahead of Eckrich with Ward, Rasimas, and Carroll rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Road America.

Jeff Ward leads in the point standings for the fifth straight week with 242 points overall. Brian Yaczik moved up into 2nd place after tonight’s win now 25 points behind the leader. Shane Parish and Thomas George are tied for 3rd place with 199 points each and Scott Eckrich moved into 5th place with 189 points. Next week, the drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League head down to Georgia for the Chuckles I’m in Danger 200 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 12th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R5 Recap

28 June 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 5
Premier Series | Nashville Superspeedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Tommy Rhyne with Unacceptable Racing claimed his first victory of the season tonight in the BeefJurski’s Cheesecake Emporium & Banana Breadery 200 with the Pretty Good Racing League at Nashville Superspeedway ahead of Jeff Ward and Scott Eckrich. “I just gave it everything I had from there and in the end probably as soon as I got around [Eckrich] I was full on”, Rhyne commented on running the last stretch of the race after pulling off a risky pit strategy by stretching his fuel as far as it would go, “I don’t know if we were going to win otherwise so we took the gamble and hey, here we are!”

Cody Erdmann led the 30-car field to the green flag alongside Michael Chrobok on the front row. Chrobok stayed to the outside of Erdmann off the start for a lap before conceding to drop back single file ahead of Woody Mahan in 3rd. Brian Yaczik moved up into the top 10 early on with Jeff Ward up to 13th and Thomas George running in 16th. Mike Rasimas and Joe Hassert were battling hard over 12th place going into the 10th lap while the field started to spread out with drivers settling in to put some laps behind them.

Erdmann, Chrobok, and Mahan continued to run single file in the front and had built a gap of around 2 seconds between them and Danny Gutierrez in 4th place. Ward had jumped several positions running in 6th making a strong charge to the front as Rasimas climbed into the top 10. Scott Eckrich was up to 18th from his 30th place starting position and was consistently moving up through the field. Ward overtook for 4th place going into lap 18 and went to work reeling the leaders in.

Chrobok had control of the lead ahead of Mahan with Erdmann dropping back to 3rd with 20 laps completed. Chrobok started to stretch out his lead pulling away from Mahan while Ward was closing up on Erdmann’s rear bumper and moving up into 3rd on lap 27. Eckrich using the outside line to complete passes through the field trying to get into the top 10 while Ward caught and overtook Mahan for 2nd place now up 17 positions from where he started the night. Chrobok had over a 1 second lead ahead of Ward over 30 laps into the night.

Lap 34 saw Eckrich getting into 10th place and diving beneath Adam Jurski to quickly move up to 9th behind George and Yaczik. Lap 38 saw a lead change as Ward forced Chrobok to the outside and quickly put distance between them. George and Gutierrez were battling side by side for 6th place with Eckrich closing in quickly as Drew Carroll came down the track to take his first pit stop of the night. George was forced to check up and almost drove up into Gutierrez in an attempt to avoid Carroll. This caused a chain reaction sending Eckrich hard into the outside wall as the drivers coming up from behind scattered to avoid and sending Yaczik sliding into the infield bringing out the caution flag.

As racing resumed on lap 46, Ward still controlled the field and Eckrich had fallen back to 20th place. Yaczik was working his way back up through the field running in 23rd after the incident. George was up to 4th and running close behind Chrobok and Mahan who were battling for 2nd place 1.5 seconds behind the leader. Eckrich had gotten back into the top 10 running behind Rasimas and Ward had stretched his lead ahead of Chrobok to over 2.5 seconds as the drivers approached the halfway point of the race.

Shane Parish was making a strong charge through the field and was able to close the gap to George on lap 78 and cleared for 2nd place running strong pace and gradually closing the 3.5 second gap to Ward. Coming up to lap 90, the drivers began sporadically pulling off track to begin their pit cycles shuffling the running order. Eckrich stayed out until lap 95 trying to stretch out his next stint as fall as he could in an attempt to reach the checkered flag without another stop.

With 50 laps remaining, Ward had reclaimed the lead ahead of Chrobok and Parish. Eckrich was back up to 8th place with Mark Hertzog rounding out the top 10. Ward had over a 6 second lead over Chrobok as the pit cycle spread the field out around the track and the top 19 drivers were still running on the lead lap. Eckrich was up to 4th and advancing quickly out pacing Ward lap for lap going into the last 40 laps. Parish moved up into 2nd place as Eckrich reached the rear of Chrobok and started pressuring for 3rd.

