Schoenburg Shows the Way in NiCAS

by Chris Hall on March 4th, 2010

As Round Four of the NASCAR iRacing Class A Series (NiCAS), leaves the desert sands of Sin City, it’s Brian Scoenburg leading the points table, with a 70 point margin. The Californian claimed 238 points in his second online race of the week, taking victory from his pole position start. However, the World Championship driver admitted the result was fortuitous, in a car that had struggled for most of the week. “The newly-sponsored JDR Graphics Chevy had a lot of speed in it for Las Vegas, but also it was just as much a handful as well,” Schoenburg confessed following his third win of the season. “A late race yellow helped us, and we just tried to dig as hard as we possibly could at the end.

It was one of those days where everything wasn’t quite right, but in the end it all just kind of fell into our hands to get a victory.”

In contrast, Kyle Hadcock’s 175 points for the week came from a good car, but the American suffered at the hands of on-track incidents and yellow flags; leaving the New Yorker to rue what might have been. “I had a decent car at Vegas this week as I had spent a lot of time practicing for the NASCAR iRacing World Championship Series which carried over to the A-Class series. A lot of what I learned at Chicagoland carried over very nicely,” offered Hadcock following his three races at the Las Vegas circuit. “My car was better than where I finished in most of my races. I got involved in early crashes in the NiWCS and in one of my A-Class events which hurt my points, but I was able to escape this week with a 175 average. My key was the long runs, as I could even run down a lot of faster guys that pulled out early leads. Restarts were troublesome because I didn’t have the raw speed as many other people did. That burned me in one of my races where I should have finished fourth had it stayed green, but I ended-up sixth.”

Currently third in the championship with 699 points, Brandon Buchberger took a single win from his trio of races, in a week when the Illinois Club member was thankful for whatever he could grab. “I wrecked-out of my first race running second because of a loose-off condition. My second race, I ran third, led some laps, but I just burned-up my stuff on the long run,” explained Buchberger. “In the third race, it was a race of who can get in the least amount of problems. I was running second to Justin Trombley when he got got caught-up in a wreck with a lap down car going into Turn One. This caught Steve Sheehan a lap down, which led to an 80 lap green flag run to the checkers. I came in for a pits top on Lap 60, and although I had spun the car and regained control I only lost about three seconds on the track.

Mason Baker was in second at the time, and he got caught speeding on pit road, so I came out of the pits second to Steven Gilbert, and ran really hard to get the lead back right away, because I knew our cars were about the same on a long run. After that, I just went on and cruised to the victory from there.”

Mason Baker was in the hunt for a win before a pit lane speeding penalty. He finished seventh.

Former NiCAS championship leader Justin Roberts, sits just a single point behind the Illinois driver, following a relatively small haul of 161 points from his pair of Week Four races. The Virginias driver found himself up against some stiff competition in both of his races, although the A Licensed driver missed his chance to score some crucial series points. “I ran the first race that had a lot of great guys in it, including 10 NiWCS drivers. I ran decent but I couldn’t put-up a hot lap, but the car was OK on the long run,” Roberts shared this week. “On the last restart of my first race, I was fourth, got shuffled back to ninth; I then found about two tenths out of nowhere and got back to eighth. I ran the race after that one, that had another good SOF, with three NiWCS drivers. I should have finished second, but I sped on pit road and they held me for 17 seconds and I ended up fifth.”

Carrying the biggest grin in the NiCAS paddock this week was Sandeep Banerjee. On the back of his first win in the NiWCS, the International Club driver now finds himself fifth in the championship after collecting a podium early in the week. Banerjee had been in second position in the closing laps of his solitary race, but became the instigator of a late yellow, demoting him to third. “With about five laps to go, I got alongside Jake Swanson in Turn One on the inside, hit a bump wrong and barely corrected when it sent me straight up the track and into Jake sending us both spinning, letting Rob Ackley slip into second. I got classified third ahead of Jake. That was the only caution of the race and sucks that it happened,” explained Banerjee at the end of the race.

Appearing in the same race as Banerjee, and collecting the win, Jessee Atchison sits just five points behind the International driver in sixth position. Atchison brought home 225 points from his four races at Vegas, something he attributes to his NiWCS performances.

For some reason, testing for the NiWCS helped me out a lot, since the NiWCS races was before the majority of the races. Usually, it would be the opposite, but the scheduling quirk for Vegas made it like this. The racing itself was good, as there wasn’t ESPN draftlock unless the cars were dead even. You actually had to make a bit of an attempt to save tires during the longer runs.”

Now seventh in the championship table, Shawn Stitt’s 167 points for the week, puts the Eastern Canada Club member 14 marks ahead of Dustin McGrew, who will be hoping to make his visit to Las Vegas a ‘drop week’, after failing to make any gains on the series leaders. McGrew could only secure 127 points from his three races, and will be hoping for a better performance as the series heads to short-track racing.

Ninth in the standings, just ahead of early season favourite Steve Sheehan, Mid-South’s Jeff Dukehart put in six races races for his 150 points, with the most memorable performance coming late in the week. “My best race was the last where I led a lot of laps, but on the last stop Ryan Ameen took two tires when I took four. It put us both back in the sixth and seventh spots on the restart. There was about 12 to go and Ryan got to the front before I did. I was in position to attempt a pass but the yellow came out again with three to go and the race was over.” enthused Dukehart post-race.

Having emptied their pockets of quarters in the Las Vegas slots, the NASCAR iRacing Class A Series drivers head east to the cauldron of the Bristol Motorspeedway. The 150,000 seat half-mile short track is not for the faint-hearted, and it’ll be a cool head walking away with the points from Week Five.