By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
As the dust settled at the virtual Talladega Superspeedway, Landon Huffman emerged victorious.
The Total Advantage Motorsport driver had a wild eNASCAR Saturday Night Thunder event. Huffman barely made the feature after an incident in the heat race with iRacing veteran Josh Berry.
In the feature itself, Huffman’s virtual No. 75 Belly Up Sports Chevrolet Camaro SS started deep in the field. From the 29th starting position, he picked his way up the running order. Huffman had to avoid multiple multi-car pileups. As he did, the real-life Late Model racer held on to his only fast repair.
Huffman was involved in one of the six major incidents but suffered minimal damage. On the final restart in overtime Huffman lined up inside the top-five. While Berry worked with Anthony Alfredo, Huffman worked with Logan Seavey. When the white flag waved, Alfredo spun across the nose of Berry.
In the chaos, the lead pack actually grew from five cars to eight. As the field powered back to the checkered flag, Seavey drifted up the track. Huffman, pushed by Justin Haley, squeezed between Seavey’s No. 67 and Berry’s No. 88. Haley and Seavey made contact, causing a final ‘big one’ coming to the line, sealing Huffman’s victory over Berry by 0.146 seconds.
“To be honest, I probably shouldn’t have won this one,” admitted Huffman. “I was just in the right place, at the right time, and avoided most of the wrecks.
“I was telling the guys on my Discord server that this win feels a lot bigger than some of my real-life wins. Opportunities in the real world have been hard to come by, so to be racing against all of these guys like this in an event that iRacing puts on is incredible. We’re all here to have a good time, stream it to our fans. That was pretty badass, pretty cool.”
Huffman’s win was a product of the unpredictable nature of Talladega. Alfredo, Tyler Ankrum, and Logan Seavey all crashed while leading. Wrecks often swept up between 10 and 15 competitors. Once the fast repair was used, most of the competitors had times repairs. Noah Gragson received a 49-minute repair after he suffered a hard crash.
Of those that finished inside the top-10, Joe Graf Jr. in third was the only one to not use their fast repair. Tommy Joe Martins and Spencer Boyd rounded out the top-five. The rest of the top-10 included Brett Moffitt, Austin Cindric, Scott Stenzel, CJ McLaughlin, and Ankrum.
Despite the late-race chaos, the third edition of eNASCAR Saturday Night Thunder proved to be competitive. 48 drivers entered the race with 40 starting the feature. Although the race had six cautions, there were long periods of green flag runs.
“I feel like for the most part, it was pretty solid,” explained Huffman. “People rode for a good portion of the middle of the race. Up front they were still side-by-side racing. Everyone watching got a good show.
“Once everybody gets used to how the virtual cars race, I knew the racing would get better. Each week we do this the racing is going to get better. It’s just a testament to iRacing for what they’re able to put together for us.”
The North Carolina native has seen the growth of iRacing and eSports first-hand. He started his own eSports business, Total Advantage, eight months ago. The company has teams in Call of Duty, Pokemon VGC, and iRacing.
The Finish
1. Landon Huffman [29], 2. Josh Berry [37], 3. Joe Graf Jr. [32], 4. Tommy Joe Martins [19], 5. Spencer Boyd [20], 6. Brett Moffitt [28], 7. Austin Cindric [16], 8. Scott Stenzel [8], 9. CJ McLaughlin [39], 10. Tyler Ankrum [31], 11. Ryan Truex [30], 12. Jeb Burton [33], 13. Brandon Brown [23], 14. Will Rodgers [10], 15. Christian Eckes [3], 16. Ryan Vargas [6], 17. Todd Gilliland [36], 18. Ryan Ellis [34], 19. Jesse Iwuji [15], 20. Justin Haley [22], 21. Drew Herring [17], 22. Logan Seavey [26], 23. Matt Mills [12], 24. Derek Kraus [18], 25. Josh Bilicki [13], 26. Myatt Snider [38], 27. Anthony Alfredo [7], 28. Bayley Currey [5], 29. Josh Williams [21], 30. Justin Allgaier [9], 31. Stephen Leicht [24], 32. Drew Dollar [14], 33. Donny Lia [27], 34. Chase Briscoe [2], 35. Chase Cabre [35], 36. Harrison Burton [25], 37. Kyle Weatherman [1], 38. Ty Gibbs [40], 39. Alex Labbe [4], 40. Noah Gragson [11].
Lead Changes: 22 among 10 drivers.
Lap Leader(s): Kyle Weatherman 1-2, Alex Labbe 3, Kyle Weatherman 4-5, Christian Eckes 6-8, Anthony Alfredo 9-11, Alex Labbe 12-13, Anthony Alfredo 14, Christian Eckes 15, Alex Labbe 16, Christian Eckes 17, Alex Labbe 18-19, Anthony Alfredo 20, Christian Eckes 21-29, Harrison Burton 30, Christian Eckes 31-33, Bayley Currey 34, Christian Eckes 35-43, Josh Berry 44-49, Logan Seavey 50, Tyler Ankrum 51-55, Logan Seavey 56-60, Anthony Alfredo 61, Landon Huffman 62.
Laps Led: Christian Eckes 27, Anthony Alfredo 6, Josh Berry 6, Alex Labbe 6, Logan Seavey 6, Tyler Ankrum 5, Kyle Weatherman 4, Harrison Burton 1, Bayley Currey 1, Landon Huffman 1.
Hard Charger: Josh Berry (+35)
Cautions: Six for 23 laps.
Margin of Victory: 0.146 seconds.
Time of Race: One hour, 25 minutes, 17.107 seconds.
Average Speed: 116.025 mph.
Fastest Qualifier: Josh Berry (178.311 mph, 53.704 seconds)