Ward, Parish, and Chrobok chose to make another fuel stop on lap 117 putting Eckrich in the lead of the race for the first time of the night. Ward rejoined the track in 15th with a 28 second gap between himself and the leader. Chrobok was in 17th and 1 lap off the leader with Parish falling back 2 laps after a pit road violation. Ward was running a strong pace and closing on the leader at a rate of 1.5 seconds per lap putting him near Eckrich before the end if he could maintain as they went into the final 25 laps.

Tommy Rhyne, who was running in 2nd place, was closing on the leader which was making it more difficult for Eckrich to try to save fuel in the final stretch. With 15 laps to go, Ward was still closing on the leader already up to 7th place with a strong pace. Thomas George was still battling in the front clearing Ricky Hardin for 4th place and gaining on Mahan in 3rd. Ward was close behind as he also overtook Hardin and George jumping up to 4th and 4.5 seconds behind Eckrich and still closing.

With 10 laps remaining, Rhyne overtook Eckrich for the lead as Ward moved up into 3rd with 3 seconds to make up. Ward got within 1 second of Eckrich going into the last 5 laps as Rhyne ran away with the lead. Ward was pressuring Eckrich as the white flag came out. Rhyne crossed the line 2.6 seconds ahead of Ward and Eckrich and took the checkered flag while coming out of the final corner Eckrich ran out of fuel allowing Ward to taking 2nd place in the final moments. Eckrich was able to cross the line in 3rd with Mahan and Hardin rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Nashville Superspeedway.

Jeff Ward continues to lead in the points standings with 204 points overall. Danny Gutierrez moved up to 2nd place with 172 points, now 1 point ahead of Brian Yaczik. Shane Parish maintains his 4th place with 167 points and Thomas George moved up into 5th place with 165 points. The drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League now head over to Wisconsin for the Grand Brie of Road ‘Merica presented by PGRL’s Big Cheese on July 5th with all of the racing action broadcast live at 8:55PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R4 Recap

14 June 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 4
Premier Series | Sonoma Raceway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Scott Eckrich with Graafix LC Motorsports took the checkered flag in the Joy of Driving Without Drinking 45 at Sonoma Raceway with the Pretty Good Racing League presented by The Joy of Driving ahead of Thomas George and Vincent Crow. “I don’t know what I did to my tires, but I didn’t make them happy apparently in the second run there… [George] was just doing a great job too, keeping the pace up”, Eckrich commented about taking the win by 0.005 after a drag race to the line with Thomas George, “Coming into that last lap, I figured he had me.”

Pete Baskins led the 32-car field to the green flag to start off the night’s action with Thomas George alongside him on the front row. George had the better launch and cleared for the lead as the field shuffled positions very early. Baskins slid back to 3rd behind Greg O’Berry and Norm Pellitier started to climb up into the top 5. Jeff Ward and Scott Eckrich were both making a hard change through the rest of the field with both drivers getting into the top 10 on lap 4.

O’Berry challenged for the lead but George was able to defend against an aggressive dive to his inside and continued to control the field with 5 laps completed. Eckrich was running in 10th, 22 positions up from where he started the race and Jeff Ward had moved up into 5th behind Woody Mahan and Adam Jurski. O’Berry was able to overtake for the lead on the 7th lap and quickly started to put as much distance between himself and the rest of the field as he could to prepare for the upcoming pit cycle.

Ward closed the gap to Mahan and Jurski on lap 10 with Eckrich running behind them in 7th and gaining time quickly. O’Berry and George had separated themselves from the field both running together over 5 seconds ahead of Jurski. O’Berry misjudged a corner entry and opened the door giving George the chance he was waiting for to retake the lead and George was able to pull almost 2 seconds ahead as O’Berry struggled to build his momentum back up. Mahan made contact with the left side wall causing critical damage to his left rear and ended his night early.

16 laps into the race, Ward was up to 3rd place and running 5 seconds behind O’Berry. Eckrich moved up to 5th and was closing on Vincent Crow quickly ahead in 4th. O’Berry chose to pit very early going down put road on lap 18 and rejoining the track in 14th place. That moved Ward up into 2nd place ahead of Crow and Eckrich. Crow intentionally opened a lane for Eckrich letting him take 3rd place with 26 laps remaining. Drivers were sporadically going down pit road two or three cars at a time while George, Ward, and Eckrich were still running on track.

