By Nicholas Sterling
After a drama filled race two weeks ago at the virtual Bristol Speedway, drivers and fans were greeted to a fairly calm race with little incidents. The one common denominator was the winner.
William Byron continued his dominant ways with his second consecutive victory in NASCAR’s iRacing season. Another iRacing winner, Timmy Hill, finished just behind Byron.
Many fans were excited to see if Hill would give Byron the ole chrome horn after knocking him out of the way to win at virtual Texas weeks ago. Hill played nice and couldn’t catch Byron, despite being on fresher tires.
Perhaps the most talked about incident of the day was Matt DiBenedetto getting parked after he intentionally took out Ryan Preece.
DiBenedetto took to Twitter to state that Preece cut down on him and the first wreck was not intentional. Although, just about everyone knew the second incident was. The incidents led to a jokingly back and forth on Twitter where DiBenedetto said he wanted Preece’s address so they could “throw down.”
The other big crash happened with Christopher Bell and others. After spinning a few times, Bell’s car was sent flipping into the air. Unfortunately, FOX didn’t catch this on their broadcast.
One of the funnier moments of the event was when Fox in-race reporter Clint Bowyer experienced engine troubles and had to retire from the race. Bowyer then joined broadcasters Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon in calling the race. Bowyer poked fun at multiple drivers, including real-life teammate Kevin Harvick.
Potentially the most exciting race of the season is on tap next weekend as the drivers will be going to a virtual Talladega Superspeedway. One of the most thrilling real-life events is sure to create some fireworks on the computer.
