Jimmy Mullis put Garrett Lowe into the wall coming off Turn 4 in the final lap of overtime before taking the checkered flag at a virtual Nashville Superspeedway on Tuesday night for his first eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series win in two years.
As both drivers came down the home stretch, Mullis, in the No. 46 Chevrolet, tapped Lowe’s bumper to push the No. 15 Ford aside. That allowed Mullis to cruise to the finish line, with Lowe coming in third behind Dylan Duval in the No. 41 Ford. Duval was 0.126 second behind and Lowe finished 0.159 second behind.
Lowe screamed in frustration as the move was made, while Mullis let out a sigh of relief following the completion of the race.
“There’s gonna be a lot of opinions about that right there. I definitely wasn’t gonna wreck him, but I did hit him and we were racing hard,” said Mullis, a resident of Midland, N.C. “I was tight, and I’m not gonna sit here and act like I wasn’t trying to make contact and try to race it out to the line.
“I want to win so bad. I feel like I’ve been so frickin’ close this year. We’ve had so much speed. … It feels good to finally have something get closed out.”
Safe to say, Lowe was not pleased with Mullis’ maneuver.
“I could have shipped him off in the corner and just drove through him like there wasn’t any tomorrow and had myself a nice win, and be in the playoffs,” said Lowe, a native of Gastonia, N.C. “But I thought I’d be courteous and at least race him with some respect. … He just decided he didn’t wanna race like that.
“Rest assured, the (No.) 46 will never be race clean again.”
After Tuesday’s finish, Lowe said he probably will take a more aggressive approach on the track.
Malik Ray (No. 7 Ford) and Vicente Salas (No. 55 Chevrolet) finished in fourth and fifth, respectively, to round out the top five.
The series continues on July 25 at a virtual New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
–Field Level Media