The leaders were aggressively negotiating through lap traffic trying to not give the driver behind them any favors. While George and Ward were losing time lap after lap, Eckrich had maintained a strong pace and was still closing on Ward as they approached the halfway point of the night and Eckrich took that moment to go down pit road with 23 laps remaining essentially cutting the race in half. George and Ward chose to pit on the following lap while Eckrich was already back on track and making up time.

Eckrich was able to overtake Ward as the leaders rejoined the track and was running within 5 seconds of George who rejoined in 4th. Crow was leading the field ahead of James Moore and Jurski with 20 laps left to go. Crow was the last of the leading cars to pit giving the lead back to George with 16 laps remaining. Eckrich had overtaken Ward for 2nd place and had closed the gap to George down to almost 2 seconds. Moore and Crow had stayed inside of the top 5 and were close behind Ward as Moore was pressuring for 3rd place going into the final 15 laps.

Inside the final 10 laps, Eckrich was running under 1.5 seconds behind George. Moore took 3rd place away from Ward after Ward slid wide going around a corner, but Ward stayed tight on his rear bumper keeping the pressure up on Moore. Eckrich kept George within sight, but his pace seemed to falter as the race stretched on. Ward and Moore ran side by side for a moment as their battle came to a head before making contact. Crow overtook both drivers for 3rd place as they recovered and resumed racing with Moore in 4th ahead of Ward.

With 4 laps remaining, Ward cleared ahead of Moore into 4th and, as Ward did before, Moore stayed with him going forward making his intentions clear. George was still controlling the field ahead of Eckrich with the gap down to only 0.4 between them. The gap stayed the same as the white flag came out and Eckrich started aggressively looking for a chance to take the lead away. George got loose coming out of the final corner and Eckrich beat him to the line by 0.005 in a drag race to the finish ending an incredible night of racing.

Jeff Ward continues to lead in the point standings with 160 points. Brian Yaczik moves up to 2nd with 145 points and Danny Gutierrez dropped back to 3rd tied with Shane Parish with 143 points. Vincent Crow moved up one spot into 5th place after tonight’s podium finish now with 133 points. The drivers of the Pretty Good Racing League now head over to Tennessee for the Beef Jurski’s Cheesecake Emporium and Banana Breadery 200 at Nashville Superspeedway for the 5th round of the season on June 28th with all of the intense action broadcast live at 8:55PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R3 Recap

07 June 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 3
Premier Series | World Wide Technology Raceway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Scott Eckrich with Graafix LC Motorsports took his first checkered flag of the season tonight in the Muscular Dystrophy Association Fundraiser 200 at the World Wide Technology Raceway presented by Patriot Media & Marketing Services with the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of Drew Carroll and Danny Gutierrez. “Just wasn’t very confident with the car so I figured I would go with a three stop strategy you know just to kind of keep the fresher tires on it”, Eckrich shared with us after claiming his win, “Somewhere in that second run it just kind of clicked for me and I was able to kind of figure out what I needed to do to start saving the rear grip and that last run I felt like we were as good as we were ever going to be.”

Isaiah Dupre led the 26-car field to the green flag to start off the evening with Adam Jurski to his outside on the front row. Jeff Ward, the points leader and last week’s winner started back in 19th place. Jurski quickly crossed over and dove below Dupre taking the lead away on the first lap. On lap 3, several drivers were caught in an incident going into turn one including Scott Eckrich, Thomas George, and Norm Pellitier bringing out the first caution. With no fast repairs allowed for the season, that could potentially have very serious repercussions for the race.

Jurski took the green flag as racing resumed still running alongside Dupre. Woody Mahan challenged Dupre for 2nd as Jurski was able to pull away from the field off the start. Dupre continued to fall back as he found himself stranded on the outside line around the first lap back under green. Greg O’Berry moved up into 3rd place ahead of Grant Brown and Rick Thompson and Dupre fell out of the top 10 being overtaken by drivers such as Brian Yaczik and Michael Chrobok with 10 laps completed.

O’Berry was able to get around Mahan for 2nd place while Jurski continued to run over 0.8 ahead of the rest of the field but O’Berry was running a faster lap and reeled the leader in over several laps. Drew Carroll and Vincent Crow were running tight behind Mahan in 3rd keeping the pressure up and Marc Cohn rounded out the top 10 running behind Chrobok with 20 laps behind them. Eckrich, who started last in the field and was involved in the early incident, had made his way up to 13th and was making a hard charge toward the top 10.

