Can’t Stop Rocking At Rockingham

Week 4 of the iRacing.com Street Stock Series, see us head to the high banks of Rockingham International Raceway. This week’s attendance and official races where on the down low this week, with only seven races counting towards the Championship.  These online races saw the top seven in the championship take part with only 60 points separating them all.

The race got off to a great start for Andrew Simmons, continuing from his previous week’s form. Everyone got off to a good start with the pack singling out into one line all following the leaders Simmons and Shane Parish.

Simmons leads the way from the start.

A few laps in we already saw two groups forming of the faster drivers and the slower drivers, with Stephan Raughton and Jay Hollingsworth fighting it out near the back but looking to make some ground to catch up to the back of the lead pack. Coming forward through the pack we saw Mike Dunk, Danny Morse, Robert Dykstra and Samuel Riemen all trailing the leaders of Nick Hold, Parish and Simmons.

10 laps in and the race has become a case of “follow the leader,” as everyone is now spread out running on their own trying to gain on the ever improving Simmons, who seems to be getting better each and every week. Parish, meanwhile, was looking strong and closing the gap on Simmons every lap, while also pulling away from the trailing cars of Holt and Dykstra.

A quarter of the way in and Simmons already began lapping the back marking cars, before the yellow flag came out for the stricken car of Holt, who got it horribly wrong on the exit of Turn Two, getting loose then trying to make the save before over correcting and going ’round; everyone managed to avoid the spun car.

Holt spins on the back straight.

The restart saw Simmons leading from Parish and Dykstra who gained his third thanks to Holt’s spin.  Speaking of whom, being the cause of the stoppage Holt was sent to the back of the field while  Hollingsworth, the only car a lap down, got the Lucky Dog and rejoined at the back of the field on the lead lap.

After only a couple of green flag laps, Dykstra got loose and took Riemen round with him, leaving Holt and Raughton nowhere to go but straight into the wall before colliding again and spinning on the home straight.

This brought out the second caution of the race and it also gave a lot of the field damage for their crews to repair on pit lane.  This pushed Dunk and Morse up into third and fourth position with Dykstra the cause of the caution in fifth.

At the green we saw another great start from Simmons with Parish managing to match him and getting a good lead on the rest of the field, including the cars involved in the wreck  which seemed to be off pace now, dropping back over two seconds on the restart.

Halfway through the status quo was maintained from the restart with Simmons out front, followed by the oncoming Parish, Dunk and Morse.

Third caution of the day came out when Holt got his already damages car sideways again on the exit of Turn Two collecting Hollingsworth and sending into retirement from the race. Holt managed to get the damaged fixed and return to action in the last position.

Simmons and Parish both got another great restart; not so Dykstra who dropped back into the lower field, before Turn Two claimed another victim. Dykstra couldn’t hold the car on the exit, spun into the inside wall, then while trying to rejoin the race, spun again and hit the outside wall before retiring.

Simmons (1) and Parish (2) were seldom separated by more than a car length.

Amazingly, all this drama failed to produce a caution, and Parish had now closed to within touching distance of Simmons, easily the closest anyone has been to him all race. The third place car of Dunk appeared to be falling back from the leaders while maintaining a big useful gap to his pursuers.

With only five laps to run Holt rejoined in seventh after his damage repair, a dozen laps down from the leaders, while Raughton ran five laps down after his earlier accident then battling cars Morse and Riemen fighting for fifth position.

Only two cars could win this race now, namely the pace setters of Simmons and Parish.   Both of these drivers had been quick throughout this race and both had been fighting for the lead but, in the end, Simmons managed to hold to his lead and took the checkered flag from the chasing
car of Parish ahead of Dunk, Morse and Riemen.

The full race results can be found here.

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