On Tuesday night, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series will visit the Circuit of the Americas for Round 8 of the 2021 season. This is the first trip for the series to the virtual venue in Austin, Texas, and is the first of three road course races in the next six races on the schedule.
Originally designed to play host as the sole Formula 1 race for the United States annually, Circuit of the Americas is a 3.427-mile / 5.515-kilometer circuit that has a total of 20 turns on the Grand Prix layout. The venue was added to the iRacing service in 2014, and for the first time in 2021, it will play host to a triple-header NASCAR weekend preceded by two virtual races tonight and tomorrow.
As far as the Coke Series is concerned, there have been seven different winners in seven races so far this season, and if history proves to repeat itself, we may be looking at adding an eighth name to that list, but it’s not as simple as it used to be.
On the current roster, nobody has been more successful at road racing in the series than Bobby Zalenski, driver of the No. 83 VRS Chevy for LETARTE Esports. Zalenski hasn’t not led a lap at a road course since the pit cycle in 2018 when the series raced at Sonoma Raceway. He’s collected a perfect six straight victories since entering the series in 2017, and before this year, it was always the question of who would finish second.
This year, however, Zalenski’s VRS Coanda Simsport teammate on the backend might have something to say about that. Enter Mitchell deJong, driver of the No. 23 23XI Toyota, the fellow currently with the second highest iRating on Road, only behind Max Benecke. Just a few weeks ago, deJong just wrapped up his 2021 Porsche Tag Heuer Esports SuperCup season with a runner up finish in the overall standings.
Discussion