2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series begins May 19th; 40 drivers signed in Free Agency
May 15th, 2026 by Justin Melillo
Just like that, the 2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series season is upon us, and it’s time to find out who in the eNASCAR ranks will be the best of the best after the next six months.
$500,000 is on the line once again, this time with only 13 races to settle the 2026 Championship Series victor. Who will race for the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup from the NASCAR Hall of Fame this year? This week, we learned the 40 that will be competing for it among the 20 official teams throughout the 13-week Championship Series season.
Many familiar faces are back. Some are back after years away from the series. One of the strongest rookie classes, with a total of nine drivers this season, are ready to prove why they belong. One man—Steven Wilson—sits atop the proverbial throne as the new two-time champion of the series. Will he take number three this year? For the lot, to beat Wilson, they’re going to have to be full throttle, and have no fear.
Tune in on May 19th for the opening round of the season, the Coca-Cola 160 from Charlotte Motor Speedway, live on eNASCAR.com at 8:00 p.m. ET. Pre-race coverage with the Countdown to Green begins at 7:45 p.m. ET.
TWO NEW TEAMS AMONG THE OFFICIAL RANKS
With the departure of Six Karma and KHI eSports, the two teams that will fill those spots will be TC Esports and Rick Ware Racing. The latter may sound familiar to motorsport fans as Rick Ware Racing competes among many, including the NASCAR Cup Series. The former might be understandably more tougher to guess, but once you learn that the TC in TC Esports stands for a Belgian professional footballer named Thibaut Courtois, a sim racing enthusiast as well as Real Madrid’s No. 1 Goalkeeper, it’s a little more clear.
Returning to the fold include the usual suspects. Spire Motorsports, of course, after winning both the Driver’s Championship with Steven Wilson and the Team Championship with Wilson and Femi Olatunbosun, will be back to defend their crown. Looking to dethrone them are the two newcomers, as well as the 17 other teams such as the Kansas City Pioneers, Williams F1 Team Gaming, Channel 199 Sim Racing, and the ERA eSports Team, just to name a few of the top contenders from a season ago, all with relatively similar teams again in the new year.
Other real-world NASCAR teams, such as JR Motorsports, RFK Racing, and Hyak Motorsports, will also be back among the fold. Proper esports organizations such as the Pioneers and the Vegas Inferno, motorsports-focused esports organizations such as the Apex Racing Team and BS+COMPETITION, and some motorsports personality-owned teams, like William Byron eSports, Parker Kligerman and Landon Cassill’s eRacr.gg, Austin Dillon’s Team Dillon Esports, Jim Beaver eSports, Tony Kanaan’s Kanaan Esports, Steve Letarte’s Letarte Esports, and Joe Graf Jr’s fgr Accel eRacing team are all in the fold as well once more.
OFFICIAL eNASCAR COCA-COLA iRACING CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES ROSTER:
DRIVER ROSTER BREAKDOWN
40 drivers make up the 2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series roster. Half of the drivers qualified in by finishing in the top-20 in the final standings last season. The other half needed to take on the gauntlet that was the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Qualifying Series earlier this year.
In total, 26 drivers that were on the roster from last Championship season are returning, including those top-20, as well as six relegated drivers that fell down into the Qualifying Series and survived back into signing during Free Agency. Those top-20 were Steven Wilson, Casey Kirwan, Vicente Salas, Zack Novak, Parker White, Tucker Minter, Bobby Zalenski, Jordy Lopez, Dylan Duval, Kollin Keister, Donovan Strauss, Connor Yeroschak, Femi Olatunbosun, Ryan Luza, Dylan Ault, Michael Guest, Christopher Hill, Seth DeMerchant, Blaze Crawford, and Malik Ray.
The six drivers who fought through the Qualifying Series and were re-signed include Cody Byus, Garrett Lowe, Michael Cosey Jr, Nate Stewart, Daniel Faulkingham, and the champion of the Qualifying Series, Quentin Warman. Five more drivers are returning to full-time competition after not being a part of the roster last season. Those drivers include Ryan Doucette, Blake Reynolds, Wyatt Tinsley, Garrett Manes, and Jake Nichols.
The remaining nine drivers will be Rookie of the Year contenders, competing in their first full-time season. Those drivers are Logan Helton, Seth Noell, Sebastian Marin, Thomas Lloyd, Dylan Basen, Shawn Conklin, Kenny Brady, Tommy Gossett, and Matthew Morton.