Carroll and O’Berry battled hard over 2nd place with O’Berry fighting back from the outside but eventually conceding and falling back in line to 3rd place. Jeff Ward was up to 8th place and closing the gap to Thompson as Eckrich closed up on Chrobok to challenge for 9th. Carroll took the lead away from Jurski who fell back in the field similar to Dupre by getting stuck on the outside. Ward jumped several more positions up into 3rd and was running close behind Yaczik in 2nd. Only 30 laps into the race and many expected names were quickly shuffling to the front of the running order.

On lap 30, Ward took the lead away from Carroll with Eckrich up to 7th. Yaczik followed Ward pushing Carroll back to 3rd as Eckrich got around Chrobok and Crow for 5th place. Ward had stretched his lead out running over 2 seconds ahead of Yaczik and Eckrich had caught and cleared ahead of Carroll for 4th running 10 seconds behind Ward as the first few drivers began their first pit cycle under green flag conditions including Brown and Eckrich. Ward was one of the final drivers to pull off to take his pit stop on lap 52.

Eckrich had been back on track for several laps and was up to 5th as Ward rejoined the track in 15th. Eckrich inherited the lead as the last drivers pulled off the track with Ward running almost 30 seconds behind him on track. By lap 60 Ward had made up several positions and was running in 8th with 10 less laps on his tires compared to Eckrich in the lead. With the field spread out around the track, the drivers settled in to put some laps behind them.

Ward had gotten into 2nd place and closed the gap to Eckrich in the lead to under 5 seconds on lap 78 as the caution flag came out restacking the field. Practically every driver opted to take their second pit stop during the caution resetting the field on even footing. Eckrich maintained the lead as he rejoined the track with Ward, Yaczik, Carroll, and Chrobok rounding out the top 5. Eckrich took the green flag going into lap 83 with 23 cars still running on track. Ward was able to get below Eckrich and overtook for the lead with Yaczik challenging for 2nd.

Eckrich was able to pinch Ward down to the inside and retook the lead going into lap 90 but wasn’t able to pull away with Ward staying right on his rear bumper for several lap. Ward and Eckrich again battled side by side over the lead going past lap 100 almost making contact several times before Ward dropped back in line behind the leader. Yaczik was continuing to hold 3rd place ahead of Carroll followed by Shane Parish rounding out the top 5. After the previous battle, Ward had fallen off Eckrich’s pace running 2 seconds behind him on lap 110.

Several drivers such as Thompson opted to pit shortly thereafter but Eckrich stayed out further extending his gap over Ward to 3 seconds. Ward and Carroll both pulled down pit road with 40 laps remaining with Eckrich coming in on the following lap. Yaczik stayed out on track taking the lead ahead of Chrobok. Eckrich rejoined the track in 6th still several seconds ahead of Ward in 9th place. Eckrich retook the lead on lap 130 with over a 5 second lead over Ward who was up to 5th.

With 25 laps remaining, Ward had moved up into 2nd place ahead of Carroll but was still losing ground to Eckrich ahead of him. A caution came out with 7 laps remaining bringing everyone back together. Eckrich maintained the lead after taking a final pit stop, but Ward rejoined the track in 9th place after losing a lot of time on pit road. The green flag was thrown again over the field with 3 laps remaining and Carroll tried for the lead over Eckrich but couldn’t get to the inside line. Ward was trying to push through traffic to recover what positions he could but wasn’t able to make up any ground before Eckrich took the checkered flag.

Jeff Ward still sits in the lead in the point standings with 123 points. Danny Gutierrez closed the gap to the lead now trailing by 7 points. Brian Yaczik is tied for 3rd place with Shane Parish both drivers with 112 points. James Krahula rounds out the top 5 drivers of the season thus far with 95 points. The drivers with the Pretty Good Racing League now head down to California for the 4th round of the season on June 14th in The Joy of Driving without Drinking Sonoma 45 at Sonoma Raceway with all of the action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET only on the Virtual Grip Network!

PGRL S2 R2 Recap

31 May 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 2 | Round 2
Premier Series | Charlotte Motor Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Jeff Ward with Graffix LC Motorsports took the checkered flag and his first win of the season tonight with the Pretty Good Racing League in the “Chad Cole, He’s My Guy 300” at Charlotte Motor Speedway ahead of Danny Gutierrez and Shane Parish. “Once it got nighttime there and started cooling down on the track it just started gripping up for me and [I] found some speed.”, Ward shared with us after taking his win, “We made it through it, and we got the win, and we can move onto something that’s kind of foreign next week which is Gateway.”

