January 15th, 2024 by Mitch Maynard

When Two Fat Guys Sim Racing Promotions announced The Trucker’s Tangle 40, it seemed like all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place for the event, which took place last evening (1/14/24). The race was streamed by PeaceMaker Gaming on Facebook, Twitch and YouTube, and was also streamed by IAmNathanWaddell on Twitch. When the drivers began to join the driver’s meeting, there were 37 drivers registered for the race. Unfortunately only 28 drivers would enter the sim for the event, but it was a great race regardless.

Hot Laps began and the trucks immediately started to rip the tacky surface to shreds, soon getting slick patches to form on the entry to each turn before qualifying started. Track progression was left to naturally occur throughout the entirety of the show and would prove difficult for many drivers during the heat races and would only worsen for the B and A main. Heat Winners would include; Trevor C. Williams in Heat 1, Patrick L Solari in Heat 2, James A Murphy in Heat 3, and Carson Cherry in Heat 4.

The B main saw twelve cars line up for a 16 lap event that would hold 6 cautions. It was evident that the slick track paired with the inability to turn in the slick with ease could be a massive factor. After all was said and done in the consolation race, Nathan Waddell would trudge his way through the pack from a third place starting position to a P1 finish with Patrick Purdy in tow from a first place starting position, filling the only two transfer positions available.

In the feature event, we would see 18 trucks scream down the front stretch into turn 1 and fan out rather quickly. Off of turn 4 near the completion of lap 1 we would briefly see a 4 wide lineup of cars for 1st position, including all four of the afore-mentioned heat winners. The race would only heat up from there as multiple trucks were beating and banging with each other the entire time, until things went to a brief simmer during the one and only caution a mere FOUR laps from the finish of the race.

Following the only restart, T. Williams would attempt to pose a challenge to Solari but it was all Solari’s race as he pulled away to a nearly one second delta over T. Williams by the conclusion to the four lap shootout. This four lap shootout would also see some very aggressive driving throughout the field as drivers were scrambling for any and every position they could get but unfortunately would lead to a large pileup on the exit to turn 4 on the final lap. The top five finishing order would see Patrick L Solari in P1, Trevor C Williams in P2, Brayden Avila in P3, James A Murphy in P4, and Jamie Massey in P5.