In the semi-final week of the Kickin' The Tires Lower Half Dash, the series renewed the car and track combination that started it all - iRacing's Dirt Street Stocks at Eldora Speedway.
The first event was promising for TCR, with driver David Crisci posting the 4th-quickest time in practice of the 39 entries, and running in the top-10 most of the race before blowing an engine from the 8th position en route to a 24th-place finish. This time around, TCR once again had to battle adversity throughout the night.
After just brushing the wall in qualifying (which disallows your lap time in iRacing), Crisci had to start out back in the Heat race. Two cars advanced to the feature from qualifying on the front row, and another 10 cars of the 29 entered would advance to the feature from the Heat. After getting involved in a few wrecks in the 8-lap heat (with no cautions), Crisci pattered around to a 24th-place finish. The B-main would see all but 3 cars advance to the feature, so avoiding wrecks was key. After getting spun early in the 20-lap consolation race, TCR had to play it on the defensive side to make sure to advance to the feature race. Bringing it home 10th in the B-main, TCR would start 22 of the 26 cars in the feature.
The feature race had damage turned on in the race, with only 1 repair allowed in the 75-lap event. TCR avoided the accidents early, and had driven up to the 10th position with 30 laps to go in the race. However, something happened that could only occur in e-racing -- the pedals came unplugged from the wheel during the race! The caution would come out, but not before the #6 car went 4 laps down to the field, and settled in the 24th position before figuring out what went wrong.
However, a fortunate series of cautions saw the #6 car get a few wave-arounds, and the lucky dog, and Crisci found himself back on the lead lap with under 10 laps to go. Once again dicing through the field, avoiding some late-race crashes, and making some ground up on the bottom of the track, Crisci worked his way up to the 8th position on the 3rd and final overtime run. However, on the last lap, the #6 car was slammed into the wall, and received severe right-front wheel damage that would not allow the car to turn. Crisci slammed the wall going into the final corner, and nursed the car home to hang on to 8th-place in the race.
The top-10 finish was the first of the 4-race season for TCR in the Lower Half Dash, despite leading in the last 2 events and running near the front in many sessions. It was great to finally put a full race together and finish near the front!
Tune in this Friday at 8PM, for the thrilling conclusion to the Kickin' The Tires Lower Half Dash iRacing Series! And then it's time to look forward to real racing returning in the NASCAR world!
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