With each passing race, more drivers in the Canadian eMotorsports Series are starting to find another gear.

Jose Mercado found his groove early on at The Factory Downtown 200, starting third and eventually taking the lead midway through the second stage, never looking back en route to his first win of the regular season at the virtual-Chicagoland Speedway.

The Kissimmee, Fla. native had to make some adjustments to his number 41 Ford Mustang to get the job done.

“I had a good battle in stage one with Gibby (Ryan Gibson), but I knew I had to do something different to get by him,” he said. “So, I started putting air in my right-side tires for more speed. By stage three, I found the sweet spot and was able to break away from the draft.”

Rounding out the top five in the race was Ryan Gibson in second (#23 Chevrolet, West Virginia, USA), Scott Bailey in third (#4 Chevrolet for NBR Motorsports, Michigan, USA), Jason Maluchnik in fourth (#33 Rocky’s Hot Sauce Chevrolet for Three Rivers Racing, Pennsylvania, USA) and Shane Cannon in fifth (#88 Chevrolet for NBR Motorsports, Ontario, Canada).

With the victory, Mercado becomes the sixth driver to clinch a place in the ten-race CEMS playoffs, set to begin in September; he joins Darcy Ford, Waylon Brown, Jacob Nelson, Shane Cannon and Scott Bailey who have all previously won at least once this season. 

This was the third victory of the season for a Ford driver, with Darcy Ford claiming the other two. 

“I’m definitely happy to get the monkey off my back with the W,” he said. “Now, I can stop points racing and go after it every race.”

The regular season will reach its halfway point next week as the series heads to the virtual-Pocono Raceway for the Maritime Bus 175 on Tuesday, July 14 at 7:45 p.m. Eastern time. 

Mercado enjoys racing at Pocono, and is already excited for next week.

“I should have a pretty fast car for the Tricky Triangle,” he said. “Hopefully I can get the same result as I did today and take the 41-car to Victory Lane.”

The Factory Downtown 200 race recap

Ryan Gibson led the field to the green from the pole position on Tuesday night with Jacob Nelson (#9 Chevrolet, Tennessee, USA) to his outside.  Gibson would hold onto the lead through the first half of stage one, once green flag pit stops began.

A variety of pit strategies were used throughout the race, some spacing pit stops between full fuel runs, while others were splitting the stages in half with pit stops at the midway point between the two scheduled cautions.  Once the field made their first green-flag pit stops, Gibson would return to the lead.

In the middle stage, a group of five featuring Mercado, Gibson, Darcy Ford, and the two NBR Motorsports cars of Scott Bailey and Shane Cannon had broken away from the field until the next set of green flag pit stops. These five cars would battle and exchange the lead for the 40-lap green flag run prior to the second scheduled caution on lap 80.

Beginning the final stretch of green-flag racing, Mercado held the lead with 54 laps remaining with Joseph Squatriglia (#15 Pittsburgh Insulation and Property Development Chevrolet for Three Rivers Racing, Pennsylvania, USA) on his outside.

Mercado would stretch out a sizeable lead off the restart and was locked in until the checkered flag as he cruised to his first career Canadian eMotorsports Series victory.

There were two scheduled cautions in the 134-lap race.

Here are the official results from The Factory Downtown 200 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Watch the archived broadcast of The Factory Downtown 200 at www.hollandcollege.com/esports.

For more information on the Canadian eMotorsports Series, visit www.hollandcollege.com/esports, www.facebook.com/emotorsportsCAN, www.twitter.com/emotorsportsCAN and www.instagram.com/emotorsportsCAN.

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