iRacing Off-Road: Keaton Swane, Cam Pedersen score Wild West wins

On Wednesday night (6th July 2022), the third race event of the new iRacing Off-Road Championship Series took to Wild West Motorsports Park for the fifth and sixth races of the inaugural 2022 season.

Following four different winners in the first four races, a fifth was found in the form of Keaton Swane in the first race of the night. Swane was able to take it from the grasp of Josh Edmundson with a bump-and-run maneuver on the final corner of the final lap.

In the second race of the night, Cam Pedersen broke the streak, becoming the first two-time winner of the season and of the series in it’s first year of competition. Pedersen fought to pass Jakob Rafoss in the closing stages for the win, rebounding from a week ago where he faced computer issues the entire night.

Now with three events and six races completed, the inaugural season is only one week away from making it to halfway. Of the four short courses, Bark River is the only one remaining before the return trips begin in two weeks, where last week’s track Wild Horse Pass will once again be used.

Despite Pedersen’s second win, its the Connor Barry show at the top of the rankings after six races. Barry is the only driver with six Top 5 finishes, the absolute model of consistency so far. With his win and a seventh place finish, Swane still wound up losing five points to Barry, as the gap is now at 17 points.

RACE #5: SWANE MOVES EDMUNSON IN FINAL CORNER TO WIN

Qualifying would set the order for the field from ninth on back, as it has all season. Qualifying eighth would mean a start on the pole position in the first race, inverted from first to eighth.

However, Pedersen would get five bonus points for setting the fastest lap time, with Quentin Dall’olmo, Barry, Edmundson and Rafoss also scoring qualifying points.

The invert would put Keith Jeffery on the pole position with Swane and Edmundson challenging early on. Jeffery held on to the lead for as long as he could, but eventually Edmundson wanted to take control.

As Edmundson and Swane made their move around to the Top 2 spots, Jeffery’s race came unraveled. A tight line in the second corner, the only right handed turn, ended up too good as Jeffery clipped the wall and subsequently flipped over, requiring a tow.

This separated the Top 2 from the others just enough to allow the pair to duke it out for the rest of the race. Swane tried a few times to get around, but Edmundson was able to hold on at every challenge.

On the final corner of the final lap, Swane sent it just enough to force Edmundson sideways, allowing for the pass to be completed and the win to be secured.

WILD WEST RACE #5 – TOP 10 RESULTS:

POS	TRUCK #	DRIVER NAME	INTERVAL	POINTS	AGG POINTS
1	21	Keaton Swane	16 LAPS	50	50
2	58	Josh Edmundson	+0.255 sec	48	50
3	2	Connor Barry	+1.098 sec	46	49
4	48	Cam Pedersen	+2.003 sec	44	49
5	18	Killian Dall’olmo	+4.438 sec	42	42
6	91	Felix Roy	+5.167 sec	40	40
7	11	Connor Parise	+6.193 sec	38	38
8	13	Jakob Rafoss	+7.350 sec	36	37
9	6	Brandyn Proudfoot	+8.113 sec	34	34
10	112	Alex A Bergeron	+8.181 sec	32	32

RACE #6: CAM PEDERSEN BECOMES FIRST MULTI-TIME WINNER

In the second race of the night, once again, the field would invert the Top 8 finishers from the first race. With that, Rafoss was credited with a pole position start alongside Connor Parise and a winner from last week, Felix Roy.

Pedersen, who finished fourth in the first race after having to invert to eighth after qualifying, would start fifth in the final race of the night. As Rafoss and Roy pulled out to a lead over the rest, it was Pedersen who cut through, around Parise and Killian Dall’olmo to take over the third spot.

Eventually, Pedersen was able to move into the second spot, and his sights were locked on Rafoss in the lead.

In the back, Edmundson wound up wrecked in a Dall’olmo sandwich while Swane was never able to get back towards the front of the field. This left Rafoss versus Pedersen as the main title card of the race.

Lap after lap, Pedersen was able to throw down faster and faster laps, despite being caught behind Rafoss who was anywhere from a tenth to three tenths slower ahead. It was no match once they got side-by-side, and that allowed Pedersen to score his second win on the season.

