{"id":23661,"date":"2020-04-15T16:30:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T20:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/?p=23661"},"modified":"2020-04-15T16:30:25","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T20:30:25","slug":"michael-mcdowell-and-others-dropped-from-iracing-event-at-richmond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/2020\/04\/15\/michael-mcdowell-and-others-dropped-from-iracing-event-at-richmond\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael McDowell and others dropped from iRacing event at Richmond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-23662\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2020\/04\/michaelmcdowell.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2020\/04\/michaelmcdowell.jpg 640w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2020\/04\/michaelmcdowell-300x199.jpg 300w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2020\/04\/michaelmcdowell-594x394.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2020\/04\/michaelmcdowell-632x420.jpg 632w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The upcoming NASCAR iRacing event at Richmond will have just 26 cars, a nine car drop from the previous events. No heat races or qualifying events will take place to set the field.<\/p>\n<p>Of course not everyone is happy about the number of entries dropping with claims that politics is the case of the problem.<\/p>\n<p>After a fan asked Fox Sports reporter Bob Pockrass about the reason for the smaller entry list the answer from Pockrass was deemed insufficient by Michael McDowell.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Less experienced drivers. The 5 least experienced drivers are still in the race Bob! You know better, it is just politics. Unfortunate for our partners that we signed this week to get uninvited after running all the races.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael McDowell (@Mc_Driver) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mc_Driver\/status\/1250510775761997824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The advent of iRacing with NASCAR drivers came after a scheduled tripleheader at Atlanta Motor Speedway was postponed March 13. After NASCAR, FOX Sports and iRacing joined forces to create a fill-in series the events have been broadcast on national tv stations. Denny Hamlin won the series\u2019 first race March 22 at virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, with Timmy Hill (Texas Motor Speedway) and William Byron (Bristol) following with wins before a break for Easter.<\/p>\n<table width=\"494\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>No.<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Driver<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Affiliation<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>Kurt Busch<\/td>\n<td>Chip Ganassi Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>Brad Keselowski<\/td>\n<td>Team Penske<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>Austin Dillon<\/td>\n<td>Richard Childress Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>Kevin Harvick<\/td>\n<td>Stewart-Haas Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>Ross Chastain<\/td>\n<td>Roush Fenway Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>9<\/td>\n<td>Chase Elliott<\/td>\n<td>Hendrick Motorsports<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>11<\/td>\n<td>Denny Hamlin<\/td>\n<td>Joe Gibbs Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>12<\/td>\n<td>Ryan Blaney<\/td>\n<td>Team Penske<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>13<\/td>\n<td>Ty Dillon<\/td>\n<td>Germain Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>14<\/td>\n<td>Clint Bowyer<\/td>\n<td>Stewart-Haas Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>17<\/td>\n<td>Chris Buescher<\/td>\n<td>Roush Fenway Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>18<\/td>\n<td>Kyle Busch<\/td>\n<td>Joe Gibbs Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>20<\/td>\n<td>Erik Jones<\/td>\n<td>Joe Gibbs Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>21<\/td>\n<td>Matt DiBenedetto<\/td>\n<td>Wood Brothers Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>22<\/td>\n<td>Joey Logano<\/td>\n<td>Team Penske<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>24<\/td>\n<td>William Byron<\/td>\n<td>Hendrick Motorsports<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>31<\/td>\n<td>Tyler Reddick<\/td>\n<td>Richard Childress Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>37<\/td>\n<td>Ryan Preece<\/td>\n<td>JTG Daugherty Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>38<\/td>\n<td>John Hunter Nemechek<\/td>\n<td>Front Row Motorsports<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>43<\/td>\n<td>Bubba Wallace<\/td>\n<td>Richard Petty Motorsports<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>48<\/td>\n<td>Jimmie Johnson<\/td>\n<td>Hendrick Motorsports<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>51<\/td>\n<td>Garrett Smithley<\/td>\n<td>Invitational<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>66<\/td>\n<td>Timmy Hill<\/td>\n<td>Invitational<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>77<\/td>\n<td>Parker Kligerman<\/td>\n<td>Invitational<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>88<\/td>\n<td>Alex Bowman<\/td>\n<td>Hendrick Motorsports<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>95<\/td>\n<td>Christopher Bell<\/td>\n<td>Leavine Family Racing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The upcoming NASCAR iRacing event at Richmond will have just 26 cars, a nine car drop from the previous events. No heat races or qualifying events will take place to set the field. Of course not everyone is happy about the number of entries dropping with claims that politics is the case of the problem. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,786,788],"tags":[789,434,708],"coauthors":[675],"class_list":["post-23661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cup-series","category-nascar-topstory","category-news","tag-front","tag-michael-mcdowell","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23661"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}