Morton is one of two fill-in drivers from last season to earn a full-time seat this year, so while he has a start in the series last season, this is his first full-time campaign. Similarly, Ryan Doucette is entering his fifth season due to being a full-time driver last year, but this will be his fourth full-time campaign.
MOVES, MOVES, MOVES
For the most part, most of the field that returned stayed in the same place they were last year. Seven teams—BS+COMPETITION, FGR Accel, Hyak Motorsports, ERA eSports Team, Jim Beaver eSports, Spire Motorsports, and Williams F1 Team Gaming—are all returning with the same crew from 2025.
Apex Racing Team, Channel 199, Kanaan Esports, Kansas City Pioneers, Letarte Esports, Team Dillon Esports, Vegas Inferno, and William Byron eSports all have just one seat the same. The other teams are either new, or have new drivers this year. The five remaining teams have two new drivers in their lineup this season.
eSigned. 🖋️
Zack Novak and Malik Ray join JR Motorsports for the 2026 eNCCIS season. pic.twitter.com/1ToEsdNItG
— JR Motorsports (@JRMotorsports) May 14, 2026
One of the big changes came with JR Motorsports signing two veterans with Zack Novak and Malik Ray, Novak moving over from Channel 199 while Ray moves from the Inferno. Filling in Novak’s spot at Channel 199 is a returning Blake Reynolds. A rookie in Tommy Gossett fills the seat left open by Ray.
Christopher Hill joins William Byron from Apex Racing Team, and the displaced Daniel Faulkingham, who was with Six Karma last year, finds a new home at Rick Ware Racing. Ryan Doucette will take over the second seat at Apex this season, while Faulkingham will have Garrett Manes as his teammate with the new team. Speaking of new teams, the other new organization, TC Esports, will have Matthew Morton and Jake Nichols along for the ride this year.
eRacr.gg and RFK Racing have completely new lineups this season. Following the results of The Money Lap Challenge, Morton and Wyatt Tinsley were the top-two and would be offered contracts by the eRacr group. Morton went to TC, while Tinsley returned back to his previous organization, the Kansas City Pioneers. The third and fourth place finishers of The Money Lap Challenge, Seth Noell and Logan Helton, took the seats instead. As for RFK, they’ve brought in two rookies as well with Dylan Basen and Shawn Conklin.
Three more rookies will be paired with veterans in the upcoming season. Sebastian Marin was picked up by Kanaan Esports to race alongside Vicente Salas. Connor Yeroschak will have Thomas Lloyd alongside him at Letarte Esports this season. Blaze Crawford is set to race alongside Kenny Brady at Team Dillon Esports in 2026.
SCHEDULE REMINDER
13 races make up the Championship Series season. Nine of those races exist in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series Regular Season. Those nine races are broken up once again into three Segments, or mini in-season points tournaments, three races apiece, with the highest point scorer from each segment receiving an additional five playoff bonus points and a $3,000 prize bonus.
At the end of the nine races, any driver that’s won a race and resides among the top-20 in the full driver’s standings will earn a place in the 10-driver eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series Playoffs. At least one driver will make the field on points, but any spots not filled by an eligible winner will go to the next highest driver in the points standings.
The 10 drivers that qualify for the eNASCAR Playoffs will have three Playoff races to achieve the same goal as they did in the regular season—win a race, or be one of the top points scorers—to earn a seat on stage at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Uptown Charlotte in the 13th and final race of the season, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series Championship 4 Finale. Four drivers with an equal shot, but only one will hoist the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup at the end of the night on October 13th.
2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series Schedule:
NOTE: This schedule is subject to change.
WHERE TO WATCH
The eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series will stream live to eNASCAR.com/live for the entirety of the 2026 season, as well as on all of iRacing’s social channels. Select races, such as the Coca-Cola 160, will be simulcasted on The NASCAR Channel on streaming apps such as Tubi and Amazon Prime.
Tune in at 7:45 p.m. ET for the Countdown to Green pre-race show with Alan Cavanna, James Pike, and Ryan Vargas. The racing action starts at 8:00 p.m. ET and will be presented once again by Evan Posocco, Kenneth Bueno, and Alan Cavanna.
For more information on the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, visit eNASCAR.com or iRacing.com/eNASCAR.
For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit iRacing.com.
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