Track Specs: 1.5-mile oval / 200 laps
Davies’ finish: 7th
Conti’s finish: 16th
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (May 14, 2020) – Both of JR Motorsports entries in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series event on Tuesday night at the virtual Charlotte Motor Speedway were fast and were contenders for the race victory.
Both Brad Davies (No. 88 TrueTimber® Camo Chevrolet) and Michael Conti (No. 8 WR 1 Sim Chassis Chevrolet) showed great speed and race craft during the 200-lap event, the seventh of the season in eNCCiS, with Davies finishing seventh and Conti a solid 16th. (Watch the full race.)
Both JRM drivers started the race down in the order, with Conti 15th and Davies 31st. Both had focused on race trim rather than qualifying speed, and both drivers were very racy early in the event. Conti needed just seven laps to move up to fifth, and Davies hammered from 31st on the grid to 23rd by the time the first caution waved at lap 8.
The field took advantage of the early caution to hit pit road. Conti gained three spots on the exchange to run second, and assumed the race lead shortly thereafter by passing leader Keegan Leahy. Conti’s fuel mileage calculations dictated that he needed to save 10 laps to make it to the end of the season’s longest race on a two-stop strategy, so he elected to make it a three-stop event from there.
That caused him to yo-yo up and down the order over the remaining laps, running anywhere from the lead to 30th depending on when he had to come in for service. Conti, who led 75 of the 200 laps, revealed later that his fuel mileage calculations were based on the wrong gearing, and he could have made it on two stops.
Davies, also focused on race trim, pitted with the field on lap 8 and took four tires and fuel. It would be the only yellow-flag stop the field would have during the event, and Davies planned accordingly. Restarting 25th, Davies cruised up to sixth place over the next 65 laps before pitting a second time. A good run to pit road helped him gain four positions to second on that stop. Over the course of the next fuel run, Davies slipped to fourth near the end before hitting pit road for the final time.
With the race slipping into the nighttime hours, crew chief Derek Wood made a chassis adjustment for Davies on the final stop and sent his driver back out in the top five. Over the remaining distance, Davies rode with the leaders and minded his fuel state. Coming upon a struggling Ryan Luza on the final lap, Davies tried a move for third place coming to the checkered flag, only to have the lapped car of Chris Overland appear in the low line off the pace. The resulting spin and crash took him out of the top five, and the lapped car of Jeremy Allen slammed the side of Davies’ car. The impact propelled Davies across the finish line in seventh place.
Kollin Keister won the event, with Garrett Lowe, Luza, Graham Bowlin and Leahy behind in the top five. Corey Vincent took sixth, with Davies seventh.
After seven rounds of the eNCCiS, Davies jumped from seventh to fifth in series points, trailing leader Luza by 48 markers. Conti remains sixth in points, three points adrift of his teammate and 51 points behind the leader. Both drivers remain inside the playoff cut line.
Next up for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series is a race at the virtual Atlanta Motor Speedway on Tuesday, May 26, streaming at 9 p.m. ET on eNASCAR.com and twitch.tv/iracing.
Brad Davies, driver No. 88 TrueTimber® Camo JR Motorsports Chevrolet team
“We’re a bit disappointed with the very end of the race. Getting tangled up with the lapped car coming to the flag was frustrating but looking at the bright side, the No.88 TrueTimber® Camo Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was crazy-fast tonight. This was probably the best speedway car we’ve had in years. We still need to get qualifying figured out but it was so much fun driving up through the field tonight and we did it on speed rather than strategy. Fortunately, we only lost three positions on that final lap when it could have been much worse. Also, have to thank Derek (Wood, crew chief) for keeping me focused and not worrying about fuel. One of the hardest things to do as a driver is to save fuel and try to catch the cars in front of you but he was running the numbers every 20 laps to reassure me that we could make it. We seem to be running strong at the intermediates right now so we’ll take this momentum into Atlanta in two weeks and see where it takes us!”
Michael Conti, driver No. 8 WR1 Sim Chassis JR Motorsports Chevrolet team
“We could dwell on the negatives after finishing 16th with a race-winning car, but instead, I want to say how proud I am of (crew chief Brandon) Hastings and the rest of the team. Yeah, we got the strategy wrong, but we had bad numbers. That's no one person's fault. Our car was bad-fast. Slicing from 15th to fifth in the first six laps of the race was super fun. We haven't had an intermediate car that good since the end of 2018. The next several tracks are intermediates, so we definitely have some confidence moving forward. We're comfortably in the playoffs as it stands, but we could use more points. We owe it to Chad, WR1 Sim Chassis and all of the guys at JRM to make the playoffs this year; with the speed we've had over the last month and a half, if we don't beat ourselves, we'll make it.”