After enduring one of the most devastating finishes of the season two weeks ago — and with time running out to clinch a spot in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series playoffs — Garrett Lowe approached Tuesday night’s race at virtual New Hampshire Motor Speedway with a must-win mindset.
Turns out that was the correct attitude.
Lowe got a great jump on the overtime restart and drove his No. 15 Ford away from the field for his first win of the season, locking up a playoff spot with only one race remaining in the regular season.
“The mindset was just go get a win, right,” Lowe said after the race. “Felt like we kinda got robbed there last week at Nashville and we had a killer car (at New Hampshire). Believe it or not this is the least amount of time we spent on a setup since Atlanta (in Race 3 back in mid-March).”
Indeed, Lowe looked poised to win the previous race, two weeks ago at virtual Nashville. But Jimmy Mullis put Lowe into the wall on the final turn of the race to take the win and drop Lowe into third place.
Now, the Gastonia, N.C., resident joins Mullis as one of eight racers with a win and a spot in the 10-driver playoffs. The playoff field will be set next Tuesday at virtual Pocono Raceway.
Instead, Graham A. Bowlin, Malik Ray, Parker White and Michael Cosey Jr. will be the ones keeping their eyes on the scoreboard at Pocono. With Nick Ottinger sitting in ninth and 51 points clear of 11th, he is in position to qualify on points. If a second spot gets in on points, Bowlin currently sits above that cut line, but with Ray 24 points behind and White 28 back.
As for Tuesday, Zack Novak looked as if he drew the perfect caution. With Lowe well in the lead but Novak turning in the best laps on the freshest tires, a caution with three laps to go brought the field together for a green-white-checkered finish. But as Lowe got a great jump on the restart, Novak and Donovan Strauss drove door-to-door for the next two laps, allowing Lowe to pull away.
Novak, from Clinton, Conn., drove his No. 75 Chevrolet from a starting position of 23rd to the runner-up spot, 0.724 seconds behind Lowe. Strauss’ No. 51 Chevrolet was another two-tenths of a second back in third. Neither driver has a win this year, making Pocono a do-or-die run.
“Pretty much every driver will always say qualifying is the most important thing, so that just goes way higher in a fixed (setup) race, especially at Pocono, qualifying’s gonna be super important,” Novak said. “So that’s probably going to be where 90 percent of the preparation is at is preparing (for) qualifying.”
Points leader Michael Conti finished fourth in his No. 8 Chevrolet, with Wyatt Tinsley in the No. 20 Toyota rounding out the top five.
–Field Level Media
