CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Before he even crossed the start/finish line, Steven Wilson raised three fingers and pumped his fists. For the third time in four years — and the second season in a row — Wilson scored the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series title, prevailing in front of a boisterous crowd Tuesday night at the NASCAR Hall of Fame to bank $100,000.
Wilson, driving the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, finished second at the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, surviving a trio of late-race restarts to fend off Championship 4 mates Wyatt Tinsley, Bobby Zalenski and Connor Yeroschak to secure the Dale Earnhardt Jr. Cup.
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With a third title, the 24-year-old Wilson is in rarefied air. He’s one of two multi-time champions, just one behind Ray Alfalla.
And he’s already thinking about what tying the iRacing legend would be like.
“It’s insane,” Wilson told NASCAR.com. “We only had the one multi-time champion, and I was able to do that and make it two last year, and this year, just going back-to-back, which only me and Ray have done — it’s really cool. Next year, we’ll be back going for three in a row — that’s still the goal. Make it to every live event. Got to come back, got to repeat. Come back for another trophy and just stay at the top of my game.”
With the four championship-eligible drivers competing atop a stage in front of Glory Road, hundreds piled into the Hall of Fame to celebrate the growth of iRacing and eSports as a whole. Each competitor had large cheering sections as the broadcast — which was hosted on-site — played on a large screen inside the building.
Multiple Cup Series stars came to support, including Bubba Wallace — who served as the Grand Marshal and spoke to a group from the Boys & Girls Clubs — and 2023 Daytona 500 champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers Rajah Caruth and Parker Retzlaff were also in attendance, both of whom cut their teeth in iRacing before transitioning into national series racing, each contending in this year’s O’Reilly Chase presented by Mobil 1.
That pipeline is real, and in a sense, applies to Wilson. Over the offseason, Spire hired Wilson as the team’s simulator driver, collecting data and working with the organization’s three Cup entries amid a breakout year that resulted in Chase berths for Carson Hocevar and Daniel Suárez.
“They’ve been awesome. They’ve just been so gracious to have me,” Wilson said. “Just coming from iRacing, this is all I did. I’ve never driven a real car, and Hocevar trusted me. He wanted me to be in that position to be their sim driver, and the engineers listened to him.”
Many Cup Series teams have full-time simulator drivers, but it’s not unprecedented for them to hire an iRacing driver. Keegan Leahy, who won the 2021 eNASCAR title, now works in a similar role for 23XI Racing.
Before the race began, a collegiate eSports panel took place inside the Hall’s High Octane Theater, where representatives from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and University of North Carolina at Charlotte discussed the place of iRacing in higher education. Layne Riggs, a UNC Charlotte graduate and driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford in the Craftsman Truck Series, also participated, saying that he regularly jumps onto iRacing and adding that turning laps at Naval Base Coronado on his computer was crucial to his thrilling San Diego Street Course victory in June.
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But Riggs also uses it to fuel his constant need for speed.
“There’s a lot to do with race craft. There’s a lot of mentality, mindset and just comfort that comes into doing sim racing and then relating it in the real world,” Riggs said. “Nothing’s ever going to be perfect. Our manufacturer sims are not perfect by any means, so having to also disconnect that from the real world and know what to take for granted and what you know is correct, and also parts that you know that probably aren’t the most realistic in real life.
“I use it more for fun, get my passion out during the week because we only get a certain amount of time on the race track on the weekends. I also like to spend time with my friends and have some brawls during the week as well.”
Tuesday marked the fifth time the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series crowned its champion in front of a live audience at the Hall of Fame. One of the primary goals, says NASCAR Senior Director of Sim Racing Ray Smith, is to reach newer, younger audiences who aren’t as familiar with NASCAR.
“It’s really a moment where we’re able to take youth that know nothing about the sport and introduce them to the sport, all the way up to young professionals that are in school studying the sport and bring them all into a central area just to fully experience our sport in a more attainable way than what we do at the race track on the weekend,” Smith said. “They’re able to go play the (NASCAR 26) video game and see where the entry level is, then jump on the sim and see where the advanced experience is, and then see the best in the world do it.
“Being in front of the youth is important. It’s an investment in the next 20 years of our business. So always being fun, always being loud and proud … it’s always going to be the highest of power to what we do for the health of our business in the long run.”