ROSSBURG, Ohio – When it comes to racing at the high speeds of legendary Eldora Speedway — even in the virtual world like Monday night — one mistake can make or break a driver’s race. Especially in green-white-checkered situations.

As the field took the green with just two laps remaining, leader Corey Gordon appeared to have the race in-hand, bound to collect his second World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model iRacing Invitational feature win.

He led the 24-car field back to the white flag without any issues, until a slip-up into the turn two wall slowed his top-side momentum just enough for Trent Ivey to sneak by on the bottom, scrape the turns three and four wall and diamond-off the corner to steal his second virtual feature win over Gordon and Kaeden Cornell.

“Corey, he doesn’t mess up,” said Ivey. “He messed up one time and I was just fortunate to be there.”

Gordon viewed Ivey’s final lap wall-scrapes as the catalyst to his fierce run down the backstretch in the effort to steal the lead, but he was still content with his runner-up finish. He is ready to improve one more spot in Tuesday night’s World of Outlaws eDirt Shootout at 8 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.

“Honestly I thought I threw that one away a little bit,” Gordon said. “I went back and watched the replay and saw a little bit of wall-riding there, but it’s all good. I still had a lot of fun.”

“Tomorrow’s a new day. We’ll go get ’em tomorrow.”

While the fireworks at the finish line ended the show, it was all smooth sailing at the head of the field for the first half of the race. Polesitter Cornell grabbed control of the feature at the drop of the green, leading the first 15 laps of the 30-lap contest.

Gordon and Ivey were biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. A caution flag was brought out just before the halfway mark, and the two rivals were done waiting. On the ensuing restart, they gassed it up on the high side and, with a push from Ivey behind him, Gordon shot to Cornell’s inside to challenge for the lead for the first time.

The first attempt was unsuccessful as Cornell held his ground on the top and defended his spot as the field raced back into turn one. Gordon attempted another side job from down low and stuck it; Ivey diamonded-off the corner and got a great run to the low side as they raced three-wide into turn three. Ivey threw a big slide job of his own in a bid for the lead but made contact with Cornell and the outside wall, which opened the door for Gordon down low as he shot to the lead on lap 17.

“On that restart, I guess you could say I got bullied, I don’t know. I kinda got a dirty slider thrown on me there,” Cornell said of the view from his virtual cockpit on the restart.

From there, Flash held onto the lead through the next restart, showing terrific speed and car control on the top side of the track. Ivey gave chase to Gordon as the laps clicked off, and Cornell was able to recover from his earlier brush with Ivey and the wall to reclaim third. The leaders stayed idle in their track position as Gordon rounded turn four to get the white flag, when it was suddenly replaced with a yellow.

Gordon nailed the first lap of the ensuing green-white-checkered finish, staying smooth on the very top side of the track to keep his speed up. But right behind him was a hungry Ivey, who hadn’t seen World of Outlaws Invitational Victory Lane since April 1. He scraped the entire length of Eldora’s turn four wall as they crossed the line to collect the white flag and was right on Gordon’s bumper through turns one and two.

Gordon pushed way up the track and into the wall out of turn two as Ivey flew by underneath, making contact and rebounding Gordon off the wall as they dove into turn three for the final time. Gordon, now on the low side, threw a big slide job in a last-ditch effort for the win, but was unsuccessful. Ivey bounced his No. 88 off the turn three wall and turned back down underneath Gordon to cross the finish line first — a tremendous finish by the real-life super late model pilots.

“I’ve been to Eldora once in my life, once in a super, so I don’t have much experience here in the game or in real-life,” Ivey said. “But it was crazy running around the top here. You see it all the time, you see Bobby [Pierce], you see [Jonathan] Davenport, all of them running around the top. I just knew that was the only place I was going to be able to do it. I stayed with it, stayed on it, and thankful Corey made one little slip-up.”

Cornell arguably had the best view of the finish out of anyone as he crossed the stripe just a few car-lengths behind the leaders. This now gives him a total of five top-three finishes without a single victory to show for it, but the young Missourian was content after yet another third-place run.

“Story of my whole World of Outlaws iRacing career, I guess,” Cornell lightheartedly said. “I can’t seem to win one for some reason.”

Pierce, a three-time DIRTcar National Late Model champion with an impeccable record at Eldora, finished fourth, showcasing his steady rise in virtual racing.

“That was the best I’ve done on iRacing and this was probably the track I’ve practiced the least on,” said Pierce, who won the prestigious World 100 in 2016 at Eldora. “It was a lot of fun racing all those guys. I didn’t expect a top-five, for sure. … I don’t really consider myself an iRacer yet, but if we could somehow pull off a ‘W’ Tuesday night on CBS that would probably take a lot of luck.”

The finish:

1. 88-Trent Ivey [3] [$1,000]; 2. 000-Corey Gordon [2]; 3. 50-Kaeden Cornell [1]; 4. 32-Bobby Pierce [5]; 5. 01-Logan Seavey [9]; 6. 06-Nick Stroupe [13]; 7. 96-Mike McKinney [6]; 8. 99-Matty Watkins [11]; 9. 018-Anthony Perrego [23]; 10. 43-Garrett Alberson [17]; 11. 999-Kyle Hardy [10]; 12. 039-Austin Yarbrough [19]; 13. 001-Matthew Logan [18]; 14. 29-Ethan Toedter [16]; 15. 089-Mike Spatola [7]; 16. 28-Sam Mars [24]; 17. 121-Michael Hensley [12]; 18. 2-Carson Macedo [22]; 19. 011-Gordy Gundaker [15]; 20. 12-Ashton Winger [8]; 21. 14-Tyler Clem [14]; 22. 95-Robbie Kendall [4]; 23. 55-Chris Hile [21]; 24. 015-Matt Shannon [20].