John Gorlinsky gets second eNiPS victory of 2019 at Charlotte

John Gorlinsky wasn’t the dominant car at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Tuesday night, but he put himself into position late, and wound up taking his second victory of the 2019 eNASCAR iRacing Pro Series season.

With 14 laps to go, Gorlinsky made the move to get around the dominant cars of Cody Byus and Nathan Lyon before a caution froze the field once more.

On the two ensuing restarts, Gorlinsky held off the charge from Lyon to capture the trophy, and all but lock into the 2020 roster for the eNASCAR iRacing Series (formerly known as the eNASCAR Peak Antifreeze iRacing Series).

“Ideally, I’d win the championship,” Gorlinsky said to Podium eSports in victory lane post race. “I think that’d be a huge feat for me. I was in the Peak Series, I think seven years ago, so it’s been a while. It feels good to be competitive, and feel like I’ve got my mojo back. I want everybody to know that the bright yellow day-glow car is here to fight.”

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With the victory, Gorlinsky moves back up into second in the championship hunt, only nine points behind the other two-time winner in 2019, Graham A. Bowlin.

Lyon led the most laps on Tuesday night, but ultimately came home second, moving up to third in the championship standings.

The event ran with only two cautions in the first 100 laps of the 152 lap event, but once the race went below 50 laps to go, cautions continued to breed more cautions. Nine cautions total for 36 laps, and 28 of the final 50 set up for differing strategies late in the game.

Byus opted to stay out late, while Lyon and Gorlinsky came in for tires.

On the third to last restart, Gorlinsky passed both Byus and Lyon, and led the final 14 laps of the event en route to victory.

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With Graham A. Bowlin, John Gorlinsky, Bob Bryant, Alex McCollum, Steve Sheehan, Kollin Keister, Santiago Tirres, Justin Bolton, and Jeremy R Allen looking to advance into the 2020 eNASCAR iRacing Series roster, a handful of 2019 drivers are on the outside of the cutoff with only two races remaining.

Caine Cook, Casey Tucker, Cody Byus, Logan Kress, Benjamin W. Nelson, and Timmy Hill, are going to have to dig deep in a couple of weeks when the series returns on December 10th at Darlington Raceway.

Both Adam Benefiel and Ryan Lowe will probably not make the 2020 roster no matter what happens in the final two weeks, as they are both too far behind in the standings.

SOURCES:
iRacing.com
Podium eSports

RACE RESULTS:

1. 21 – John Gorlinsky
2. 47 – Nathan Lyon
3. 55 – Caine Cook
4. 80 – Brandon Hayse Kettelle
5. 6 – Steve Sheehan
6. 25 – Kollin Keister
7. 53 – Bob Bryant
8. 32 – Bryan Blackford
9. 54  – Michael Guest
10. 91 – Alex McCollum
11. 18 – Santiago Tirres
12. 2 – Ray Alfalla
13. 34 – Brad Mahar
14. 27 – Ashton Crowder
15. 12 – Nickolas Shelton
16. 00 – Will Cooley
17. 41 – Graham A. Bowlin
18. 01 – Braden Boulos
19. 36 – Chris Shearburn
20. 31 – Logan Kress
21. 28 – Casey Tucker
22. 10 – Liam Brotherton
23. 51 – Eric J. Smith
24. 5 – Brian Schoenburg
25. 42 – David Shutt
26. 64 – Jeremy B. Davis
27. 98 – Justin Bolton
28. 8 – Adam Gilliland
29. 15 – Michael Guariglia
30. 30 – Corey A. Carpenter
31. 24 – Cody Byus
32. 08 – Jeremy R. Allen
33. 33 – Benjamin W. Nelson
34. 56 – Timmy Hill
35. 02 – Chris Overland
36. 26 – Ethan Lane
37. 13 – Matthew Wright
38. 81 – Adam Benefiel

Did Not Race: 7 – Ryan Lowe, 95 – Jesse Schwarz