Parker White wins at Bristol
The last great colosseum produced another exciting race on the Road to Pro schedule. The high banked short track saw side by side racing, multiple lead changes and multiple yellow flags. After 175 laps of racing around the half mile track, the top split of the Road to Pro Qualifying series saw another first-time winner in Parker White.
Parker White dominates
Parker White, the 15-year-old Maine native, came into the race with the highest iRating of any driver in the field, thus earning him the title of the 1 car. White qualified with a time of 14.579 which was only .060 seconds off of the pole sitter Jonathon Dulaney. After posting this time, he would start in tenth place. Some people may think Bristol is a track where it is hard to pass, White proved them wrong though, as he only needed 38 laps to find his way to the lead. When speaking with Podium eSports commentator Kenneth Bueno, White said “…. I managed the tires right…” when asked what he felt contributed to his victory. White was able to take advantage of every restart and quickly pull away from his opponents. For most of the race under green flag conditions, White was able to hold a lead in the area of 0.8 to 1.0 seconds White now becomes the fifth different driver to win a top split Road to Pro race in the 2022 season.
“…. I managed the tires right…”
Parker White
Minter almost did it again
“It was really a great drive; I was super happy. Everything was falling my way.”
Tucker Minter
Tucker Minter was a winner two weeks ago at Richmond, which you can read about here, and when the checkered flag flew at Bristol, he was only .268 seconds away from doing it again. Minter qualified 14th and had to work his way through the field. Following the restart after a caution on lap 78, Minter jumped into the top 5 and never looked back. Minter then spent a majority of the time battling with Boyd Hoggan in side-by-side battles. On the last restart however, Minter made a charge for White including a brief moment of getting up to his back quarter panel to attempt a pass. “It was really a great drive; I was super happy. Everything was falling my way.” was how Minter described his race in a post-race interview. After winning two weeks ago and finishing 2nd at Bristol, Minter now finds himself 7th in Road to Pro series points.
Cautions were the story
In a race with 9 cautions, there were definitely wrecked cars and points contenders affected in the process. Twice within the last 33 laps, Brad Davies and Daniel Roeper made contact, and brought out back-to-back cautions. As is the norm at Bristol, these wrecks had more victims than just the two drivers. Unfortunately for Kenny Brady, he was a victim of both wrecks and finished many laps down because of this. Another victim of a late race caution was the pole sitter Jonathon Dulaney. With less than ten laps to go, Dulaney and Joel Blewitt made contact causing a multi car incident. Due to damage received in this wreck, Dulaney finished three laps down in 21st position.
DeMerchant retains the points lead
While this was an eventful race for Seth DeMerchant, he was able to finish well enough to maintain the points lead in the Road to Pro points standings. The night quickly became exciting for him on lap 4, as his truck got loose and quickly checked up the field. After qualifying 14th, DeMerchant spent more than half the race running between 10th and 20th place. As wrecks and incidents happened in the late stages of the race, DeMerchant was able to avoid being involved. When the last caution of the night flew with 9 laps to go Demerchant finally found himself in the top 5 and gained one more spot on the restart to finish in 4th place.
Dover is next
On Thursday April 28th, the drivers of the Road to Pro qualifying series will take on the Monster Mile known as Dover. The fast paced one-mile track should provide lots of racing excitement, and tense moments for the drivers as they look to gain every point possible. With only three races left in stage 1 of the season, drivers on the cut line will look to gain every point possible. You will be able to watch flag to flag coverage of the race live on the Podium eSports Twitch channel.