Django Matthews led the 28-car field to the green flag to start of the evening’s excitement. Mark Hertzog fought back from the outside taking away the lead with Greg O’Berry challenging for the lead immediately after. O’Berry cleared for the lead as the field was aggressively shuffling positions early on before settling in for the long run ahead. Cody Erdmann took the lead away 10 laps in and quickly built up a decent gap ahead of O’Berry. Shane Parish was showing a strong pace running in the top 10 and making an aggressive charge to the front of the field as Jeff Ward was also pushing through the field quickly up 15 positions from the start of the race.

Erdmann was forced to drive defensively to hold back Rick Thompson and that gave Parish and Ward the opportunity to challenge for the lead themselves. Parish cleared fairly easily for the lead with Ward taking 2nd place. The first few drivers chose to begin their pit cycles around lap 50 under green conditions to include Parish, Ward, and Brian Yaczik. By lap 55, practically the entire field had made their stops and rejoined the race. Parish held the lead as the field shuffled back out with Thomas George running in 2nd place ahead of Ward and James Krahula. Ward was able to catch George while George was still getting back up to speed after exiting the pits and overtook him for 2nd place on lap 60 and was running 1.6 seconds behind Parish.

With 70 laps completed, Ward was able to significantly close the gap to Perish as Perish negotiated through lap traffic. Parish continued to run a very fast line and again started to pull away momentarily when Ward was caught behind the traffic himself. Danny Gutierrez worked his way up to 3rd place passing George and Rick Thompson running around 4.5 seconds behind the leaders. George and Thompson continued to battle each other of 4th place as the laps counted down.

A caution was thrown out as the drivers were approaching the halfway point giving the field an opportune time to cycle through the pit again. Parish maintained the lead as the field again took the green flag and racing resumed. Parish was forced to check up when his car went loose suddenly dropping back to 5th giving Ward the lead ahead of Drew Carroll. Another quick caution and a preventative pit cycle put George in the lead ahead of Ward with Parish running in 7th as the green flag again came out over the field.

Ward followed very close behind George pressuring for the lead and able to clear for the position going into lap 115. Parish was aggressively pushing back up through the field fighting to get back to the front. Carroll and Gutierrez were able to catch the bumper of George, and each overtook pushing George back to 4th with 80 laps remaining. Parish was up to 5th and moved to follow Gutierrez past George who seemed to be falling off the pace. Parish was able to get around Gutierrez a few laps later for 3rd place as Ward further stretched the gap between himself and Carroll.

Michael Chrobok had been quietly moving up through the field throughout the race and was up to 9th running over 8 seconds behind the leaders with 70 laps remaining. Parish was pressuring Carroll for 2nd place but didn’t have an opening to take advantage of at the time. Parish tried to get beneath Carroll, but contact was made causing both drivers to lose momentum allowing Ward to pull over 2 seconds ahead of them. Parish was able to hold off Gutierrez for 3rd, but Gutierrez and George were able to get up close behind him going forward after his costly mistake.

Parish immediately went back after 2nd place diving down low and clearing Carroll on lap 146. The field started pulling off for their final pit cycle again under green conditions with less than 50 laps remaining. The caution came out as many drivers, including Ward, were still on pit road. Ward was able to maintain the lead, but Parish and George were shuffled back to 6th and 8th respectively as the drivers were restacked to take the green. Racing resumed with 40 laps remaining. Ward cleared ahead of Gutierrez, but Gutierrez was able to stay close to Ward’s bumper going into the final stretch of the race.

With 20 laps remaining, Parish battled hard with Brian Yaczik over 3rd place. Parish was able to take away the position after several intense laps, but the time spent in that fight put Parish almost 4 seconds behind the leader. Ward continued to extent the gap ahead of Gutierrez to over 2 seconds going into the final 10 laps. Ward pulled away unchallenged and took the checkered flag 4 seconds ahead of Gutierrez with Parish, Yaczik, and Erdmann rounding out the top 5 finishers.

Jeff Ward took the lead in the points standings away from Mike Rasimas with 91 points. Danny Gutierrez moved up to 2nd place 13 points behind the lead and 1 point ahead of Shane Parish in 3rd place. Brian Yaczik and Thomas George round out the top 5 drivers in the points thus far in the season. The drivers with the Pretty Good Racing League now head over to Illinois for the Muscular Dystrophy Association Fundraiser 200 at the World Wide Technology Raceway for the third round of the season on June 7th with all of the action broadcast live at 8:50PM ET only on the Virtual Grip Network!