VRW ROC: Darrin Stevens Wins At Daytona In First VRW Race of Champions Event
- Published ()
- Virtual Racing World
On Sunday, May 5th, 2002 ten of the VRW's best 10 drivers kicked off week two of the VRW's Daytona races with the first of the four race VRW Race of Champions series. Similar to the IROC series, the VRWROC series runs brightly colored cars with the driver's names in bold text on the door panels. Without the danger of damage costs and incident fines, the VROC race at Daytona proved to be one of the best races of the young VRW season two.
Mike Ramsden took the pole with a fast lap of 49.553 on the 2.5 mile, high banked oval. Shannon Whitmore brought up the outside coming up only .006 seconds short of the VRW Champion's time.
The first half of the race was a smooth exercise in driver patience, with Ramsden holding the low line and the field doubled up all the way around the track. Whitmore took up the outside on the start and was helped by Jay Taylor.
The first caution of the race came out when Shawn Wise appeared to be trying to work the middle line. Wise tried to squeeze in between Chad Rogers and Jay Taylor. Rogers and Wise touched in the middle of the super stretch and Rogers was turned into the Jay Taylor and the outside wall. The following drivers managed to narrowly miss the wreck.
The green on the restart was short lived. Wise must have been having a bad night because he on lap 24 he drifted into Tom Oliver's car in the high line. Both cars spun to the inside of the track and Wise's rear left quarter panel tapped the inside wall. Oliver's car was undamaged.
On the restart Ramsden, Stevens, and Whitmore went three wide into turn 3 and made it without incident. Stevens assumed the lead and would not lose it for the rest of the event. On lap 33 the close racing at the front finally broke loose and Ramsden was spun while on the outside three wide entering one. His race was finished. Also caught in the wreck was Nim Cross, Mike Bonoffski, and Shannon Whitmore.
The field was slimmed down to only 6 cars in the end and lap 39 wreck between Wise and Oliver. The race ended under yellow and real life stock car racer Darrin Stevens secured the first VROC race win.