Welcome everybody, this is Cameron Gulley from RFRL and TurnSectorMedia to provide an overall recap for the week! I figured since we have a newly added News section to the website, and figured we could add a new type of column for fans and drivers to read. Only the Friday and Saturday events will have some action shots to go in the article this week, but thats where you, the drivers can help out. Submit your shots into the racing pics and crash pics channels on discord, and you might end up with your submissions in that week's article!
It was another very exciting week of racing in the Rat Fink Racing League, with 5 series running 4 different types of vehicles this week, all of which never had a dull moment for the drivers, and the fans got quite the show for each race!
Silly Season kicks into overdrive this week, one team shuts down, others find competitive teams
On July 26th, 2026, Quinones Autosport shut its doors, and the next day, former owner Phoebe Quinones had signed with Wynne Brothers Racing. Could it be Phoebe was having issues getting some teammates, or changed his sights to being with an already established and competitive team? Phoebe had answered with "Without teammates, there is no Shake to my Bake, no Ben to my Jerry, no AC to my DC. I'm a team player, and felt WBR is the place for me" On the other side of the garage, Robert Walton, a star and frontrunner in our now-defunct Late Model tour series, signed with RatFink Motorsports to bolster their already strong roster with another quick and consistent driver. Alloy Motorsports also made a new acquisition, signing RFRL rookie Ian Blanchard to their stacked roster. Mid Pack Motorsports also made a move, picking up Codi Smith for their team.
How will all these moves pan out? Will we see some teams getting a boost in their championship standings from their new drivers hoping to make a good first impression? We're near the halfway mark in most of our series, and these moves could be a help in getting them into the playoffs, or another valuable asset for points if one of their drivers slips up in the race. The action on the track will tell us the full story in the next few weeks of RFRL action!
Gordon takes pole, but Traas, Reeder, and Crosby take podium in a long-run focused showdown in the Midwest
Starting out with our most prominent series on Tuesday, the RFRL Elite Truck Series rolled their way into Iowa on Tuesday for round 13 with a 29 car field. The ⅞ mile short track has a lot of banking and a rough surface to keep everyone on their toes, and in qualifying, Jesse Gordon was the best of the bunch snagging the pole from John Crosby for the start of the race. Through the 150 grueling laps, only one caution came out for 4 laps, which meant a lot of long green flag runs and even some green flag pit stops at a short track, a rare sight even for the real life drivers in the truck series. By the time the checkered flag flew, we had a season high 19 drivers with no incident points, 8 total lead changes, and Jordan Traas pulling across the finish line first ahead of Dakota Reeder by 8.07 seconds, completing a very impressive run which found him gaining 20 positions from the start, earring hard charger honors, leading 38 laps, the 2nd most of any driver, and managed to put all but 3 other drivers a lap down. His win also helps him get a 38 point gap over Jesse Gordon for 1st place in the standings, who Traas is tied with wins for the season, each with 4. Dakota reeder came in 2nd, leading 3 laps on the day, and gaining 3 spots from his starting position, also coming away with 2 crucial bonus points to maintain a 26 point lead over Brandon Hinton for 4th in the season standings. John Crosby managed to grab the bottom step of the podium, finishing 9.6 seconds behind Reeder, while leading a race-high 72 laps on the day, and grabbing the fastest lap of the race, earning him another bonus point of the 3 total on top of his 34, matching his points for the race with Dakota Reeder with 37. With that his points helped him slip past Tommy Wynne in the points standings for 9th, with 1 win on the season, and 150 points back from leader Traas.
The playoff picture with just one race remaining in the regular season before the chase begins, our most prominent series has a tight battle for the top 2 spots, with Traas and Gordon only separated by 38 points, while the cutoff line is a bit more spaced out, with Tommy Wynne holding onto 10th place with 259 points, 43 points ahead of Colton Miller, who is on the outside looking in with their rookie season being full of highs and lows, and holding onto 216 points, with Cody Deak a mere 12 points behind Colton with 204 points.
The team championship picture is slowly taking shape as we start to near the end of the season, Alloy Motorsports, with their 5 wins as a team, is well ahead of 2nd place Mid Pack Motorsports, who has 2 wins as a team, with Alloy having 689 points to midpack’s 606. 3rd place belongs to Bad Company Racing, who also has 2 wins to their name, and 548 points, leapfrogging Ratfink Motorsports and holding an advantage by 6 points for that final podium spot.
