Alex Bergeron Begins iRacing World of Outlaws Sprint Car Title Defense With Volusia Victory

Monday night was like deja vu, all over again, for the 35 drivers of the iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car World Championship.

Last year, Alex Bergeron dominated the season opener from Volusia Speedway Park, scoring the first of his five victories on the way to the 2019 series championship. This year’s opener from Volusia was no different, as the Team ABR driver once again won the pole, his heat race, and the main event—leading all 35 laps on the way to a victory of more than eight seconds over Swindell SpeedLab’s Blake Cannon. It was a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the defending champion from the previous week’s exhibition race at Volusia, where he struggled in qualifying and could only muster a fifth place finish.

“I was right beside the fence, but I barely touched it and just never made a mistake,” explained Bergeron. “I wasn’t sandbagging (last week)—in that race I was fast, I just didn’t run a good line in qualifying. But tonight, we just had a perfect night like we did last year.”

Cameron Merriman, who qualified second and joined Bergeron and Cannon as a heat winner, was third, while series veterans Adam Elby and David Heileman completed the top five. Sixth place finisher Alex Smolders of Kinser Racing Sim Team was the biggest mover in the 35-lap main event, jumping from 17th on the grid after winning the first last chance qualifier. Despite a handful of incidents in the heat races that knocked some competitive cars out of contention, the main event was relatively clean, with only three drivers failing to complete every lap.

Volusia Speedway Park Results

Main event results from Monday’s iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car World Championship event at Volusia Speedway Park were as follows:

Fin.

St.

No.

Driver

Laps

Led

Interval

Best

Pts.

1112Alex A Bergeron35350.00015.31278
2344Blake Cannon350-8.58615.70875
3217Cameron Merriman350-8.82315.79272
4774Adam Elby350-9.10515.76168
51349David Heileman350-10.26315.74363
617211Alex Smolders350-10.88015.76558
7418Austen Semmelmann350-11.08715.87560
8515Zack Novak350-11.71415.73656
9971Cole V Cabre350-12.40015.81652
101591Anthony Jobe350-13.00215.83648
111151Matthew McKinney350-13.10415.83747
121825Tyler Ducharme350-13.39715.80343
132099Logan Clampitt350-14.00815.79140
14800Kendal Tucker350-14.04215.81842
15681Dillon Semmelmann350-14.38315.90540
16145Braden Eyler350-15.45215.90236
171941Colton W Hardy350-18.04515.88133
181639Chase Cabre340-1 L15.75232
191052James Edens340-1 L15.88031
20124James Tiernan210-14 L15.86029

 

The 2020 iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car World Championship season resumes next week with the series debut of Don Martin’s Lernerville Speedway. Dirt oval fans who can’t wait for that, however, can tune in to DIRTVision this Wednesday to watch real World of Outlaws pros take on Knoxville Raceway in the inaugural World of Outlaws iRacing Invitational at 9PM ET/6PM PT.

For more information on the World of Outlaws, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

Image via Team ABR