Alfalla wins at Daytona in wild iRacing opener

With thousands watching via the live broadcast on iRacing.com, Florida's Ray Alfalla came home the winner in the season-opening race of the 2011 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship at Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday. Alfalla (Cape Coral, Fla.) pitted during a mid-race caution, gambling there would be more yellow flags before the finish. Sure enough, Jesse Atchison's (Prince Frederick, Md.) crash on Lap 86 not only put Alfalla in the lead, the resulting caution ensured he had enough fuel to make the distance to the finish.

The Miami resident led the final 15 laps to beat Pedro Mojica (Killeen, Texas) and Josh Parker (Cranston, R.I.) to the checkered flag.

The night began with one of the closest qualifying sessions in series history with Derek Wood (Lincoln, Neb.) pacing the 49 entrants with a lap of 47.151 seconds. So how close was the field? Just ask New York's Byron Daley, who missed the race by qualifying 41st with a lap of 47.245 seconds. A mere .09 seconds separated first from 41st on the starting grid.

Defending series champion Richard Towler (Hull, England) started the season from the ninth position while restrictor plate racing master Atchison rolled off deep in the field, starting 32nd. Another pre-race favorite, Tyler Hudson (Brandon, Miss.), just squeaked into the race in the 36th spot and faced a daunting task of coming through the field.

Wood led the field to the green, but did not stay in front for long as he and 2010 runner-up Brad Davies (Wauchula, Fla.), John Gorlinsky (Manasquan, N.J.), Thomas Lewandowski (Buffalo, N.Y.), Steve Sheehan (Schenectady, N.Y.) and Parker headed to pit road on Lap 8, going for a two-stop strategy. While the rest of the field, now led by Thomas Hazard (Rochester, Minn.), stayed out and saved gas, Wood and company lined-up single-file and began to run down the new leaders. All that strategy went out the window with the first caution on Lap 33.

Coming through Turn 1, Matt Sentell (Rome, Ga.) got a bit too high and scraped the wall, triggering a melee in the middle of the corner. When the smoke cleared, nine cars were either out of the race or heavily damaged.

"I hate [restrictor plate] racing but there's no excuse for that," Sentell said. "I lost concentration, got in the wall and took out a bunch of good cars."

The race restarted with Jordan Erickson (Bismarck, N.D.) at the point and it looked like the field would be content to ride it out until the final round of pit stops. The calm didn't last long, however, as Nolan Scott (Chattanooga, Tenn.) blew his engine while running eighth on Lap 46, resulting in another caution.

Most of the field pitted immediately, banking on there being more cautions. Wood and company again employed a different strategy, stopping one lap before the green and hoping the crashing was over. If there were no more cautions, they would have just enough fuel to make it to the finish.

Atchison won the race off pit road and assumed the lead, which he looked to hold until the end of the race. Unfortunately, Lap 86 saw him slip-up a lane coming off Turn 4 into Hazard's path. Atchison spun through the tri-oval grass and back onto the track, resulting in another big accident. While the crash ended some drivers' shot at a win, it was exactly what those who were short on fuel needed to get to the finish without pitting. One of them was Alfalla, who found himself leading Mojica.

Although there would be one more caution, Alfalla got a great jump on the restart and crossed the finish line 0.1 seconds ahead of Mojica with Parker in third, Darrin Stevens (West Boylston, Mass.) in fourth and Lewandowski in fifth.

When asked about his victory, Alfalla did not need many words to describe the win, simply saying it felt "amazing."

Alfalla's win puts him in the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship points lead as the series heads to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway. You can watch the live broadcast of the race at www.iracing.com beginning at 9 p.m. ET on March 1.