Posted October 22, 2019 by Justin Melillo eSports

John Gorlinsky wins Pro Series season opener at Daytona Int’l Speedway

JGcelebrates — John Gorlinsky celebrates victory at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Justin Melillo / TRE via iRacing.com.

Almost two weeks ago, the eNASCAR Peak Antifreeze iRacing Series concluded in epic fashion as Zack Novak held off Keegan Leahy in the final laps to win the championship.

As the dust settled, the Top 20 drivers in the standings took a sigh of relief, as they locked in their place in the 2020 field.

The rest of the drivers took their talents back down to the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Series, driving the NASCAR Xfinity Series style of cars, to compete against the best drivers graduating from the 2019 iRacing Road To Pro series.

Past eNPAiS winners, such as Four-Time Series Champion, Ray Alfalla, as well as Auto Club Speedway winner Eric J. Smith and Darlington Raceway winner Ashton Crowder, found themselves gearing up since the Homestead finale to compete for seven more weeks, for their chance at redemption in 2020.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, as another eNASCAR iRacing Pro Series season kicked off, as per the usual, at Daytona International Speedway, live on Twitch via Podium eSports.

Chris Shearburn started on the pole position, and traded the lead with Braden Boulos in the opening ten laps.

Brandon Hayse Kettelle joined the party on the high line, and the field fought three-wide for a good amount of time.

David Shutt led the charge on the low line, but had a computer issue while leading at lap 20, and that sent Kettelle up the track into Alfalla, and the pile up commenced.

bigoneproseriesdaytona — The “Big One” at lap 20 at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Justin Melillo / TRE via iRacing.com.

The incident put Shutt and Ryan Lowe behind the wall, as Alfalla, Kettelle, Shearburn, Bryan Blackford, and Benjamin W. Nelson repaired as much damage as they could, riding around for the rest of the event off the pace.

On the restart, the field thinned out and saw a multitude of two-wide racing for a majority of the event.

Players such as Timmy Hill, Logan Kress, Nathan Lyon, Graham A. Bowlin, and many more took their time in the spotlight, leading a line to the front, and then shuffling back.

Tentogo — Coming to ten laps to go at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Justin Melillo / TRE via iRacing.com.

Pit strategy allowed John Gorlinsky and Jeremy R. Allen to take command of the event after everything cycled.

Gorlinsky held true to the low line, allowing competitors such as Michael Guest and Kollin Keister to go high, three-wide at times.

The final caution flag flew coming to five laps to go. As the field worked around lapped traffic from the earlier incident in the day, multiple cars collided, and Liam Brotherton took the worst of it, taking a tumble down the backstretch.

flipatdaytonma — Liam Brotherton goes for a flip after contact at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Justin Melillo / TRE via iRacing.com.

Gorlinsky led the field back to the green, as the field began to organize into two distinct lines coming up to full speed.

Coming off of Turn 4, Gorlinsky held it low, as his pusher, Alex McCollum went outside. It wasn’t enough, as Gorlinsky held everyone off to claim the victory.

Gorlinskywins — The margin of victory was 0.021 seconds between John Gorlinsky (25) and Alex McCollum (91) at Daytona International Speedway. Photo by Justin Melillo / TRE via iRacing.com.

NOTE: The race server was supposed to be set up to allow drivers to have custom numbers, but as the field took the grid, it became apparent that the drivers were numbered 1 to 39 by their iRating. Ray Alfalla, for example, was scheduled to drive the No. 2, but instead, wound up as the No. 1.

Some screenshots provided may have the drivers true number, or it may have their given number, depending on the file that was uploaded by the driver to Trading Paints.

The race server number will be in parenthesis in the race results below.

RACE RESULTS: