By: Tim Doyle
October 3, 2021
The 2021 Coca Cola Bottling of Kokomo Indy Elite Series came to Iowa Speedway for its penultimate round at Iowa Speedway for 160 laps around the .894-mile oval. 16 cars entered the race.
Qualifying Recap
Jason Brophy snagged the pole with a lap of 16.469 by just three thousandths of a second over Philip Kraus (16.472). Andrew Wood showed well in 3rd with a 16.477 lap, another five thousandths off Kraus. Ray Kingsbury and David Adams rounded out the top 5.
Race Recap
While Brophy would lead from the start, Kingsbury would show his strength early in the race, moving into 3rd on Lap 6, then around Kraus for 2nd on Lap 12. He would catch Brophy by lap 16 and the two of them would battle side-by-side for 10 laps before Kingsbury would finally wrestle the lead away on Lap 26.
Kingsbury would stretch his lead out to just over five seconds before the race’s first round of pits stops started to occur on Lap 51 when he pitted from the lead. Brophy would pit from 2nd place a lap later with Kraus a lap after that handing the lead to Adam Blocker.
Just as the last cars were hitting pit road, Andrew Kinsella lost control bringing out the race’s first yellow. He would retire from the race and setup a huge wave around coming to the restart on Lap 60.
AJ Musselman would lead the field to green over Joe Branch, Blocker, Kingsbury and Adams with lapped cars mixed throughout the field. Once again, Kingsbury would be the class of the field, working his way through the cars ahead of him, re-taking the lead on Lap 77 from Musselman.
Just as he did on the first green flag run he would buildup a sizeable lead before having to pit again under green on Lap 108, handing the lead back to Musselman who continued to circle the short oval just ahead of Blocker and Branch.
Blocker would pit from 2nd on Lap 110 but as he rejoined the race on cold tires, contact would be made between he and Kraus who pitted a couple laps earlier. While Kraus suffered significant damage, he was able to rejoin the race, albeit off the pace.
The race would restart on Lap 118 with Kingsbury leading over Blocker, Musselman, Andreas Eik and Branch in 5th. Kingsbury would bring it home to the checkered flag with a dominant performance over Blocker and Musselman nearly five and 10 seconds back respectively. Eik and Henry Bennett rounded out the top 5 with Branch in 6th, the only cars on the lead lap.
Race Stats
Laps- 160
Cautions- 2
Lead Changes- 10
Fastest lap- 16.653 (Andrew Wood)
Cars on the lead lap- 6
Polesitter- Jason Brophy 16.469
Header Image By Tim Doyle/iRacing.com
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