PGRL S1 R2 Recap
22 Feb 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 1 | Round 2
Premier Series | Auto Club Speedway
Jeff Ward with Graafix LC Motorsports took the checkered flag in a one lap shootout tonight in the Going Back to Cali 200 presented by SnoopDawgyDon on Twitch.tv in the Pretty Good Racing League at the Auto Club Speedway beating Thomas George and Mike Rasimas to the line. Ward, who started in 21st place, took the lead from a caution with 7 laps to go jumping from 4th place when the two leaders at the time, Marc Cohn and Chad Mikosz, both got loose battling each other coming out of turn four.
“For the most part we got through there unscathed.”, Ward shared with us after claiming his win, “I just knew we had the tires. We had to get up there, we had like 13 laps to go, and I had one more chance there to make my move on those tires before they start to even out.” As many drivers tonight struggled with handling the car, Thomas George enjoys the Next Gen as he tells us, “They’re definitely more difficult to drive, but for me that’s a good thing. I like cars that drive like this.”
Tonight’s race raises a question: Is the Auto Club Speedway too tough to tame or is the NASCAR Next Gen Cup Car too difficult to recover from a spin? The main cause of cautions tonight were the cars getting loose coming out of the turns and drivers not being able to recover from the resulting spin often over correcting into the wall. Many drivers in the end decided to lock the car down rather than attempt to salvage positions in that situation so the drivers seem to be noticing an issue with the car handling when compared to the previous generation. Time will tell as we look to next week where the PGRL will head to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Memestonks Vegas 200.
PGRL S1 R1 Recap
15 Feb 2022
Pretty Good Racing League | Season 1 | Round 1
Premier Series | Daytona International Speedway
Norm Pelletier of Pelletier-McQuistion Simulations took home a hard-fought victory tonight at Daytona International Speedway for the inaugural season of the Pretty Good Racing League ahead of James Krahula and Mike Rasimas. Pelletier was also the biggest mover through the event starting in the back of the 45-car field in 35th place.
“I haven’t run a lot of laps in these cars. Didn’t know how it was going to drive on the superspeedway, but I liked it a lot.”, Pelletier commented after his win. He took us through his choice to hold the inside line around the last lap while other drivers were going high, telling us, “I definitely trusted [Krahula] more than the guys on the outside. I knew the outside; everyone was going to try to go 3-wide so the inside I felt like was more safe and more manageable. The outside I think was definitely faster, but possibly less likely to hold that and you’d have guys trying to attack you from all angles up there.”
The first race of the Pretty Good Racing League is in the books and Norm Pelletier gets to hold the title of the first ever winner as the season is off to a strong start. As is almost expected at Daytona, there were several “wrong place, wrong time” moments for a few unlucky drivers that shook up the field several times. The league opted to disable car damage for the event, we’ll have to see if they decide to continue with this as car damage tonight would have drastically changed the outcome. Next week, the league is heading to the Auto Club Speedway in California where all eyes will be on Pelletier to see if he can pull off a repeat performance.
Virtual Grip Network 