Geschrieben von For the second straight week in the iRacing World of Outlaws Thrustmaster Sprint Car Series, three-time champion Alex Bergeron was victorious. In a caution-free feature at Weedsport Speedway on Monday night, Bergeron was able to pass and hold off Tanner Pettit for 35 laps around the 3/8-mile clay oval in upstate New York.
The 35 top dirt sprint car sim racers on this year’s roster are all competing for the $25,000 purse, but after Bergeron’s second victory in-a-row to start off the year, the rest of the field might be fighting for second place.
The evening kicked off with a quick time set by Pettit in qualifying, besting his previous best qualifying effort of second place at I-55 in his rookie campaign last year. Braden Eyler, defending series champion Tyler Schell, and Tyler Ducharme took the rest of the top four positions and would lead a respective heat race to the green. Bergeron wound up down in 14th, which would mean a fourth place starting spot in the second heat.
Pettit was able to hold off runs from Clayton Davies and Ryan Avila in the first heat, the trio all transferring on with Kenny Miller in fourth. In the second heat, Bergeron hugged the inside like nobody else to take the lead from Eyler at halfway. That’s how they would finish, bringing James Edens and JD Brown to the main as well. Schell rebounded from a tough start last week at Volusia to dominate the third heat, transferring with Aiden Bierlein, Timothy Smith, and Noah Carpenter. In the final heat race, it was the Late Models champion Evan Seay on top, taking it from Ducharme in the closing laps, with Ross Keiser and Tanner Miller also moving on.
Lane Snook, Joey Lingron, Aiden Forster, and Kenny Hoffman would all transfer from the last chance races. Lingron, in particular, made a late dive on Chance Ciskowski on the final lap to take second place in his respective LCQ. Meanwhile, Outlaws who were at the front at Volusia, such as Hayden Cardwell, Shawn English, Logan Rumsey, and Blake Matjoulis, all failed to make the main event this week.
Also unlike last week, the feature race at Weedsport would go completely caution free for all 35 laps. Pettit started on the pole position and led the opening six laps, but Bergeron had that low line working wonders, making the move to the front on Lap 7. For a time, Bergeron was able to pull away, but Pettit was able to close back in. Schell also joined the battle as the laps wound down, with the trio nearly going three-wide for the top spot before Eyler challenged Schell for the podium.
In three previous trips to Weedsport Speedway, Bergeron’s best result was only a sixth in the feature back when it joined the series in the 2020-21 season. His other two results were ninth (2021-22) and 14th (2022-23). The win marks his second of the season and 21st victory of all-time in series competition.
iRacing World of Outlaws Thrustmaster Sprint Car Series results from Weedsport Speedway were as follows:
Fin.
St.
No.
Driver
Laps
Interval
Led
Best
Pts.
1
2
12
Alex A Bergeron
35
0.000
29
13.194
78
2
1
24
Tanner Pettit
35
-0.565
6
13.274
75
3
3
85
Tyler Schell
35
-0.988
0
13.323
72
4
6
5
Braden Eyler
35
-1.882
0
13.327
68
5
4
33
Evan Seay
35
-2.231
0
13.222
66
6
5
50
Clayton Davies
35
-3.346
0
13.316
62
7
9
49
Ryan Avila
35
-3.561
0
13.400
58
8
13
23
Kenny Miller
35
-4.196
0
13.380
54
9
7
13
Aiden Bierlein
35
-5.163
0
13.324
53
10
10
52
James Edens
35
-5.368
0
13.373
49
11
11
86
Timothy S Smith
35
-5.651
0
13.451
47
12
14
14
JD Brown
35
-5.948
0
13.341
44
13
15
42
Noah Carpenter
35
-6.116
0
13.436
42
14
18
20
Aiden Forster
35
-6.687
0
13.465
39
15
17
32
Lane Snook
35
-7.246
0
13.514
37
16
16
9
Tanner Miller3
35
-8.582
0
13.372
36
17
20
11
Kenny Hoffman
35
-8.631
0
13.439
32
18
8
25
Tyler Ducharme
35
-9.136
0
13.465
34
19
12
8
Ross Keiser2
35
-10.858
0
13.431
31
20
19
16
Joey Lingron
30
-5L
0
13.492
25
iRacing World of Outlaws Thrustmaster Sprint Car Series points after Race #2 are as follows:
Alex A Bergeron, 155
Tanner Pettit, 125
James Edens, 121
Evan Seay, 118
Ryan Avila, 115
Noah Carpenter, 109
Tyler Schell, 101
Aiden Forster, 101
Aiden Bierlein, 92
Lane Snook, 90
Pettit jumps up to second in the championship standings following Weedsport, 30 points behind Bergeron who has won just about everything so far this season. James Edens, who finished 10th at Weedsport, maintains third, just four points behind Pettit and three points ahead of Evan Seay. Defending champion Tyler Schell jumps up to seventh after two races, 54 points back of Bergeron.
Coming up next in the 2023-24 iRacing World of Outlaws Thrustmaster Sprint Car Series season is a trip to Williams Grove Speedway on November 27. Last season, Hayden Cardwell came away with the victory. The racing action will stream live on DIRTVision and across iRacing social media channels every Monday night through November and December in 2023 and January in 2024, all starting at 9PM ET.
For more information on the series, visit www.iracing.com/woosc. For more information on the World of Outlaws, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.