Steven Wilson earned his fourth eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series victory of the season on Tuesday and sealed a spot in the circuit’s Championship 4.
By prevailing at a virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway in the third of four playoff races, Wilson becomes one of four drivers who will compete for the season-long championship at a virtual Phoenix Raceway on Oct. 25. The drivers in the title race will compete in person at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte.
Wilson drove the No. 10 Ford to a 0.167-second win over Michael Guest in the No. 9 Ford.
Bobby Zalenski already had sealed his berth in the Championship 4 earlier in the playoffs, but the two others were still up for grabs on Tuesday when a multi-car crash occurred on the final lap.
Casey Kirwan, in the No. 95 Chevrolet, came in fifth place but still secured the third Championship 4 berth. The fourth went to Graham Bowlin, who came in fourth on Tuesday in the No. 48 Toyota.
Zalenski is headed to the Championship 4 for the fifth time, though he has yet to win a series title. It will be the first Championship 4 appearance for Wilson, Bowlin and Kirwan.
“It’s so awesome to be racing in Charlotte at (a virtual) Phoenix in two weeks,” said Wilson, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Michael Conti in the No. 8 Chevrolet ended the Tuesday race in third.
The event ended with a pair of green-white-checkered restarts.
“We had a really good car,” Wilson said. “If that race went green, I think we would have had second. Casey had me beat, but we got the caution, and that seemed to go my way a lot this year, and we just had the right strategy again.”
Guest, from Brownsburg, Ind., said of his night, “The first half of the race didn’t go well for me. I started decent in like 12th or something, but off those wrecks, I got caught up in one of them and untimely cautions put me back in the 30s. … Those last green-white-checkereds, it was just about surviving.”
Kirwan, from Matthews, N.C., said of reaching the Championship 4, “It’s crazy. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. … Across the board in iRacing, I’ve never had as good of a year as I’ve had (in 2022). So to have a chance to go top it off with a championship at the Hall of Fame will be something that I won’t forget, and hopefully we can come out on top.”
The winner among the Championship 4 will earn $100,000 from the prize pool of more than $300,000.
–Field Level Media