As we look to next week, the drivers will jump for joy knowing the regular season finale is coming to NASCAR's home, under the bright lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway. A home track for many drivers in real life, the same can also be said for a multitude of our drivers in RFRL, which might push them a little harder to get a good finish or even steal away a checkered flag from some of our regular frontrunners. Will we see more intense battles between drivers near the cutoff, or will everybody run conservative to preserve their seed in the current chase picture? Tune in next tuesday on youtube, where Oskar and Will will be there with us to call the on-track action as we set the chase grid for the final leg of the season.
Lovelace, Brent, Curtis dominate the field in a Caution-Free strategy race in St. Louis
On Wednesday, the RFRL Elite O’Reilly Auto Parts series headed from the northeast down to the Gateway to the West, to the flat yet tricky World Wide Technology Raceway for the 9th round and the final race in July. 13 drivers made the trip for the 140 lap event being run under the lights in St Louis, and in qualifying, it was Tommy Wynne taking his 3rd career pole in qualifying, with Judson Curtis taking the outside pole for the main event.
Once the green flag flew, the next flag the drivers would see was the white flag, running a very clean, caution free race with 9 of the 13 participants completing the event incident free, with 7 drivers finishing on the lead lap. It was a test of patience, pit strategy, and attrition, and Zachary Lovelace was the driver with prevailing strategy to take his 4th win of the season, his 7th of his career in a clinic on the rest of the field, crossing the line ahead of Tony Brent by 12.017 seconds, leading 45 laps on the night, and earring hard charger honors for winning from the outside of the 4th row. Tony Brent put up a solid fight for 2nd, moving up 3 positions from his start, but collecting 2 incident points which kept him from getting any bonus points. Judson Curtis was the main driver Lovelace had to battle, leading a race high 71 laps and collecting himself a crucial bonus point on the night. Tommy Wynne who started on pole, collected fastest lap honors, led 18 laps, and ran an incident free race for 4 bonus points had a disappointing night ending up 7th after a stellar early run.
The points picture at the top has Lovelace keeping a distance over 2nd place Curtis, his win now giving him a 38 point advantage and 318 points on the season, while Curtis’ 3rd place effort managed to leapfrog up into 2nd in the standings as we near the halfway point of the regular season. Jonathan Burt’s disappointing night with a 9th place finish has resulted in him slipping down to 3rd, a mere 12 points behind Judson in the regular season championship. Tommy Wynne with his disappointing night resulted in him being knocked off the podium in 4th, just 10 points behind Burt, and the highest ranked driver in the points without a win.
The playoff cutoff picture has also changed, with Tom Ringer’s top 5 effort on Wednesday pulling him into a tie for 8th in the points with Cody Deak, who has slipped down 3 positions in the standings after his frustrating effort at Gateway. Cameron Gulley has moved his way into a playoff spot tonight, knocking David Burciki down into 11th after he did not run Wednesday night’s event, Gulley now holding a 17 point advantage over David.
The team points picture didnt change at the top, with Texas Speed Sim Racing extending their massive lead over everyone else with their series-high 5 wins on the season, their lead now a commanding 133 over Alloy Motorsports in 2nd place. The team points however, become much tighter from 2nd on back, with Alloy only being a scant 14 points ahead of Wynne Brothers Racing, holding 2 wins to the teams name to Wynne Brothers’ 0. G-Force Simsports is even closer, just 7 points out of the last podium spot, and RatFink a bit further back, 34 points behind G-Force.
Next week, the series heads north to the birthplace of the american automobile, Michigan International Speedway for the 10th round of the year. The daunting 2 miler is fast, and will potentially cater to some new faces near the front after a 3 week journey through some of the series’ more difficult tracks. Will we see a new face in victory lane? Will we finally have another multi-win driver besides Lovelace? Tune in next wednesday for the endless excitement and long green flag runs the RFRL O’Reilly Auto Parts series regularly delivers to us week after week!
Traas, Ringer, Acosta take podium in a 3-caution war at Nashville Superspeedway
Thursday night had the RFRL Elite Next Gen series trundle its way into the Music City. The fast, blistering concrete surface of Nashville Superspeedway awaited our 18 entrants for round 9 of the series, and another exciting race under the lights for 125 laps around the lightly banked 1.3 mile track.
Qualifying was an event in and of itself, with several drivers within just a couple of tenths of each other, but at the end of the 5 minute session, it was Colton Miller collecting their 2nd career pole, edging out Ian Blanchard for that crucial inside front row starting spot. Points leader Tom Ringer grabbed up the 4th starting spot, but elected to start from the pit lane.
