On Wednesday night (29th June 2022), the second event of the inaugural season of the new iRacing Off-Road Championship Series took place at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. In the first of two races, Alex Bergeron collected his first career victory in the series. Later on in the second race, Felix Roy held off his teammates to score his first win as well.
Now with four races in the books for the inaugural season, there have been four different winners after Cam Pedersen and Connor Barry took home the first wins ever at Crandon last week. Barry has been a model of consistency, overcoming every challenge so far to currently lead the standings, the only drivers with four Top 5 finishes.
Each race week will contain a qualifying session and two races, inverting the Top 8 after each session ends, all three sessions awarding points. The pole sitter gets five points while fifth place gets one. Each race awards 50 points to the winner and only four points to finishing last in 24th place, each spot differing by two points.
RACE #3: BERGERON CAPITALIZES ON DALL’OLMO MISFORTUNE
In the second round of qualifying for the 2022 season, Barry claimed the Vision Wheel Pole Award and the five bonus points. Quentin Dall’olmo, Roy, Josh Edmundson and Bergeron rounded out the Top 5 qualifying spots.
After the Top 8 invert, the other Dall’olmo, Killian, would lead the field to the green alongside Trenton Briley. Keaton Swane, who came close to victory last week, would start in third.
Early on, Barry wound up flipping, but he would stay in the game. He kept fighting and even found his way into contention for the win towards the end. Killian Dall’olmo led early on, but a bad landing, combined with some argy-bargy with Swane, led to a flip from the lead and a drop from the top.
Bergeron took control from this point, holding off Swane and Edmundson for the majority of it. Barry was able to get his truck back into contention for a second win on the season, but Bergeron held strong and took his first win in the series when it was all said and over with.
WILD HORSE PASS RACE #3 TOP 10 RESULTS:
POS | CAR # | DRIVER NAME | INTERVAL | POINTS | AGG POINTS |
1 | 112 | Alex A Bergeron | 16 LAPS | 50 | 51 |
2 | 2 | Connor Barry | +0.326 sec | 48 | 53 |
3 | 21 | Keaton Swane | +0.716 sec | 46 | 46 |
4 | 58 | Josh Edmundson | +0.951 sec | 44 | 46 |
5 | 17 | Trenton Briley | +1.811 sec | 42 | 42 |
6 | 91 | Felix Roy | +2.230 sec | 40 | 43 |
7 | 88 | Keith Jeffery | +5.017 sec | 38 | 38 |
8 | 6 | Brandyn Proudfoot | +7.320 sec | 36 | 36 |
9 | 36 | Christopher Plumley | +8.019 sec | 34 | 34 |
10 | 11 | Connor Parise | +8.678 sec | 32 | 32 |
RACE #4: FELIX ROY TRIUMPHS OVER TEAMMATES
Once again, the Top 8 finishers from the first race would invert, which put Brandyn Proudfoot to the top of the scoring pylon to lead the field for the second race of the night. After things settled out, Roy, Edmundson and Barry would find themselves at the front of the field once again.
In the four truck battle, Proudfoot held on, but Roy was looking every chance he got. Eventually, Roy made his move and Proudfoot attempted to defend. Edmundson and Proudfoot made some contact, and as Barry attempted to avoid, also wound up losing some time.
The result was a huge gap between Roy and the rest of the field. Swane found his way into the conversation at this point as Proudfoot fell back to the fifth position.
Edmundson wound up clearing the rest of his teammates for a clear runner-up finish, but it was Roy who celebrated his first career win in the series as Swane rounded out the podium.
WILD HORSE PASS RACE #4 TOP 10 RESULTS:
POS | CAR # | DRIVER NAME | INTERVAL | POINTS | AGG POINTS |
1 | 91 | Felix Roy | 16 LAPS | 50 | 93 |
2 | 58 | Josh Edmundson | +3.085 sec | 48 | 94 |
3 | 21 | Keaton Swane | +4.140 sec | 46 | 92 |
4 | 2 | Connor Barry | +4.795 sec | 44 | 97 |
5 | 6 | Brandyn Proudfoot | +5.052 sec | 42 | 78 |
6 | 112 | Alex A Bergeron | +5.547 sec | 40 | 91 |
7 | 17 | Trenton Briley | +8.314 sec | 38 | 80 |
8 | 36 | Christopher Plumley | +9.312 sec | 36 | 70 |
9 | 88 | Keith Jeffery | +10.383 sec | 34 | 72 |
10 | 11 | Connor Parise | +10.833 sec | 32 | 64 |
POINTS LEAVING WILD HORSE PASS
After four races, the model of consistency has been Connor Barry. Despite an early flip in the first race of the night, Barry was able to recover nicely, even getting close to stealing the win after all of it. He’s the only driver after four races with four Top 5 finishes, and with that, he leads the points over Swane by 12 points.
Roy took his win and leapfrogged up into the third position, 28 points behind Barry. Through four races, Roy only has two Top 5 finishes, but he’s been a threat in every race to this point in the series’ maiden season.
After a rough second race last week, Edmundson is now up to fourth following a pair of Top 5 finishes on Wednesday. Christopher Plumley hasn’t scored a Top 5 yet, but his four Top 10s have him sitting fifth overall. Last week’s winner Cam Pedersen suffered all night from connection issues and now finds himself in 13th following a rough evening.
2022 IRACING OFF-ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES POINTS THRU WILD HORSE PASS:
POS | CAR # | DRIVER NAME | POINTS | WINS | T5’s | T10’s |
1 | 2 | Connor Barry | 191 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
2 | 21 | Keaton Swane | 179 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
3 | 91 | Felix Roy | 163 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 58 | Josh Edmundson | 146 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
5 | 36 | Christopher Plumley | 142 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
6 | 18 | Killian Dall’olmo | 138 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
7 | 112 | Alex A Bergeron | 136 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
8 | 6 | Brandyn Proudfoot | 126 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
9 | 13 | Jakob Rafoss | 124 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
10 | 11 | Connor Parise | 120 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
ALL STARS: ZACHARY DRAPKIN, TYLER HUDSON WIN
Things started off similarly to how they ended last week for the iRacing Off-Road All-Stars. Zachary Drapkin was fast. Luke Knupp, however, was able to steal the spotlight for a moment early on when he took the pole for the second race event of the season.
Despite a battle with Knupp, who made his first start of the season at Wild Horse Pass, Drapkin managed to hold on for a third straight win on the season, the only driver to win so far to this point in the season. Knupp finished second while Matt Bisceglia rounded out the podium.
For the second race, the field would perform a full-field invert, and for this week, 24 Pro 2 Lite trucks were entered into the event.
Drapkin and Knupp weaved their way through the field, but up front, it was a Traxion.GG tandem of Melillo and Aero leading over iRacing Coca-Cola iRacing Series champion, and current series director Tyler D. Hudson. Hudson managed his way around the Traxion.GG trucks and into the lead.
Both Knupp and Drapkin were able to get there for the final laps, but Hudson held strong and became the first All-Star not named Zachary Drapkin to win a race on the first season. Leaving Wild Horse Pass, Drapkin has a 30 point lead over Blake Reynolds and Bisceglia.
Both Traxion.GG teammates sit in the Top 10. Honestly though, I wouldn’t expect much more out of the driver of the #53. Sometimes a squirrel finds a nut, and that was definitely me tonight when I led that lap.
2022 IRACING OFF-ROAD ALL-STARS SERIES POINTS THRU WILD HORSE PASS:
POS | CAR # | DRIVER NAME | POINTS | WINS | T5’s | T10’s |
1 | 56 | Zachary Drapkin | 196 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
T-2 | 66 | Blake Reynolds | 166 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
T-2 | 76 | Matthew Bisceglia | 166 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
4 | 3 | Eliott Watson | 164 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
5 | 85 | Mikey Lawrence | 150 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
6 | 10 | Brendan Lichtenberg | 132 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
T-7 | 03 | Keenan Kusan (Aero) | 130 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
T-7 | 72 | Trever Teal | 130 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
9 | 42 | Parker Retzlaff | 112 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
T-10 | 53 | Justin Melillo | 104 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
T-10 | 760 | Adam Jones | 104 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
T-10 | 99 | Michael Cosey Jr | 104 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
NEXT RACE: WILD WEST
Another 1.5-mile, four corner circuit is upon the Off-Road schedule next week when the series heads to Wild West Motorsports Park. There’s a huge downhill section and a number of tight, hairpin-like corners to tie it all together.
Both the Championship Series and the All-Stars will be on display starting at 8:30 p.m. ET / 1:30 a.m. BST on iRacing.com/live or the iRacing social channels.
2022 iRACING OFF-ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES SCHEDULE
Week | Date | Track | Race 1 | Race 2 | ALL STARS |
3 | 06 July | Wild West Motorsports Park | 16 | 16 | PRO 4 |
4 | 13 July | Bark River International Raceway | 11 | 11 | PRO 2 LITE |
5 | 20 July | Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park | 16 | 16 | BEETLE LITE |
6 | 27 July | Wild West Motorsports Park | 16 | 16 | PRO 2 LITE |
7 | 03 August | Bark River International Raceway | 11 | 11 | PRO 4 |
8 | 10 August | Crandon International Raceway – Full | 10 | 10 | BEETLE LITE |