Karam Opens iRX All-Star Invitational Season With Daytona Win

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Sage Karam kicked off the return of the iRacing Rallycross All-Star Invitational presented by Yokohama with a dominant performance at Daytona International Speedway. The former Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year and occasional real-world rallycross driver won his heat race and saw the seas part from the back row of the grid in the first lap of the feature, coasting to the checkered flag ahead of Bryan Herta Rallysport’s Mason Filippi and fellow DRR driver Conner Martell.

Coming off of a successful six-race spring season, the series for professional drivers returned to coincide with the second round of the iRX World Championship presented by Yokohama and will continue on through the remainder of that season. Returning drivers include Subaru Motorsports USA stars Travis Pastrana and Scott Speed, IndyCar star Conor Daly, NHRA Funny Car champion Ron Capps, and the DRR duo of Karam and Martell. Newcomers include three-time Indianapolis 500 polesitter Ed Carpenter, 20-time X Games medalist Bucky Lasek, and US rallycross race winner Steve Arpin, with additional newcomers expected to join the field as real-world racing winds down.

Despite a smaller field of drivers than the World Championship, the action featured just as much contact as the professional sim racers would deal with later in the day. The result was a surprising grid of drivers to make the final, with Subaru Motorsports USA’s Chris Atkinson scoring a dominant win in the first heat and series newcomers like Filippi and Arpin also making their way through.

An inverted grid for the 10-car final saw the four drivers who advanced through the last chance qualifier starting up front, but just as in the spring, the best drivers in the field quickly carved their way up to the front. From the back row, Karam would avoid the contact in front of him to hit the jump first, and with clean air, would continue to extend the gap until the checkered flag.

Results from the iRacing Rallycross All-Star Invitational presented by Yokohama final at Daytona International Speedway were as follows:

iRacing Rallycross All-Star Invitational and World Championship action presented by Yokohama resumes on Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The stream kicks off on Saturday, October 17 at 1PM ET (17:00 GMT) on the iRacing Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube pages, as well as across a number of industry and competitor Facebook pages. A Finnish-language simulcast will air on YLE Areena and YLE E-urheilu.

The iRacing Rallycross World Championship presented by Yokohama is supported by Yokohama, DirtFish, and Marwin Sports. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

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