After 36 Weeks, Bryan Mabrey has left Homestead-Miami a Champion! This mark's Hillhaven Motorsports' second NASCAR iRacing Series - Open Championship in it's 3 year history (First Championship: Josh Coopernoll, 2017)! The road to the Championship was not an easy one for the #3 Hillhaven Motorsports Chevrolet team, however.
Mabrey kicked off his 2018 campaign with a win in the season opener at Daytona, taking home Hillhaven Motorsports' first "Crown Jewel" race trophy, the Daytona 500! After just a few weeks later, Mabrey backed up his first win with another win in the STP 500 in Martinsville after recovering from a 2-lap deficit. After his second win of the season, the summer proved to be a challenge for the #3 team. It was only after a 16-race stretch that Mabrey was able to break out of a rash of bad luck with a win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway! This win at about the mid-point of the season brought Mabrey and the team to their third and final visit to Victory Lane of the season.
Mabrey, however, was not the only HMS driver who showed consistent speed throughout the season. Team Owner and part-time driver Brayden Hill accumulated 2 wins, 2 poles, and 12 Top-10 finishes despite only starting 19 of 36 races, finishing in 6th place in the Championship. Driver Travis Caro also demonstrated quite a bit of speed, winning a pole and collecting a season-long total of 7 Top-5 finishes, ending the season in 4th place overall.
Bryan himself was overwhelmed with excitement when he was asked about how it felt to officially be a NASCAR iRacing Series Champion. He said quite simply, "It feels good, man!" Mabrey summed up his season by saying, "All in all, I’m fortunate to be on a team like this that believes in my abilities and provides set ups fast enough to give me a chance to run up front week after week!" Despite generally being a man of few words (at least compared to the rest of his team), Bryan was clearly ecstatic about being the first Hillhaven Motorsports driver to win a Championship in the Open-Setup Series.
Brayden Hill, Owner of Hillhaven Motorsports commented on questions about Bryan Mabrey's championship-winning season, "I could not be more proud of Bryan and the entire Hillhaven Motorsports team. I have Josh Coppernoll to thank for introducing me to Bryan and convincing me to bring him in as a full-time driver." "It is absolutely incredible to see how far the team has come as a whole in just 2 or 3 short years." Hill had this to say about his thoughts on the team's future: "I have very high hopes for Hillhaven Motorsports in the future. It's been a dream of mine to establish a championship-caliber team with full-time drivers and sponsors and starting next season that goal will be realized for myself the the rest of HHM." Of course, Hill here is referencing the addition of OldSkoolz Grafix & Designz and iRacingiFlag as primary sponsors for the upcoming 2019 season. OldSkoolz will serve as primary sponsor for 30 races, and iRacingiFlag will be on the car as primary for a select 6 races.