From thrilling eNASCAR title race to anticipated future, iRacing takes spotlight inside NASCAR Hall of Fame

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For a third consecutive year, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series championship race was held inside the NASCAR Hall of Fame and it did not disappoint.

A night of celebrating the motorsports gaming industry and the iRacing platform was capped by a thrilling result as hundreds of onlookers underneath the Glory Road exhibit anxiously watched Parker White eke out his first series title over Bobby Zalenski, Steven Wilson and Graham Bowlin.

In a venue that celebrates the greatest moments in NASCAR’s long history, White delivered one for eNASCAR and iRacing, making a daring four-wide move on the final lap to earn the trophy and $100,000 grand prize.

“To do it here, the Coke Series, the Hall of Fame in front of a live audience, absolutely nothing even comes close to this,” White said. “I couldn’t be happier. I’ve never celebrated a win like that.”

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On hand to take in the festivities was NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr., who presented the trophy, named in his honor, to White after the event.

It was a full-circle moment for White, who has been a longtime NASCAR fan.

“The biggest thing for me is Dale Jr. is my all-time favorite driver,” White said. “He was my idol as a kid. That moment … just hugging Dale there next to the trophy, it means quite literally everything to me. I don’t know how else to explain it other than surreal.”

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An avid supporter of iRacing, Earnhardt Jr. has collaborated with the sim-racing platform for numerous projects from scanning a variety of historic race tracks and bringing them to life in the virtual world to fielding a JR Motorsports team in the Coca-Cola iRacing Series.

Having events like this for the sim community continues to be a big deal for Earnhardt Jr.

“I love the worlds of iRacing and NASCAR coming together equally to drive awareness and support for the event, but also for the sim-racing community,” Earnhardt Jr. told NASCAR.com. “This is a night to celebrate one particular driver but also the four and all the drivers that are in this series. Even a little bit of a bigger deal for because of what the sim-racing community has meant to my life and so I know how it’s positively affected my life and all the guys that are racing in this series and the thousands of customers that are racing on the service that are creating brand new friendships every single day.

“I think that’s where the asset and the value is for NASCAR. Not only can the sim-racing community enrich your life, but there’s a younger demographic there that NASCAR can tap into as well. To see just the growth of the event alone in the last three years has been amazing.”

Those friendships were on full display in the live audience with drivers Austin Dillon, Rajah Caruth, Brad Perez and Ryan Vargas in attendance as well as high school and college students, who were getting the real-world experience of the motorsports gaming industry and networking with those in the business.

Caruth, who launched his career through iRacing and is currently a student at Winston-Salem State University, spoke on a panel before the championship race and discussed the importance of the accessibility for HBCU’s [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] into esports and the sim-racing community.

“I think it’s really important because I think it’s a niche group of people or students that otherwise don’t really have an avenue or a community to really support their interests that they have,” Caruth said. “There’s a big untapped gaming community in the HBCU world that I think in years past just hasn’t been really tapped into. And so I think for iRacing to be a vessel for that is special. Not only does it satisfy the requirement of being an esport, it also kind of creates an interest and exposure to racing as a whole.”

NASCAR and iRacing have extended their display of eNASCAR outside of the Hall of Fame with sim-racing displays for fans to get a taste of themselves at a variety of tracks on the schedule as well as a live event at Navy Pier in Chicago that took place earlier this year.

But perhaps the most anticipated venture on the horizon between the two entities is the upcoming NASCAR console game being developed by iRacing.

From fans, drivers and all those connected to the NASCAR industry, the enthusiasm continues to build for the future of the gaming product.

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“I think a lot of people are excited about the console game and NASCAR has had some pretty historic titles come out over the past three decades in terms of console and I raced on a lot of those when I was younger,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “There’s a bit of pressure, but I think the iRacing guys and the team behind all this can knock it out of the park. There’s a ton of experience and really, really smart people doing all the right things and pulling all the right levers.

“There’s certainly a NASCAR fanbase that’s preferably console anticipating this, anxiously waiting and holding their breath, right? I’m excited for them to have the product in their hand. I can’t wait to see how that product can grow, version over version, year after year. But again, it’s just another example of NASCAR and iRacing seeing some common ground, seeing some value in each other and working to produce that value and make that connection to the fan at home.”