Once the green flag came out, the start of the race went smooth for the first 15 laps before we had our first incident, and from there, only 2 more caution-causing incidents would bunch the field back up and bring them into the pits, with 9 laps being run under the yellow flag. The race was full of attrition, however, with only ⅓ rd of the field completing the distance without incident. 4 different drivers put their car’s nose to the wind tonight, and the race boiled down to fuel strategy, with Jordan Traas taking the lead with just 15 to go after the last car entered the pits in front of him, stretching out his fuel just enough to cross the line 1.064 seconds ahead of Tom Ringer. This was the 2nd week in a row Traas took the checkered flag, his 2nd this season, and only the 3rd driver this season to get more than 1 win. Tom Ringer couldn’t be disappointed with his night, finishing 2nd behind Jordan, but unfortunately not picking up any bonus points after receiving 2 incident points during the event. The breakout performer in 3rd tonight was Carlos Acosta, Leading 42 laps on the night, and being the highest incident-free finisher in the race. Acosta only has 6 career starts in the RFRL Next Gen Series, but is going to be someone to look out for very soon, only having one finish outside the top 10, and his effort at nashville tonight resulting in his 3rd podium of the year. Could he be one of our newest dark horse contenders?
The front row starters, however were not so lucky, with polesitter Colton Miller pulling off early after 44 laps, finishing 18th. Jason Coursey, who led a race-high 54 laps on the night, ended up in an incident on lap 55, ending his night early in the garage, frustrating for someone that was up front for the entirety of the first part of the race. Ian Blanchard, our outside pole sitter, also ended the night with a disappointing result of 12th, also collecting 2 incident points. Cole Morton had a roller coaster of a night with a few spins, but by the end of the race managed to steal away the fastest lap for a critical bonus point in the chase for the playoffs, and managed a top 10 finish in 8th. Our hard charger award goes to Brian Sousa, who started 15th and ended the night incident free, collecting another top 5 on the season.
The driver points battle is quickly heating up after 9 rounds, but the top 3 remain unchanged. Tom Ringer remains up front on the back of his series-high 3 wins on the year, holding a comfortable 27 point margin to Brandon Hinton, whos killer consistency has helped him maintain an 8 point gap over 3rd, who is Tommy Wynne. Tommy, carried by his 4 top 5s and trio of podiums, sits on the lower step of the podium with a 13 point advantage over Brian Sousa.
The cutoff line has had a lot of changes from P6 on back, with Sam Boutwell gaining an impressive 4 spots after his 9th place finish at Nashville, now sitting a fairly comfortable 21 points over the cut line. Colton Miller slips down a spot to 7th, only 1 point behind Boutwell and 20 points above the cut line. Carlos Acosta was our biggest mover in points this week, moving up an incredible 6 spots to break through into the 8th spot after his impressive run at nashville tonight. Tiyler Walts has also pushed his way into the playoffs, moving up from 11th to 9th, and now sitting 5 points above the cut line. Cameron Gulley dropped 2 spots after his 14th place result, now sitting on the cut line and only 1 point ahead of Chuck Burley, who tumbled 4 spots and is now on the outside looking in.
Looking at the battle for the team championship, we had a shift in the top 3. While the top spot is still held by RatFink Motorsports by a fairly comfortable 41 point gap, Wynne Brothers racing moved up into 2nd on the back of a great effort by Phoebe Quinones on his debut with a top 10 finish to go with Tommy Wynne's top 10. They hold onto 2nd by 5 points from South Shore Racing, who also moved up a spot on the merit of Carlos Acosta's impressive P3 finish and Sam Boutwell's P9 finish to climb up over Whiskey throttle by 2 points. WTR took a bit of a tumble all the way down to 4th with the absence of Crosby, but the bleeding was stemmed by Brian Sousa's top 5 run.
Next week the RFRL Next Gen series heads out west to beautiful Fontana California and the 2 mile Auto Club Speedway for round 10. Auto Club is a fan favorite among many drivers in the RFRL, and we could see more people just pushing their cars a little bit harder to put their name down as an RFRL winner. Tune in next thursday night on youtube to witness all the excitement and hard battles this series has to offer!
Traas, Etheridge, Crosby your top 3 at the Monster Mile in a 1 caution, action packed Godsby race
Friday night, the RFRL Godsby ARCA series rolled into Dover Motor Speedway for Round 9 of their championship, with 17 haulers entering the Monster Mile. It was a blistering hot track, but the higher horsepower ARCA cars were found to be crazy tight by a lot of the drivers as they unloaded and got onto the track to practice for the 150 lap event, hoping that they wouldnt be the next victim of Miles the Monster, who takes no prisoners at the heavily banked 1 mile oval.
