Tanner finishes runner-up in wild CFRL Championship round at Iowa
NEWTON, I.A. - While the result may say 2nd place, the top-three finish does not tell the whole story for Watkins Motorsports Group's lone entry in Tuesday night's CFRL IndyCar Championship round from Iowa Speedway.
With John missing the event tonight, Tanner carried the team flag to the starting grid... even though qualifying served the team a challenge. As the qualifying session opened and drivers began taking their laps to set the field for tonight's race, TW's internet went out for two and a half minutes. With qualifying being a five minute session, this left the #3 team very little time to make the race on time.
Thankfully, connection was restored and Tanner managed to get the car in the field with a lap of 17.006 seconds (185.229 MPH), good for 7th place on the 20-car grid.
The race started out hectic, with multiple cautions scattered through the first 50 laps. Championship leader Austin Espitee was eliminated after 42 laps (23 of which he led), thus creating an opportunity for other drivers to gain in the points standings this evening.
Our #3 Avery Huffman Defeat DIPG Foundation IndyCar was strong all night and luckily we managed to keep it out of trouble, narrowly avoiding accidents with other drivers on more than one occasion. Tanner led the race at lap 149 in front of a tough Joe Hassert, and that was the last time we were in front. We would cycle between 2nd and 3rd place for the remainder of the evening, just holding onto a podium result down the stretch as TW battled a gas pedal that was not registering full throttle.
With Espitee finishing 13th this evening, TW's runner-up finish is a big gain for the points chase as the series heads to Sonoma Raceway next week to cap off the first half of the season. This post will be updated with links to the race results, series standings and replays of the official race broadcast and Tanner's in-car camera that was used this evening.
Thank you all for the support and see you next week!
Official Race Broadcast presented by OSR Network : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGXAdeGkEhw
Tanner's In-Car Video Feed for Tonight's Race : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFcxksGdy2I
CFRL IndyCar Championship Standings : http://www.racecfrl.com/standings
