Josh Parker to Make DARE Stock Debut Friday at Stafford
One of the most prominent oval racers on the iRacing service is set to make his real racing, stock car debut at the Stafford Motor Speedway this Friday night. Josh Parker (Exeter, RI) will be driving a DARE Stock race car out of the Rent a Racecar New England stable on Friday, May 11th at the Stafford Motor Speedway (CT) as a part of their Weekly Racing Series program. DARE Stock race cars are powered by V8 motors built on American fabricated chassis that resemble their street counterparts.
Parker, who drives online in the NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship (NiSWC), practiced a DARE Stock car during the Spring Sizzler weekend and was set to make his maiden race laps in the car one week ago but rain halted the plans of the 21 year old. “I am excited to get behind the wheel of the car again,” said Parker of his upcoming debut. “The car drove close to what I expected it would and I adapted pretty quickly over the practice laps I had. With those practice laps and the team backing me, I am more than ready to get on the track this Friday night!”
Parker began his racing career by running on simulators on his home computer. Currently, Parker runs on the iRacing Motorsports Simulation, which is recognized as the most accurate and popular oval track simulation in the world. He races in the NiSWC division, the highest competition in all of the iRacing service every second Tuesday night. He has recorded one win in his career at that level, combined with 187 other wins he has amassed in other competitions on the service in the last four years. Parker credits his knowledge and awareness skills within a car to iRacing. “You can make a lot of comparisons between the two,” Parker explains. “The awareness of being in traffic, racing against others along with what lines to take around a race track make the learning curve a bit smaller when you get to the real track. From practicing Stafford within the sim, I had an idea of what I needed to do when I got into the DARE Stock last month and picked the car up quickly in practice. If it wasn’t for iRacing, I would have been behind on that and I may not have felt ready to make my debut this soon.”
The car Parker will be driving on Friday night will be emblazoned with the #26 and will be sponsored by in part by GSRacing.net, a privately run series on the iRacing service which features many of the top drivers in the simulation racing world. GSRacing.net also funds Parker’s entry in the NiSWC series on Tuesday evenings. The effort will also be backed by Foodshare, Rent a Racecar New England, Exlander Design Solutions and Tim’s Corner Motorsports.
The DARE Stock division will compete in a five lap heat race followed by a 15-lap feature on Friday night at the Stafford Motor Speedway as a part of the Late Model Xtra Mart Xtra D event. The afternoon is kicked off at 3pm when the Pit Gates open followed by practice at 4pm. Grandstand gates open at 5:15pm with racing set to start at 6:15pm. For more information on the event or the track, please visit StaffordMotorSpeedway.com. To follow along with Parker’s progress throughout the day, be sure to follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JoshParker81.
Sources: Tim Terry/Tim’s Corner Motorsports