Joe
Branch Wins at New Hampshire—4th Driver to Win This Season So Far
by Donald Wayne Strout (05/09/2016)
Joe Branch Wins at New Hampshire
The 7th
event of the new 2016 iAdvance Motorsports Indy Elite Series (12 races—11 ovals
and one street course in Long Beach) ran at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway
oval on Sunday, May 8, at 7PM EDT. This
race was sponsored by Chicago’s Pizza.
As usual the race was broadcasted live on RacespotTV http://racespot.tv/ as well as iRacing Live. http://www.iracing.com/live/ and can be seen at YouTube of Race
Here is a link
to the Official Race Results:
18 iRacing
drivers took the green flag at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.. Christopher
Demeritt, Champion of the 2015-16 IndyCar Winter Series did not participate in this
race. Tim Holgate continued his
dominance of the Series by taking the Pole with an impressive 21.407 second
lap.
Tim Holgate
found his normal (superior) race speed and led the first 30 laps. From there to
lap 56, third place qualifier, Marco Brasil assumed the lead.
This race was
marked by numerous spins in Turn 2. There would be a total of 7 Yellow Flag
cautions.
Spin in T2 by Randy Crossno forces Michael Peters to go
high and take out Dan Lee Ensch early in the race.
Toni Helminen
from Finland qualified in 6th position and, based on his speed on
the “shorter” one mile tracks, was favored to be among the leaders.
Unfortunately, he experienced some computer or internet problems and fell two laps down. One thread of the story of this race is Toni’s race long efforts to get
back into the lead lap---which he did late in the race with less than 15 laps
to go. His 22.176 lap was the third fastest of the race, bested only by Holgate
and Branch.
Helminen helps Bookbinder go around in T2, loses a front
wing, but get repaired in the pits to return
Returning to the fray and continuing his quest to get his lap back, Helminen begins his overtake of Strout in T1 and exiting T2 is confronted with Paul Jennings stopped on the racing line after Jennings hit the wall and spun coming out of T2. (see photo below) Helminen was able to get by but Strout in car #8 was trapped with no place to go. His collision with Jennings ended Strout’s race for the day.
A driver’s worst nightmare—a car on your left and a car
stopped on the racing line—really no place for #8 to go.
There were 7 lead changes in the race. On lap 70 Holgate regained the lead, taking over from Joe Branch who had taken the lead earlier away from Marco Brasil. Team RFC’s Tim Miller, a 16th Street Series veteran from Texas, assumed the lead on lap 80 as Holgate experienced some issues in the pits. Miller was delighted as his main sponsor is Chicago’s Pizza, the sponsor of this race.
Tim Miller takes the lead as Holgate sits in pits on lap 80.
With Team RFC
drivers Dan Lee Ench and Donald Strout out of the race. Miller and his
team-mate T.J. Massick were getting Spotter and Crew Chief services over Team
Speak from Dan Lee and Donald. (Dan Lee and Donald are the “older” set builders/engineers
for the Team.) Miller was able to hold the lead until lap 102, then falling
back to P3, and regaining the lead for a few laps at lap 118. Miller would lead
a total of 28 laps. (Miller is now Fourth in Series Points.)
Another spin in T2 late in the race with Bookbinder meeting
Kinsella.
Recovering from his earlier difficulty, Holgate had raced back through the field to P4 by lap 124 and clearly was in contention, turning a 21.937 lap on lap 108—the second fastest lap of the race just after his pit stop. But, it just was not Holgate’s day as Andrew Kinsella executes a 360 degree spin in front of him in T2 and ends his race. (Holgate would still finish P9)
Holgate cannot avoid a spinning Kinsella in T2. The
collision end’s Holgate’s race.
On lap 132,
Team RFC’s T.J. Massick passed his team-mate Tim Miller and assumed P4. The
race would end with Joe Branch in the lead, followed by James McClure and Joe
Flanagan, with Massick and Miller completing the Top 5. Marco Brasil would
finish in P6, and the only other car on the lead lap was Toni Helminen in P7.
Helminen had doggedly regained that lead lap status after more than 100 laps of
being a lap down. (Now there is an example of “persistence” and quite an
accomplishment on a track where passing is difficult—of course his aggressive
quest may have been a bit annoying to all the cars he passed.)
Ohio’s Ryan
Heeter, finished in P8. Starting in P16, Heeter was the last car still running
at the end as he continues to demonstrate an ability to consistently survive
till the end and outlast many others. Heeter is now Seventh in Series points.
Other than Joe
Branch’s impressive run to the Win, special merit goes to second place
finisher, Indiana’s James McClure. He started in P4, with an impressive 21.716
qualifying lap. He fell back to P9 early, but from there on, like P3’s Joe
Flanagan as well, was always in contention. McClure seems to be improving every
race.
Holgate leads
with 368 Series Points. Rounding out the Top Ten for the first seven races are:
(Name/Points) Joe Branch/277, Joe
Flanagan/222, Tim Miller/172, Tim Doyle/169 (with only 6 races), Dan Lee
Ensch/169, Ryan Heeter/162, Michael Peters/150, Christopher Demeritt/142 (with
only 3 races), and Paul Jennings/140.
Still in contention for Top Ten since they have only run five races and
everyone will have to drop two races: James McClure/133, and Donald Strout/121.
(We are essentially half way thru the Series with five races to go—Pocono is
double points.)
The series
moves next to Texas, at 7PM EST on June 12. (Sponsored by Team RFC) The
Question is: Will we see a fifth winner in the Series there?
