By Justin Melillo
Only two races remain in deciding the 2023-24 iRacing World of Outlaws Thrustmaster Sprint Car Series season. The first of those takes place on Monday night at Eldora Speedway.
A pair of sophomores lead the way in the standings, with California’s Ryan Avila on top by a mere nine points over Michigan’s Aiden Forster. Two races ago, Forster picked up his first career Feature victory at Fairbury. Avila responded with another solid second place finish last week at Port Royal, though he’s still looking for his first Feature win as well.
The racing from Eldora begins on January 22 at 9PM ET, and it will be live on both DIRTVision and iRacing’s social media channels.
Last Race: There have been eight races run on the 2023-24 season, and three-time series champion Alex Bergeron has won four of them. His latest came in the inaugural race at Port Royal Speedway, a.k.a. The Speed Palace, in dominant fashion. Avila was the second-strongest all night, cementing a second place run while Evan Seay stole a podium from Forster, who would finish in fourth.
Last Season: Eldora was a bit earlier in the 2022-23 schedule, placed as the second race of the season as opposed to the second-to-last. Despite the multi-time Eldora winner, Bergeron, being up front and in contention, it was Hayden Cardwell who took the spoils, winning over Bergeron by more than 1.5 seconds.
Track Info: Eldora Speedway is commonly referred to as “The World’s Greatest Dirt Track,” as it hosts so many different types of racing events on its high-banked, 1/2-mile dirt superspeedway. Not only will you find the World of Outlaws events in the history books, but Eldora has also hosted NASCAR, USAC, and SRX competitions, among other well known motorsport series.
Race Format: These races feature qualifying and heat racing to determine the 20 drivers that will compete in the main race. There will be four heat races of 10 laps each, where the top four will advance forward through to the main event. There will also be two 12-lap consolation races where the top two finishers in each will move on. In the 35-lap feature races, caution laps do not count. This is the first Sprint Car season since iRacing’s Dirt Refresh was launched in June.
Next Up: Following Eldora, there’s only one race to go: the championship finale at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Last year, with the title on the line, Tyler Schell managed to step up and take control over James Edens, taking the win and title as well by eight points over Bergeron.
For more information on the series, visit www.iracing.com/woosc. For more information on the World of Outlaws, visitwww.worldofoutlaws.com. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.