WILD WEST RACE #6 – TOP 10 RESULTS:

POS	TRUCK #	DRIVER NAME	INTERVAL	POINTS	AGG POINTS
1	48	Cam Pedersen	16 LAPS	50	99
2	13	Jakob Rafoss	+0.967 sec	48	85
3	91	Felix Roy	+2.079 sec	46	86
4	2	Connor Barry	+3.374 sec	44	93
5	11	Connor Parise	+6.963 sec	42	80
6	18	Killian Dall’olmo	+7.231 sec	40	82
7	21	Keaton Swane	+7.815 sec	38	88
8	112	Alex A Bergeron	+9.588 sec	36	68
9	6	Brandyn Proudfoot	+10.846 sec	34	68
10	9	Terry Miller	+12.432 sec	32	48

POINTS LEAVING WILD WEST

With a third and fourth place finish wrapped up without any issues, Barry continues to lead the Driver’s Standings after six races. Although Swane won the first race of the night, the gap between the two grew to 17 points with 10 races to go. Roy finds himself third, 35 points out of the lead.

After that, everyone else is at least one race or more behind the points lead. Granted, two good events and a pair of bad ones from Barry could bring most drivers back into the fold fairly quickly with 105 points available between the two races and qualifying session every week.

Pedersen, who had computer issues last week, jumps back into the Top 10, 84 points out of the lead in eighth. He’s only four points behind the other winner on the season, Alex Bergeron.

2022 IRACING OFF-ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES POINTS THRU WILD WEST:

POS	TRUCK #	DRIVER NAME	POINTS	WINS	T5’s	T10’s
1	2	Connor Barry	284	1	6	6
2	21	Keaton Swane	267	1	4	6
3	91	Felix Roy	249	1	3	5
4	18	Killian Dall’olmo	220	0	2	4
5	58	Josh Edmundson	210	0	4	4
6	13	Jakob Rafoss	209	0	2	3
7	112	Alex A Bergeron	204	1	1	5
T-8	48	Cam Pedersen	200	2	3	4
T-8	11	Connor Parise	200	0	1	4
10	6	Brandyn Proudfoot	194	0	1	5

ALL STARS: LUKE KNUPP DOUBLES UP AT WILD WEST

As for the All-Stars, it was Luke Knupp’s playground and we were all playing in it on Tuesday night. 20 All-Stars showed up to take on the 1.5-mile jumpy truck venue, which, funny enough, has a doppelgänger in one of my favorite racing games, Wreckfest.

Knowing the track didn’t make it any easier, as guys like Knupp and Zachary Drapkin were just too good for the rest of us. Even after the pair were inverted to the rear for the second race, they were both able to cut through fairly quickly to run for the race lead again.

Knupp was unstoppable, scoring a perfect score on the night as the points enter a somewhat funky position for the next few weeks. Trying to factor in drop weeks will be a pain, maybe even more of a pain than I was on the track tonight. Sorry to everyone I ran into, especially my Traxion.GG teammate RynoGT4 and my eNASCAR buddy Blake Reynolds.

Here’s who scored the most points in All-Stars this week:

WILD WEST MOTORSPORTS PARK – TOP POINT SCORERS IN RACES 5 & 6:

POS	TRUCK #	DRIVER NAME	POINTS	RACE 5 FINISH	RACE 6 FINISH
1	29	Luke Knupp	100	1st	1st
2	56	Zachary Drapkin	96	2nd	2nd
3	91	Ryan Burton (RynoGT4)	88	4th	4th
4	72	Trever Teal	84	3rd	7th
5	03	Keenan Kusan (Aero)	82	5th	6th
6	85	Mikey Lawrence	76	6th	8th
7	99	Michael Cosey Jr	68	9th	9th
8	66	Blake Reynolds	66	8th	11th
T-9	760	Adam Jones	62	18th	3rd
T-9	28	Ron Capps	62	16th	5th

NEXT RACE: BARK RIVER

The very first iRacing Off-Road Championship Series season will hit the halfway point following next week’s festivities at Bark River International Raceway. This Michigan short course is the same length as the other three, but it has 12 corners on the premises, which each corner adds loads of time to the laps.

Each race in the Championship Series will be 11 laps in length as a result. The All-Stars will still get a pair of seven minute races. 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
1	22 June	Crandon International Raceway – Full	10	10	PRO 4
2	29 June	Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park	16	16	PRO 2 LITE
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