Story and Images by David Anderson
April 30th, 2023 – With three races into the 2023 iRacing Porsche Cup Series, the official support series to our iRacing Team Endurance Series we have our first repeat winner. Congratulations to Michael Parker for taking the victory at Fuji in a thrilling race that saw him hold off a hard charging Blake Reynolds from the Penguin R/C simulation team in the final laps.
Parker would lead all 19 laps of the race after Pole Sitter Cameron Barker had trouble on lap one as well as defending series Champion Miguel Colon as several cars had to make unexpected stops to deal with issues from the unforgiving sausage curbs around the Fuji Circuit. Series regular Chad Dick also had to serve a pit lane penalty as well from an issue at the previous race.
Blake Reynolds was one of the cars that would suffer some early damage in the race, but that would not prevent him from charging up through the field and getting the gap down to less than a second by the final lap to Parker. However, Parker was said to have been managing the gap slightly knowing full well the situation he was in.
The Final results from this race would see Michael Parker with the win, followed by Blake Reynolds and then Miguel Colon on the podium. Rounding out the top 5 in the 19 car field were Tristan Martz with another strong run and JT Tami the overall Porsche Cup Champion from 2022.
The series will not have much of a break as they will return back to the track for action at Lemans on May 7th for round 4 of the series. Parker now has a solid lead with two wins with an 18 point gap over 2nd place Tristan Martz. Brian Szabelski is quietly putting together a nice season in 3rd position right now wit Edward Nelson and Blake Reynolds completing the top 5.
Please enjoy the full broadcast and also a huge thanks to our series sponsors Penguin r/c Simulation and Simrace247.com for their tremendous support and partnership with CMS!
Michael Parker starts lap 2 at Porsche Cup Fuji with the lead as Chad Dick is seen coming out of the pits after a penalty (above)
Michael Parker narrowly holds off Blake Reynolds at the line at Fuji to take his 2nd win of the year (above)