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.