As qualifying started, nobody expected rookie Kyre Mullaney to put his number at the top of the scoring pylon, but that was exactly what he did, taking inside first row as Victor Etheridge took outside pole. Points leader Jonathan Burt started 5th, and 2nd in points Brian Sousa started all the way back in 15th.
Once the green flag dropped, everyone got into their rhythm, but Kyre immediately gave way to Victor Etheridge who immediately put his nose into the clean air, and ended up leading a race-high 59 laps, crucial at a track like Dover and in these high downforce cars that can be upset by the wake of dirty air they leave behind them. The yellow flag only flew once, a very rare sight at the monster mile as Ryan Godfrey and Robert Walton tangled with each other out of 4 to bring out the yellow on lap 29. The remaining 120 laps were a war of attrition, each driver trying their best not to hit the wall, racing hard and extremely close with each other, and even some minor slipups that the skilled drivers of our league can save the car from to prevent a bigger incident. The bigger issues happened on pit road, with Victor Etheridge having a mishap upon entry, and John Crosby running out of fuel on the track, his 2nd week in a row with an issue that he would have to come back from. At the front, however, it was Jordan Traas putting on a clinic for the field to observe in awe as he took his 3rd checkered flag of the season, a staggering 10.6 seconds ahead of his teammate, Victor Etheridge, of whom Crosby was slowly starting to reel in as the laps clicked down. Traas made up 12 spots and earned hard charger honors, while 2nd in points Brian Sousa also made a big charge to the front, gaining 11 spots to finish 4th, while also taking a sizeable chunk out of Jonathan Burt’s points lead. Burt had some problems early and missed on pit strategy, leaving him down in a still-good but disappointing 10th place on the night.
As we look at the top of the Drivers points after round 9, Jonathan Burt still sits atop the standings with 301 and remains with 4 wins on the season, with Brian Sousa now 36 points back in 2nd, but tonights winner Jordan Traas gains a lot with his 3rd win near the halfway point, now sitting just 1 point behind Sousa for 2nd, and a mere 4 points ahead of tonight’s 3rd place finisher, John Crosby, who is not going to go down without a fight.
Now looking at the other side at the chase cutoff, we had 3 big movers, but a lot more that tumbled down the ranks. Victor Etheridge with his impressive P2 run tonight moves up and over Tom Ringer for 6th, who had a disappointing run tonight finishing 16th, but led 3 laps for a crucial bonus point. Brandon Hinton gained an unprecedented 7 spots in the standings tonight, moving up into 8th by having a clean, quiet 9th place finish tonight. Chuck Burley also moved up 4 spots into 9th after his 7th place finish at the Monster Mile. Seth Cooper is now sitting 10th on the cutoff line, just 2 points ahead of Shaun Dionne, who had a solid yet frustrating 12th place finish tonight, and now sits just 2 points out of the playoff picture as it stands tonight.
Looking at the team championship standings, it really is a 3 horse race, but even then, Alloy Motorsports with their very strong 1-2 finish tonight pad an already large lead of 501. With their 5 wins across the team, they hold a strong 33 point lead over the 3-win Whiskey Throttle in 2nd. RatFink Motorsports then holds the third position with a single win to their credit, but just a mere 14 marks back of WTR. Behind RatFink is Texas Speed Sim Racing, a staggering 95 points back of third.
Next week the Godsby ARCA series heads to the music city for another race on concrete at the Nashville Superspeedway. How will the cars handle Nashville with its single groove, and will they be just as tight as this week? Tune in next Friday and join Oskar Jensen and Cameron Gulley in the booth as they bring you live flag to flag coverage every friday of this very high energy iRacing series.
Crosby, Burt, and Parent are the class of the field under the midwest lights
To close out our long week of nonstop action in the RFRL, the leagues best drivers blew in from the east on into the cornfields of the Hawkeye state, but 15 years in the past to have an event at Iowa Speedway for round 5 of the RFRL Pro Truck Season, but with a different surface from Tuesday night. 15 drivers made the journey out to the lovely if flat midwest to compete for a grueling 150 laps under the lights of Iowa.
