After The Line Vol. 6 (Apr 29-May 12)

Championship Domination
OMSRL's 6th season has drawn to a close, with Spenser Ray mopping up to take home the trophy. The driver of the #6 has been dominant all season long, but never have we seen domination on this scale. Spenser Ray locked up the title in the penultimate race at Dover, and would go for the clean sweep in the finale at Nashville, winning all 5 chase races. This would also break OMSRL's record for the most wins in a single season by any one driver.

Following the championship finale, OMSRL has once again restructured itself, bringing forth a new car, and a new championship format. For the first time in the league's history, they will be running the NASCAR Gen 7 stock cars for their 16 race season. They also have brought back the playoff bracket-style elimination format, with the top 10 being reset for 2 races, followed by the top 8, followed by the top 4 for a 1 race shootout.

Heartbreak & Drama In Concord
The Classic Indycar Series saw its first oval race of the season for round 4 of the championship at iRacing's legacy scan of Charlotte Motor Speedway. For much of the 500 kilometer race around the 1.5 mile quad oval, the primary story was fuel and tire strategy, with only a single caution early in the game. Coming into the final stint, Logan Simmons from Iconic Motorsports was looking all but secure.

Simmons up to this point had only been running half-throttle for the last stint, using the draft from his teammate and Long Beach winner Willi Schwabauer to pull him along. On the final lap though on the backstretch, SImmons was forced to pull to the inside as he finally ran out of fuel, being less than half a gallon short. Jan Hoffmann and Lucas Laville would blitz around him to take a Vortex SimRacing 1-2 finish, while Simmons would even fail to finish on the podium, though this too was not without question.

Julien Altena was officially scored in 3rd by iRacing, despite Simmons's car reaching the finish line first. After closer examination it was discovered that iRacing's timing was based off of driver helmet, not actual car position. And, while Simmons's car was ahead when he reached the line, the slower speed meant Altena's helmet crossed the finish line first. There was some discussion if this result would be overturned by CIS administration, but it was determined to let the win stand in order to keep with the consistency of basing all official results off of iRacing scoring.

Chase Fields Set
Two championships over the last two weeks have officially entered the closing stretches of their seasons. The Thursday night Speed Tires Plus Cup Series, and the Sunday night ASRL NextGen Cup Series. Sunday night's series saw Kyle Zittel in a huge battle to try and break into the coveted top 10 before the points reset, a goal Zittel would accomplish by clinching his first race win of the season at Michigan International Speedway. Meanwhile, the Thursday night field was already mostly set entering, with Stan Hauseman failing to make up enough ground on Shane Winemiller to break into the field.

ASRL PLAYOFF FIELD
1. Hunter Engrav
2. Matt Schlosser
3. Joshua Heagy
4. Jan Van Lier
5. Paul Ellison
6. Tommy Cook
7. Corey Rutherford
8. Joshua Rutherford
9. Brody Gunter
10. Kyle Zittel

SPEED CHASE FOR THE TIRES PLUS CUP
1. Christopher Darling
2. Ryan Shelton
3. Martin Plute
4. Jason Gracias
5. Munatsi Major
6. Josh McDougal
7. Shane Winemiller

Record Fields
Wednesday Night's Beer League kicked off in full force with their 7th season, and what a splash they have made. In their season opener at Virginia International Raceway, history was made with a record-setting 53 car field. The race would be given a hefty shakeup late in the race with rainfall in the last 15 minutes, causing several drivers to peel off for tires, while race winner Alexander Klenk, and the rest of the podium managed to outlast the weather on slicks.

The record for most cars in a single race would be broken in just the next race at Mid-Ohio with a 55 car field. The championship is gearing up for what could be its most competitive season of competition yet, with everything culminating in the Case Race after the championship finale in July.

Photo Finishes
There's often no bigger drama than a photo finish, and Talladega Superspeedway has seen a great many of them. Another would be added to the list in the TNGG IEL Truck Series. For over half the race things ran smoothly, with only a few minor hiccups in the pit stops, but otherwise running incident-free. It wasn't until the final 40 laps when things started to go awry.

Front runner Paul Witt would be turned around in a caution, with his race believing to be done. But Talladega is always known for drama, and Witt would manage to bounce back through the ensuing chaos. In a drag race off of turn 4, the field piled up entering the tri-oval, leaving it a 2 horse race between Witt and Jim Kolmansperger. Kolmansperger initially overtook him on the outside, but with Witt on the favorable inside line in the tri-oval, Witt would drive back and take the win by just 0.003.

Just 3 days later the High Tide Racing League would run out to Dover for race 9 of the MF Racing Designs Cup Series. The Monster Mile is not a track particularly known for photo finishes, but what it is known for is being a real doozy to drive. This was made evident all night long throughout the race, with several cautions bringing racing action to a stop. It could be described as one of the toughest races the series has had all season.

With a late race caution forcing the race into overtime, Benjamin Lacy would find himself out in front of Michael Thorpe Jr. Both drivers had been consistently at the front all night long. As the white flag fell, Thorpe got a huge run coming off of turn 2, and went for a Hail Mary down into turn 3. Both drivers broke loose out of turn 4, and would end up spinning into each other. In a scene reminiscent of Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch from Darlington in 2003, both drivers would slam into each other, and would keep hitting doors the entire length of the frontstretch. As Thorpe fully lost control, he would cross the line in first by a mere 0.008, finally clinching his long overdue first win of the season.

Rules Overhaul
The VSCA SportsCar Championship had a very trying race at the WeatherTech Raceway back in April, and VSCA administration was eager to make changes to improve the race craft of the field. After determining that drastic changes were necessary, the championship has now implemented an incident limit. For the Lone Star Grand PRix in Austin, Texas, that limit would be a drive-through penalty when cars hit 14 incident points, and a complete disqualification at 21.

On top of this, drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners alike were allowed to sign themselves up to be track marshals. The purpose of the track marshals was to watch out for potential questionable incidents on the race track, and if necessary report them to VSCA administration for post-race review. The catch here of course being that marshals were not permitted to report any incidents occurring within their own class, to ensure no bias and keeping things fair for all competitors.

These two main actions, combined with a larger track saw a very pleasant decline in on-track incidents from car-car contact, while still maintaining all of the close action that VSCA has become known for since arriving on GreenFlagTV in January. With what could be called a very successful implementation of these rules, the thoughts now turn to how the racing may be affected for the upcoming 6 hours of the Glen in June.