Demeritt
bests Holgate at Auto Club
by Donald Wayne Strout (03/21/2016)
Christopher Demeritt runs away from the field at the start
on first lap in T2
The third event of the new 2016 iAdvance Motorsports Indy Elite Series (12 races—11 ovals and one street course in Long Beach) ran at the Auto Club oval on Sunday, March 20, at 7PM EDT. This race was sponsored by Darren Manning’s iAM Simulator. http://www.iadvancemotorsports.com/iam-simulator/
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76S0751EhZg
27 iRacing
drivers took the green flag at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California. Christopher
Demeritt, Champion of the 2015-16 IndyCar Winter Series took his second pole
position in the 2016 iAdvance Motorsports Indy Elite Series. Falling out of the
first race at Homestead with computer problems and missing the race at Gateway,
Christopher returned to assert himself as the “man to beat” in IndyCar iRacing.
Demeritt is
from Manalapan, New Jersey, just 20 miles south of Edison (Menlo Park) where
the “Wizard of Menlo Park”, Thomas Edison discovered so many secrets and produced
so many inventions. Demeritt can now be dubbed the “Wizard of Manalapan” as everyone
is wondering what “speed secret” this young aspiring engineer has discovered.
Demeritt’s
“speed secret” in qualifying applied to his race setup as well as he easily
pulled out to a lead of 1.8 seconds over 2nd place by lap 10.
Spin in T4 by Marco Brasil (lap 26) brings out first of
only two yellow flags in the race.
Tim Holgate, winner of the first two races, qualified 8th, but found his normal (superior) race speed and moved up to P3 by lap 9. In a repeat of his amazing move through the field at Homestead, Tim Doyle, qualifying P13, moved through the field like a hot knife through butter, arriving in P3 by lap 37. At the end, it would be Demeritt P1, Holgate P2, and Doyle P3. But from lap 37 to the end, that order was far from appearing certain.
Tim Holgate, winner of the first two races, qualified 8th, but found his normal (superior) race speed and moved up to P3 by lap 9. In a repeat of his amazing move through the field at Homestead, Tim Doyle, qualifying P13, moved through the field like a hot knife through butter, arriving in P3 by lap 37. At the end, it would be Demeritt P1, Holgate P2, and Doyle P3. But from lap 37 to the end, that order was far from appearing certain.
New Englander,
Austin Espitee, qualifying in P3 joined the battle with Holgate and Doyle. Also
mixing it up in the top 5 was seventh place qualifier Jonathan Goke.
Clearly
everyone started thinking about their fuel/pitting strategy around lap 93-94. Coming
out of that pit stop sequence, it was Holgate, Demeritt, Espitee, Doyle and Goke
for the next few laps. A yellow on lap 114 created an opportunity/dilemma.
Could a full tank make it to the end?
Demeritt pitted
under green on lap 132. Doyle and Espitee pitted on lap 136. Holgate pitted on
lap 138.
On lap 139, T.
J Massick, who had started at the back of the field in P26, assumed the lead,
followed by Jonathan Goke. Both decided to try to make to the end without a pit
stop for fuel. But, by lap 148, that
strategy clearly was not going to produce a win for either. Massick surrendered
the lead on lap 149 and coasted to a P10 finish. Goke ran out of fuel on lap
149.
Christopher Demeritt takes lead back on lap 149 from T. J.
Massick and Jonathan Goke
So, on lap 149, it was again the Christopher Demeritt, Tim Holgate and Tim Doyle show—finishing 1, 2 and 3 in that order.
Like Tim Doyle,
Joe Branch and Joe Flanagan had moved up through the field. Branch had started in
P11, and Flanagan in P20. Both had
passed Jonathan Goke when Goke started his ill fated “run to the end” fuel
saving strategy around lap 119. Flanagan was the last to pit on lap 139 and put
on an impressive run to the finish running the fast times in the last five laps—averaging
32.161 seconds per lap.
iAdvance Motorsports sponsored, Joe Branch challenges Tim
Doyle for P3 Podium on last lap
In the end the top five finishers were: Demeritt, Holgate, Doyle, Branch and Flanagan. All five of these guys are among those most people would expect to finish in the top 5.
Rounding out
the top 10 was Toni Helminen, Andrew Kinsella, Austin Espitee, Niles Anders,
and T. J. Massick. Fin, Toni Helminen
and Canadian Andrew Kinsella, along with Espitee and Anders had been “in the hunt”
the entire race. (Espitee reflected after the race that he regretted his overly agressive short fueling strategy on the last pit stop, causing him to surrender several positions near the end.) Massick had benefitted from his risky “run to the end” fuel
saving strategy. He and Jonathan Goke, with just another gallon of fuel may
actually have finished P1 and P2. So fuel strategy for the third time has
proven to benefit at least one of the top ten finishers each race so far this
season in this series.
With two wins
in three starts, Holgate leads with 147 Series Points. Rounding out the top ten
for the first three races are: (Name/Points)
Tim Doyle/102, Joe Flanagan/96, Joe Branch/90, Jonathan Goke/87, Donald
Strout/71, Michael Peters/62, Christopher Demeritt/60, Dan Lee Ensch/57, and
Paul Jennings/53.
The series
moves next to Phoenix, at 7PM EST. The Question is: Who (besides Demeritt) will
be able to finish ahead of Tim Holgate?
Series sponsors: http://www.iadvancemotorsports.com/ and http://www.ricmotech.com/