Qualifying got underway in the evening hours, and the surface early on from practice into qualifying still proved very challenging, with many trucks fighting loose on the exits of 2 and 4. At the end of our 5 minute time trials, Ryan Godfrey was rewarded with his first career pole in the RFRL in just his 12th career start. His teammate John Crosby grabbed outside pole for a Whiskey Throttle and a Dubby Energy lockout of the front row.
As the green flag flew, the field strung out quite a bit and with these elite drivers of this series, able to handle 10% more power than the tuesday truck package, the field strung out and a lot of clean, close, thrilling racing was had, and we even got a green flag stop from laps 50-75, drivers trying and gambling with different strategies, until a Caution came out around lap 93, with Robert Walton catching a tough break and hitting the turn 1 wall, throwing all strategy out of the window for all the other drivers. After 3 laps to clean up the mess, pit, and regroup, Crosby pulled away and never looked back, leading a race high 131 laps on the night as he took the field to school in a showing of domination, also taking home the fastest lap award and another critical bonus point of his 3 for the night. Finishing 5 seconds behind was Jonathan Burt, while not leading any laps, a good 2nd place and incident free finish also garnered him a bonus point for the night. 3rd place and 9 seconds behind Crosby was Todd Parent, who also ran a clean race and grabbed a nice podium finish tonight along with a bonus point. Only 4 cars finished on the lead lap, the last of which being Ryan Godfrey, racking up his first career top 5 and a league-best finish of 4th tonight. Out of our 15 drivers, only 4 picked up any incident points, a true statement of this league being the best and cleanest of our league fighting it out on the track with a more powerful and harder to control machine.
Looking at our current points picture, Crosby's 3rd win of the young season puts him above the rest, giving him a fairly large gap over Brian Sousa of 24 points after just 5 rounds. Brian Sousa, ever so consistent and clean, grabbed another top 10 tonight, and is the sole driver to finish in the top 10 in every single race this season. This is a level of consistency that wins championships, but will he be able to grab a win soon? 10 points behind Sousa and new on the podium this season is Brandon Hinton, moving up 1 spot with a stellar 7th place finish after starting 13th, which gave him honors for hard charger on the night. He sits just 1 point above Tom Ringer, who has a win this season but hasnt been as consistent as Sousa or Hinton. Robert Walton sits tied with Ringer after his disappointing finish tonight, tumbling 2 spots in the standings, but nowhere close to out of contention in this still-early championship battle
The picture near the chase cutoff is a different story, with 12 points separating 8th from 11th, and just 2 points separating 8th from 10th. Todd Parent broke down the door of the chase cutoff with his podium tonight, moving up 4 spots to 8th in points, and now sits just 1 point above Chuck Burley. Chuck also moved up a spot with his top 10 effort tonight, moving up into 9th, as Cameron Gulley took a 2 position fall in the standings with his middling 12th place tonight, but holds a 10 point advantage to the first driver out, Shaun Dionne, who also gathered up his 2nd top 10 of the season.
The team standings remain unchanged for the top two, with Whiskey Throttle holding a monopoly on the top spot, and padding that lead with 2 drivers in the top 5 tonight, holding a 21 point advantage over RatFink Motorsports, who stemmed the bleeding with their own 2 best drivers tonight grabbing up top 5s, and holding a very comfortable 57 point lead over 3rd, who is new this week. That team that moved up into 3rd is Wynne Brothers Racing, whom didn't have the greatest team effort tonight, did have two drivers finish the race, and squeezes past and bumped Hinton Motorsports, who only had 1 driver in the field tonight.
As we leave Iowa Speedway, the League's finest set their sights to the south, where the eyes of Texas will be upon them as they make their trip to the Lone Star State. Texas Motor Speedway is a mixed track among our drivers, with some loving it, and some that would likely prefer to just head to the Buc-ee's across the street and get some fresh brisket. Who's going to come out on top in the battlegrounds of Denton? Will we see a new driver come up to challenge Mr. Dubby himself? Tune in next saturday night where the action is the hottest and the stakes are the highest, and brace yourself for never ending excitement.
That about wraps it up for what was a very eventful and exciting week of RFRL iRacing! I put a lot of work into this, and would love to hear your feedback in the discord about things we could possibly do to make the league look more professional, or even have a little help with the writing (I do not use ChatGPT and wrote this entire article by myself). This is something new, so everything will be a work in progress, but I appreciate all our participants, Tom Ringer for hosting this league, Jacob Williams and his company for being a partner, Chuck Burley for this wonderful website I get to post these on, and Steve Spinelli and Simfits for providing official RFRL merchandise for us to have.