To anybody who’s been following along with the 2022-23 iRacing World of Outlaws Carquest Sprint Car Series season, watching a win by Timothy Smith at some point during the season seemed like an inevitability. After all, he led laps in multiple races during the first half of the season, and another podium finish at Fairbury Speedway last week finally allowed him to take the points lead by two over series legend Alex Bergeron.
On Monday night at Cedar Lake Speedway, the stars finally aligned. Smith led nearly the whole 35-lap feature, weathering a late-race challenge from Bergeron after the final restart, to score the breakthrough victory and narrowly extend his championship lead. Smith now holds a five-point advantage over Bergeron with three races remaining after the thrilling duel to the finish.
Smith and Bergeron were joined by Aiden Forster and Tyler Schell as heat winners on the night, while Aiden Bierlein and Kendal Tucker won the two last chance qualifiers. The first caution came out just past halfway as defending race winner Hayden Cardwell rode the Turn 2 wall and flipped after trying to chase down Forster for sixth. The second and final caution came out on Lap 27, when I-55 and Fairbury winner James Edens bounced off the wall and into Tucker.
Both restarts gave Bergeron an opportunity to get past Smith, and he’d finally throw a slider to lead his first lap of the night. But Smith would cross back over to retake the lead, and with pressure from Tanner Pettit for the second spot, Bergeron would have to settle for second as Smith finally took the checkered flag.
iRacing World of Outlaws Carquest Sprint Car Series results from Cedar Lake Speedway were as follows:
Fin. | St. | No. | Driver | Laps | Interval | Led | Best | Pts. |
| 1 | 1 | 86 | Timothy S Smith | 35 | 32 | 11.038 | 78 | |
| 2 | 4 | 12 | Alex A Bergeron | 35 | -0.625 | 1 | 11.125 | 75 |
| 3 | 6 | 24 | Tanner Pettit | 35 | -1.070 | 0 | 11.172 | 71 |
| 4 | 3 | 85 | Tyler Schell | 35 | -1.830 | 0 | 11.183 | 69 |
| 5 | 10 | 33 | Evan Seay | 35 | -2.025 | 0 | 11.094 | 64 |
| 6 | 7 | 16 | Blake Giglio | 35 | -2.207 | 0 | 11.213 | 62 |
| 7 | 2 | 20 | Aiden Forster | 35 | -2.604 | 0 | 11.147 | 60 |
| 8 | 15 | 127 | Blake Matjoulis | 35 | -2.872 | 0 | 11.491 | 54 |
| 9 | 12 | 5 | Braden Eyler | 35 | -3.334 | 0 | 11.270 | 52 |
| 10 | 14 | 14 | JD Brown | 35 | -3.928 | 0 | 11.302 | 48 |
| 11 | 16 | 52 | James Edens | 35 | -4.103 | 0 | 11.404 | 46 |
| 12 | 19 | 1 | Mason Hannagan | 35 | -4.441 | 0 | 11.427 | 42 |
| 13 | 17 | 13 | Aiden Bierlein | 35 | -4.655 | 0 | 11.386 | 41 |
| 14 | 11 | 174 | Loic Bernier | 35 | -5.298 | 0 | 11.567 | 41 |
| 15 | 9 | 17 | Eric Witner | 35 | -6.248 | 0 | 11.192 | 39 |
| 16 | 18 | 00 | Kendal Tucker | 35 | -6.406 | 0 | 11.485 | 35 |
| 17 | 13 | 11 | Kenny Hoffman | 35 | -6.493 | 0 | 11.181 | 34 |
| 18 | 8 | 23 | Kenny Miller | 35 | -6.674 | 0 | 11.504 | 34 |
| 19 | 5 | 07 | Hayden Cardwell | 19 | -16 L | 0 | 11.112 | 32 |
| 20 | 20 | 41 | Logan Rumsey | 12 | -23 L | 0 | 11.445 | 26 |
iRacing World of Outlaws Carquest Sprint Car Series points through seven rounds are as follows:
- Timothy Smith, 442
- Alex Bergeron, 437
- Tyler Schell, 409
- James Edens, 376
- Kendal Tucker, 369
- JD Brown, 350
- Braden Eyler, 322
- Kenny Miller, 318
- Hayden Cardwell, 312
- Mason Hannagan, 286
The iRacing World of Outlaws Carquest Sprint Car Series season continues next Monday at Knoxville Raceway, where Bergeron will hope to both defend last year’s victory and retake the championship lead. As always, the action streams live at 9PM ET on DIRTVision and across iRacing social media channels.
For more information on the iRacing World of Outlaws Carquest Sprint Car Series, visit www.iracing.com/woosc. 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.
