Track Specs: .533-mile oval / 250 laps
Conti’s finish: 4th
Davies’ finish: 6th
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 3, 2020) – Those who tuned into Tuesday night’s eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series race at the virtual Bristol Motor Speedway saw a lot of JR Motorsports teammates Michael Conti and Brad Davies. The pair combined to lead 157 of the 250 laps and post fourth- and sixth-place finishes, respectively. (Watch the full race.)
Conti put his No. 8 WR1 Sim Chassis Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 on the pole for the night’s event, the 14th pole of his eNCCiS career. The young New Jersey native led the first 40 laps before Graham Bowlin trapped him in lapped traffic and assumed command by taking Conti’s preferred high groove. Davies, meanwhile, had advanced to fourth on the initial start and was running third behind his teammate when the caution flag waved at lap 49.
In the aftermath, Bowlin and Conti came off Turn 2 to see the track essentially blocked. Eric Smith was sitting astride the racing line, while the cars of Chris Overland and Malik Ray were clustered near the inside wall. Smith got going and cut off Bowlin’s planned evasion route, which meant Conti had to stop to avoid contact. Bowlin slammed into Overland’s machine and did considerable damage to the front end of his car. Conti dropped to fifth in the aftermath.
That gave the lead to Davies, whose No. 88 TrueTimber® Camo Chevrolet would lead the field to the green following the first round of pit stops. Conti lost one spot on the pit stop exchange to run sixth.
Davies took off on the green and began to pull away, while Conti picked off two spots to fourth by lap 74. Davies controlled the race over Keegan Leahy and others, while Conti worked from fourth as the laps clicked by. A caution at lap 89 sent the field to pit road again, and Davies held the top spot after taking four tires and fuel. Conti emerged from pit lane in third place, and the race began again.
Over the remaining laps, Davies held sway with Conti right behind in heavy lapped traffic, battling with the third-place car of Ryan Luza. On lap 161, Conti was on the low side of the lapped car of Steve Sheehan when Luza hooked the bottom off Turn 4. That put them three-abreast heading to Turn 1, and Conti’s WR Sim Chassis Chevrolet was turned 90 degrees to the wall. Despite a great save from Conti, Luza took over second and immediately went after Davies’ No. 88 TrueTimber® Camo Chevrolet. Two laps later, Luza used the same low line to get past Davies for the lead.
Davies maintained second place until the caution waved again with about 50 laps remaining. From there, caution flags came one upon another and negated the long-run speed Davies and Conti had had all race long. At the finish, Luza held off Garrett Lowe for the victory, his second of the season, while Zack Novak used a run off the top of Turn 2 to pass Conti for third. Conti was fourth at the flag and Bobby Zelenski claimed fifth place ahead of Davies.
After four rounds of the eNCCiS, Davies is sixth in series points, 31 points off the lead. Conti vaulted from 22nd to 13th in the standings with his finish, just 13 points below the playoff cut line.
Next up for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series is a race at the virtual Richmond Raceway on Tuesday, April 14, streaming at 9 p.m. ET on eNASCAR.com and twitch.tv/iracing.
Michael Conti, driver No. 8 WR1 Sim Chassis JR Motorsports Chevrolet team
“That's the kind of race I can be proud of! What a performance by the No. 8 WR1 Sim Chassis Team! We won the pole, led a bunch of laps and contended all night. If the cards would've fallen a bit differently, I certainly think we had the pace to win the race. Track position was key, so after we got shuffled back after that first caution, we could never quite recapture the lead. I could not be any happier with our result. The entire team put in a ton of effort into the car tonight and it paid off. (Brad) Davies got a great finish as well, so that should move us up in the Team Championship point standings too. This season got off to a terrible start for us, but we've come on really strong these last two weeks. From here on out, we need to continue to minimize mistakes, maximize our pace, and forge closer to a spot in the playoffs. With several short tracks coming up, which utilize the low-downforce package (which I love), we're poised to do great things! Watch out for this No. 8 team!”
Brad Davies, driver No. 88 TrueTimber® Camo JR Motorsports Chevrolet team
“Tonight was a great night for both JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1s. We put in hundreds if not thousands of laps of testing the last couple of weeks in preparation for Bristol. But that’s easy to do when you’re turning sub-15-second laps. We led the most laps and hopefully put on a good show for the fans and for TrueTimber! I think if the race had gone green to the end, we would have come home with a top-three finish so it wasn’t exactly the finish we were hoping for given how well we ran but still, sixth is nothing to hold our heads down about in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series. We showed up with a great package and a lot of confidence and it paid off. We’re still very pleased with the results and we’ll take this momentum and move on to Richmond in a couple of weeks.”