The Classic Indycar series roared on to Kansas in iRacing a few days ago. Robert Grosser racer/reporter brings us up to speed on the action.
Last Sunday the Classic Indycar Series was hosting Round 3 of the 2021 season at Kansas Speedway. A total of 30 drivers qualified for the race and 29 were ready to take the green flag. But drama began early when pole setter Nate Michael as well as Rod Carpenter (P3) missed the grid, which led to some confusion on the formation lap. It was the driver of Philippe Lambert (Vortex Simracing, qualified P5) and all drivers behind him on the left side lane were allowed to advance their positions accordingly. There was quite some confusion and hesitation upfront upon the green flag came out and actually, Andrew Aitken (Aero-X, P2) luckily escaped a blag flag for passing the leader by just 5 centimeters, as Lambert’s car was just that much ahead while crossing the start-finish-line. A big check-up happened behind but everyone escaped undamaged so that the race could finally take off!
The race developed into a pack-race early on, with Lambert defending his lead. The early cautions saw many drivers taking their first pit-stops, only Lambert was keeping his track position all the time by staying on track. Championship contender Joshua Chin (Team Chimera) got involved in a crash quite early in the race, denying him good points for the championship. Another prominent victim was points leader Ethan Agan (Simulation Racing Council), who crashed out on his own with 114 laps to go. Upfront a “Vortex-Train” was forming up, with Robert Grosser, Lucas Laville, and Marshall Stanley joining Lambert in the lead-pack after poor quali results. Jan Hoffmann (Vortex Simracing) got involved in an accident that ended his race prematurely. Other prominent DNF’s at that time were the likes of Randy Shewmake (Aero-X), Andrew Aitken , Matt Molnar (Archer Brother’s eSports), and Nate Michael.
After a rough first half of the race, finally, some longer green-flag runs happened during the second half of the race. Strategy then came into play. The first (and only) round of green flag pit-stops happened with 52 laps to go and all the leaders had to stop for fresh rubber and fuel. A couple of drivers, who pitted during the last caution, had enough of fuel for another 10 laps, so they stayed out. Then Liam Quinn (Team Chimera) experienced some severe hardware issues, which took an unlucky Robert Grosser with him straight into the wall.
This caution meant, that those who stayed out, could now pit and leaving the previous leaders, who did already pit under green, behind. So now it was Andrew-Adair Saunders (Iconic Motorsports) leading Hannes Pitkänen during the caution. Then the unthinkable happened to Saunders, who spun his car into the wall behind the pace car while trying to burn some fuel!
This handed the lead to Pitkänen (Usagi Racing), who however couldn’t defend the lead from Lucas Laville, who was running together with teammate Marshall Stanley and Willi Schwabauer (Iconic Motorsports) in a 3-way battle towards the chequered flag. The running order wouldn’t change and those 3 were separated by less than 0.2 seconds at the line! Joshua Baird (Iconic Motorsports), Mike Gerlica (Galaxy Simracing), Hannes Pitkänen, and Jamie Wilson (Team Chimera) were the only cars to finish on the lead lap. Mixed results for our series debutants, as Dony Day finished P9 and Cody Luke got collected in a crash (scored 16th).
Defending champion Lucas Laville goes on to mention “Great race for me obviously. I managed to stay out of any issue behind my teammates all race, only to take the lead when it really mattered. Dodging any incident was the key for this race, and I managed to stay out of most of the aggression and issues. The pit call was most likely the deciding factor for me, undercutting most of my rivals on track.”
Teammate to Laville at Vortex SimRacing Marshall Stanley added “The mentality in the beginning was to survive the carnage and get to the 2nd half of the race to fight for a podium. Our team found in practice that there were some tricks to passing so as long as we could hold the white line and keep the momentum going we would be in good shape. Getting wing damage on the 2nd to last restart wasn’t ideal but to finish on the podium for the first time in my CIS career is a dream come true and I couldn’t have done it without everyone at Vortex SimRacing”.
With his first win of the season after 1h54m, Laville takes over the points lead ahead of Agan and Chin.
Stay tuned in and up to date with the race series right here at simrace247.com
An eventful race provided great racing and an exciting finish and you have the chance to watch it in full length on ESTV (www.ESTV.co) on Sunday, May 2nd 18:00 GMT!”
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