iRacing WoO Late Models: Evan Seay dominates in Volusia opener

For the first time since iRacing‘s Dirt Refresh for 2023 Season 3, World Championship level racing is back with the 2023 edition of the World of Outlaws Buttkicker Late Model Series.

35 of the top Dirt Oval Late Model drivers have qualified or returned for the next 10 weeks that will be packed with racing on some of the most famous short tracks in the world, including Eldora, I-55 and Port Royal. The season kicked things off on Monday night (10th July) with the first event of the season at Volusia Speedway Park.

The virtual half-mile located in Florida is only a 25 minute drive from the famed Daytona International Speedway, and often hosts many World of Outlaws events during the early part of the real-world schedule.

Evan Seay took the top honors in the 2022 Late Model Driver’s World Championship. After nearly a year off and a refreshed dirt project on the platform, Seay continued his winning ways by claiming the opening Volusia event and scoring max points to lead the standings after Race 1.

Heat Races

Following qualifying, the 35 drivers were placed into their respective Heats, with the pole winner leading the first heat, second place leading Heat 2, third place leading Heat 3 and fourth place leading Heat 4. Fifth place in Qualifying would start second and so on and so forth until fields of nine (and one of eight) were set.

The Top 4 finishers would advance to the Feature race in each heat, filling out 16 of the 20 starters. The remaining four Feature starters would eventually come from the LCQs later in the show.

In the first Heat, Seay was able to lead from the get go. This also rang true for the third and fourth heats, won by Kendal Tucker and James Edens. The second Heat was the highlight of the night, where Barrett Bishop managed to steal the win and take the runner-up starting position from Tanner Tomasi on the final lap.

Feature advancements via Volusia Heats

POS	HEAT 1	HEAT 2	HEAT 3	HEAT 4
1	Evan Seay	Barrett Bishop	Kendal Tucker	James Edens
2	Blake Matjoulis	Tanner Tomasi	Payton Stevenson	Dylonn Fox
3	Chase Barbara	Talan Willis	Kaden Honeycutt	Tristan Ladouceur
4	Dylan Wilson	Logan Rumsey	Colton Zimmer	JD Brown

LCQs

Both Last Chance Qualifying Races were fairly straightforward as the Top 2 qualifiers in each were the four that wound up advancing to the Feature event to fill out the 20-car grid.

In the C-Main race, Dylan Yeager, who just missed out on making it through in the first Heat, managed to take the win and brought Travis StClair along into the Feature with a runner-up finish. The B-Main saw Robbie Buchanan Jr and Damian Kiefer score the transfers as the rest were all eliminated.

No points are awarded for finishes in the LCQs.

POS	LCQ 1	LCQ 2
1	Dylan Yeager	Robbie Buchanan Jr
2	Travis StClair	Damian Kiefer

Feature

When the green flag dropped for the Feature race, 50 laps would settle the score among the 20-qualified entries. Seay got a good jump, but in the first corner of the first lap, it came to a screeching halt behind as the pack piled up around the mid section of the field.

With caution laps not counting, the first lap was lost to the void, the race resuming at the start of Lap 2 with no laps led by anyone. Once again, Seay was gone. This time, he stayed gone as the race would go caution-free from that point forward.

The battle for second was where it was at. Barrett Bishop had it but Kendal Tucker, Tanner Tomasi and Blake Matjoulis all wanted it. The quartet all battled under a blanket for nearly the entire event with Bishop eventually winning out on that battle.

WoO Race #1 – Volusia Feature Top 10 Results

FIN	STA	CAR #	DRIVER	INTERVAL	LED	PTS
1	1	33	Evan Seay	50 LAPS	49	78
2	2	3	Barrett Bishop	+1.846 secs	0	75
3	3	0	Kendal Tucker	+1.895 secs	0	72
4	6	9	Tanner Tomasi	+2.084 secs	0	68
5	5	127	Blake Matjoulis	+2.278 secs	0	65
6	4	52	James Edens	+6.219 secs	0	63
7	13	80	Dylan Wilson	+6.402 secs	0	57
8	10	10	Talan Willis	+6.422 secs	0	55
9	7	91	Payton Stevenson	+6.786 secs	0	53
10	11	16	Kaden Honeycutt	+9.252 secs	0	49

Points Standings following Race #1 – Volusia

FIN	CAR #	DRIVER	PTS	BEHIND	WINS
1	33	Evan Seay	78	LEADER	1
2	3	Barrett Bishop	75	-3	0
3	0	Kendal Tucker	72	-6	0
4	9	Tanner Tomasi	68	-10	0
5	127	Blake Matjoulis	65	-13	0
6	52	James Edens	63	-15	0
7	80	Dylan Wilson	57	-21	0
8	10	Talan Willis	55	-23	0
9	91	Payton Stevenson	53	-25	0
10	16	Kaden Honeycutt	49	-29	0

Next up: Fairbury Speedway

The second race of the 2023 season will take the Late Model World of Outlaws tour to Fairbury Speedway.

Things will kick off at 9:00 pm ET with the call from Tim Terry and Terry Radford, broadcasted live on DIRTvision or on the iRacing social channels.

2023 Schedule

ROUND	DATE	TRACK
1	10th July	Volusia Speedway Park
2	17th July	Fairbury Speedway
3	24th July	Cedar Lake Speedway
4	31st July	Port Royal Speedway
5	7th August	Knoxville Raceway
6	14th August	Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55
7	21st August	Williams Grove Speedway
8	28th August	Eldora Speedway
9	11th September	Lincoln Speedway
10	18th September	The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway