Bianchi Wins Thriller at Irwindale

Brian Bianchi lingered around the front all night at the 225-lap YesterYear Classic, which took place Tuesday night at the virtual Irwindale Speedway. The 2024 YesterYear Racing™ League Tour Modified Series Champion waited until the waning laps to make his move to the front. With 12 laps to go, leader Todd Liston got his Tour Modified stock car loose coming off of turn 4. This allowed Jerry Isaacs, who was running second, to get under Liston for the attempted pass. But on the front-stretch, both cars came together which moved Liston into the outside wall. Isaacs kept rolling and took the lead, but then got into the outside wall in turn 2. This slowed Isaacs momentum and allowed Bianchi to move to the point. Once in front, Bianchi never looked back and took the checkered flag capturing his first win of the season. "I had a fast car all night. I was just waiting until someone made a mistake or had an issue and fortunately that is what happened. It was getting real dicey at the end of the race out there. Anything could have happened," said Bianchi after the race.

The 225-lap affair created a situation where lots of drivers were on different pit strategies. With only one set of extra tires for the entire race, managing tire wear was critical for drivers to make the full distance. Virtual Grip Network Color Commentator J.R. Shepherd noted, "When you have a race of this distance with so many different pit strategies going on, it all materializes and comes together at the end of the race. What you get is drivers not knowing who has what left. Some drivers are on tires much fresher than others, and some cars might have slight damage that others don't have. It adds to the excitement as no one really knows what the outcome is going to be."

Points leader James Lowe came into the race with a 60-point lead in the standings over Luke Allen. Lowe had a night fraught with difficulties. He led early, but ended up getting into the rear-end of Torrance Childs who spun in front of Lowe as the leaders were approaching. Later Lowe got black-flagged for jumping the start, but was able to recover only to wreck on the back-stretch on lap 145 after mistakenly thinking he had cleared Isaacs on a pass. The wreck on the back-stretch ended Lowe's night. Luke Allen, on the other hand, was able to drive his car home to a third place finish after a night of constantly "sawing" on the wheel around a very tricky and quirky Irwindale Speedway. Luke inquisitively tried almost every racing line available over the course of the night. The podium finish propelled Luke Allen to within 10 points of Lowe in the standings.

Another driver who moved up in the standings was Todd Liston. Liston drove a masterful race and led 101 of the 225 laps. He looked in control heading into the final 35 laps of the race, but Liston had chosen to take tires earlier than most. This created a situation where the slightest error could be disastrous, which happened when Liston got loose out of turn 4 and Isaacs was able to make the pass. However, Liston was still able to drive his car home to seventh place. The finish, coupled with Liston's bonus points for leading the most laps, moved him up into third spot in the standings.

League Founder Allen Wannamaker, who finished 6th, was asked about his take on the event during a post-race interview. Wannamaker said, "It is always risky when you run longer races, especially on short tracks. But that is what we do sometimes at YesterYear. It allows for pit strategies to come into play and mandates on-the-fly decision making. Tires, fuel, short-pitting, etc. These are all parameters and decisions that need to be made quickly depending on what is happening on the track. The essence of racing is much more than who can turn the fastest lap. Being fast is important, but strategy is also paramount and longer races allow this to come to light. I think tonight's race showed that. We had ten different leaders and the driver that won only led 11 laps, but they were the laps that counted."

The Series takes a month off before coming back to New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Tuesday, June 23 for Round #7.

Hammett Mocks Hubble and Dominates Round #2 of the YesterYear IROC Series

Chris Hammett's Cream-Colored Cadillac CTS-V

Hubble, the YesterYear Racing™ League's in-house AI bot, crunched the numbers for Iowa Speedway prior to Round #2 of YesterYear's International Race of Champions (IROC) Series, and Red Light Racing League's Chris Hammett was nowhere to be found in the pre-race predictions. Even after Hammett ran a great race and finished second in Round #1 back in February at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course, Hubble snubbed him. The AI liked defending IROC Champion J.R. Shepherd for the win and forecasted VLS iRacing League's Greg McDaniel to be runner-up. But when the checkered flag flew Tuesday night at Iowa Speedway, it was Hammett who had the last laugh. What made it more impressive was that in a field of 15 drivers, Hammett started 11th and had to work his way to the front, which was not easy as the race went green the entire 150 laps. "Who would have known that driving a road course car on an oval might be my calling," Hammett said amusingly in his post-race interview.

Round #2 was the short track discipline of the 5-race Series and drivers lined up on the grid in reverse order from how they finished in Round #1 at Daytona. This meant that OBRL driver Andrew Kotska, who was involved in an early crash at Daytona and had to retire, started on pole. He was flanked by Bootleg Racing League driver Chris "Whirlwind" Worrell. When the green flag dropped, it was Worrell who took the lead from Kotska after one lap. Worrell continued out front for 61 laps fighting off threats from Scott Negus and Greg McDaniel. Over the course of the first 62 laps there was some slight separation among the drivers in the field. Multiple racing lines were used over the 0.875-mile oval early on, but as the tires started to wear on the Cadillac CTS-V's, most drivers settled into a steady and consistent racing line.

By lap 60, Hammett had finally worked his way through the field and began to attack Worrell for the race lead. On lap 63, Hammett successfully passed Worrell for the lead. Once passed, Worrell pitted for fuel and gas, but made a critical error by getting loose going into the pits and ultimately receiving a black flag for speeding in the pits. Once Worrell came back around and served his 40-second hold penalty on pit road, his night was effectively over as he re-entered 4 laps down.

The entire field began to pit over the course of the next 6-7 laps after Worrell's mistake. Hammett pitted after most and it proved to be a good strategy as he re-entered the race still leading. Hubble favorite J.R. Shepherd exited pit road in 4th place, but soon caught and passed Matt Watkins to take third place, and eventually caught and passed Greg McDaniel moving Shepherd into 2nd. By that time, however, Hammett was over nine seconds up the road and Shepherd had no chance of catching the cream-colored Cadillac driven by Hammett. "I made some mistakes early in the race and kinda shot myself in the foot. Chris ran a great race and I wish I could have got to him as I think it would have been a good fight," Shepherd said in his post-race interview.

Hammett was clearly the class of the field Tuesday night. Not only did he lead 84 laps of the race and won by 11.141 seconds, only four cars finished on the lead lap meaning Hammett lapped every car except three during the race. In addition to proving Hubble completely wrong, Hammett turned heads with his dominating performance at Iowa. Hammett leaves the Hawkeye state tied for the lead in the standings with J.R. Shepherd.

The Series heads to Mobility Resort Motegi (formerly Twin Ring Motegi) in Japan on Tuesday, June 30 for the Speedway discipline. Drivers will race their Cadillac CTS-V's around the 1.549-mile "egg-shaped" oval for Round #3 of the YesterYear Racing™ League IROC Series. The race will be broadcast and streamed live on the Virtual Grip Network.

Ken Allen Captures Win At Scorching Hot Spring Sizzler

Ken Allen's Tour Modified stock car

It was a scorching hot afternoon in Stafford Springs, Connecticut with the air temperature hovering at 86 degrees Fahrenheit and a track temperature over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This made for an incredibly slick Stafford Motor Speedway half-mile oval where drivers raced 200 laps with only one extra set of tires at their disposal. Round #5 of the YesterYear Racing™ League Tour Modified series was set to be an interesting one. When the checkered flag flew, it was Kenny Allen winning his first YesterYear Racing™ League event. "I was very careful to save my tires throughout the race as I knew that would be critical. I also have to thank fellow driver Brian Bianchi. I know that he knows this track very well. I noticed a couple of years ago that Brian drove a unique racing line around this track. I wanted to learn it, so I did. I ran into some trouble at last year's race, but was able to stay clean this year and fortunately things worked out," Allen said in his post-race interview. Allen also started from the pole position with a lap time of 18.899. With the victory, Allen moved into fourth place in the overall season standings.

The season standings point leader coming into the Spring Sizzler was the "Iceman," James Lowe. He was 60 points clear of Luke Logan Allen in second place. Lowe had his typical no-fills, no-mistakes run going and looked like a lock to get second place behind Kenny Allen as the checkered flag neared. But a mistake coming out of turn 2 with only a couple of laps remaining got his car loose and allowed Eric Stout to make the pass to claim the second spot on the podium. "I was pretty much resigned to the fact I would get third place in the race. Kenny had checked out and it looked like James was not going to catch him, but was fast enough where I could not get around. But then he suddenly got loose and slid up the track out of turn 2 and I was able to make the pass," said Stout after the race .For his part, Lowe noted the mistake, but said he would gladly take a top three finish here and move on to Irwindale.

The race saw four cautions for thirteen laps. Numerous drivers got caught with black flags midway through the race which put them a lap or more down. Only nine of the nineteen cars that took the grid finished on the lead lap.

The Series takes a month-long break before coming back on Tuesday, May 26 to race the YesterYear Classic at Irwindale Speedway. The YesterYear Classic was run at Martinsville Speedway in both 2024 and 2025, but heads to the "Golden state" this year for the 225-lap event. That race will be the first time the YesterYear Racing™ League Tour Modifieds will have been to the half-mile oval in California.

When asked about the month-long break, YesterYear Racing™ League Founder and co-owner Allen Wannamaker said, "We have several breaks during our year-long season. Because we essentially re-race an actual NASCAR Whelen Tour Modified schedule, which usually consists of 14-16 races, we have breaks. In reality, the Tour Mods cannot run every week like NASCAR Cup, O'Reilley, or the trucks. They simply do not have the sponsorship money in the series, nor do they have car owners with deep pockets. This is a working man, blue collar series in real life. Most Tour Modified drivers have full-time jobs outside of racing. We usually break for a month around this time of year. We are a third of the way through our 15-race season and I'm pretty optimistic about how the season is going. We have visited a couple of new tracks the Series has not run before, are averaging 24 cars on the grid, and the racing has been good. In addition, we have had four different winners in five races. If you were to have given me those stats prior to the start of the season, I would have taken them."