Tanner finishes 12th in Indy Elite Series at Milwaukee
The iRacing Indy Elite Series contested its third round of the 2018 championship Sunday evening at the historic Milwaukee Mile.
Broadcasted live on RaceSpot.tv, 21 of iRacing's best IndyCar drivers took to the 1-mile oval for a grueling 150 laps of racing. The event also signaled the start of a new era in the Indy Elite Series, as the Dallara IR-18 Indy car made its debut to generally rave reviews.
Starting his third career race in the Indy Elite Series, Watkins Motorsports Group driver Tanner Watkins had his best qualifying run of this early season thus far. Driving in association with Absolute Zero and Powerslide Motorsports, Watkins qualified 3rd for the main event, with his AZ/Powerslide teammates Joshua Chin and Henry Bennett starting 1-2 in front of him.
The race shot off to a frenetic pace as drivers knew passing would be at a premium once the tires began to fall off. After a couple of yellow flags and short green flag runs, TW had sifted back to 8th place where he stayed until green flag pit stops about mid way through the race.
As many drivers (including Tanner) pitted for fuel, the yellow flag came out and trapped a handful of competitors behind the pace car. The WMG driver would lose five positions in this pit sequence and drop to the tail end of the lead lap in 13th place.
From there, it was a difficult road back to making positions. While Chin mounted a valiant effort to overtake Sadi Autosports' Bradley Walters for the lead, Watkins tried to play the fuel strategy game for as long as possible. Finally, when the yellow did not come we called TW in for fuel and tires for the final stanza.
While running 11th, TW was pushing hard to overtake Joe Flanagan on older tires when the WMG machine went for a spin with just over 10 laps remaining in the event to bring out a yellow. In the spin, TW lost a spot to teammate Henry Bennett, who would finish ahead of him by the checkered flag.
Tanner would bring home his WMG/Absolute Zero/Powerslide Dallara IR-18 in 12th place. With the finish, the California native moved from 18th to 15th in points and stayed on the lead lap for the entire race.
"Every race I feel like I'm saying that was the toughest race I have ran before," Watkins explained post-race. "It is definitely tough running with these guys, especially on these flat, short ovals where I have a lot to learn still. Either way, we had a great qualifying effort after finally finishing a qual run the way we should. Big thanks for John Hajek-Doggett for a great qualifying set and the effort of Andrew Kinsella and the entire Absolute Zero/Powerslide Motorsports team on the race set.
"This stretch from the season opener to Indianapolis was, admittedly, going to be a difficult start to the year for me so to run around the top ten for these races would be a win for me early on. I am learning a bunch running with the talent in this series and everyone at Absolute Zero and Powerslide, so certainly it is making me better. Big thanks to the Avery Huffman Defeat DIPG Foundation for their support as well, and we will have a great paint scheme reveal coming soon."
As previously mentioned, Tanner currently stands 15th in the Indy Elite Series championship after three rounds. The next race will be held April 3 at the newly rebranded ISM (formerly Phoenix) Raceway. The green flag will drop at 8:00 PM Eastern time with broadcast information TBA.
Indy Elite Series Race Set-Up
Round Four of the Indy Elite Series
Phoenix 150 at ISM Raceway
Tuesday, April 3 at 8:00 PM Eastern
Video broadcast courtesy of RaceSpot TV.
