Track Specs: 1.5-mile quad-oval / 160 laps
McCandless’ finish: 20th
LaPradd’s finish: 33rd
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (May 21, 2025) – On a wild night at the virtual Charlotte Motor Speedway, Blake McCandless drove to a 20th-place finish for JR Motorsports in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series event on Tuesday night. Teammate Briar LaPradd overcame several incidents to finish 33rd in the event. (Watch the full race.)
McCandless, driving the No. 8 C4 Energy Chevrolet, started the night off by qualifying a career-best seventh for the 160-lap event and stayed in the top 10 for much of the contest. The early going saw him crest the top five for several laps before a tight condition cropped up. He was still in the top 10 at lap 50 when the caution flag waved, thanks to a run-in with another car.
Over the remaining laps, McCandless worked the bottom groove to advance back into the top 10 and was still there with five laps left. The caution waved again, and McCandless came to pit road for a splash of fuel. Unfortunately, more fuel was added than was called for and the time lost set him back to 18th for the restart.
On the first overtime attempt, McCandless lost ground avoiding a crash and eventually finished 20th. With the effort, McCandless was able to gain six positions in the point standings.
LaPradd, seeking to gain momentum after a couple of races in which he could not catch a break, qualified 23rd for the event. As the race went on, a lack of short-run speed hampered his early pace. Playing the long game, the Tennessee driver bided his time for the end of the event. Needing to make a break, LaPradd kept the No. 88 Ledford Billiard Supply Chevrolet on track, trying to stretch his fuel mileage to stay in the lead pack while needing a caution flag to flip the script.
Despite his strong effort, the caution never came and LaPradd finished 33rd on the night.
Tucker Minter won the event in a tense battle over Parker White, while Seth Demerchant, Graham Bowlin and Kollin Leister rounded out the top five. The two-car JR Motorsports team will head to the Music City next week for an event at the virtual Nashville Superspeedway.
Blake McCandless, driver No. 8 C4 Energy Chevrolet team
“It was encouraging to see us finally put together a full race, including a solid qualifying effort. Just can’t help but think we left a few points on the table tonight. I adjusted us a little bit out of contention from the start, because we had a C4 Energy Chevrolet capable of finishing in the top 10. Overall, I am proud of the effort despite the limited practice I had with North Wilkesboro taking place this past weekend. We have a lot of races back-to-back here, so I hope we started some positive momentum before going to the Music City next week! One of those nights where I feel as though we executed a very solid race, but there is only so much you can do at the end when everybody starts making aggressive moves and inevitably a crash happens. I really want to commend Carson Hocevar for the marvelous job he did on the roof, his experience running this car in Cup at these types of tracks got us through a lot of difficult situations early. I hate this will hurt our standing in the points, but with a lot of 1.5-mile tracks coming up, we are going to hit our strong suit after this spring break.”
Briar LaPradd, driver No. 88 Ledford Billiard Supply Chevrolet team
“If we had gotten the caution we needed, it might have been a lot better finish for this Ledford Billiard Supply Chevrolet tonight. We did not have the speed we needed in the short run, and unfortunately, the cautions just made it worse at the end. That was not the finish we needed and were hoping for, but we’ll keep digging and try to turn things around next week in Nashville.”