On Tuesday night, the final stretch on the road to $500,000 starts at Michigan International Speedway for the first of three races in the 2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series Playoffs.

10 drivers have qualified for the Playoff Round by either winning a race or having enough points to make the transfer. Bobby Zalenski (ERA eSports Team) took the most wins in the Regular Season—three out of the nine races. The defending and now two-time series champion, Steven Wilson (Spire Motorsports), was the only other driver with multiple wins at two. Parker White (Williams F1 Team Gaming), Garrett Lowe (BS+COMPETITION), and Vicente Salas (Kanaan Esports) were the other three to grab an eligible win to earn a spot in the Playoffs.

Tucker Minter (William Byron eSports), Shawn Conklin (RFK Racing), Connor Yeroschak (Letarte eSports), Wyatt Tinsley (Kansas City Pioneers), and Casey Kirwan (Kansas City Pioneers) were the five others to all qualify in on points. Zack Novak (JR Motorsports) was the first man out, missing the field by just three points, and Garrett Manes (Rick Ware Racing) was a race winner in the Daytona Regular Season finale, but was not above the cutoff line of 20th for that win to count for eligibility.

Wilson, White, and Lowe also scored Segment victories, the three-race mini points championships over that nine race stretch. Each driver earned an additional five Playoff Points before the reseeding, which bumped both White and Lowe up to third and fourth seed over Salas, who did not have a Segment win. Wilson enters the Playoffs tied with Zalenski on Playoff Points, but because Zalenski had more wins overall, he takes the actual No. 1 seeding.

Minter was able to clinch his spot in on points a week early, finishing the Regular Season second in total points. The other four all entered Daytona above the cut line, and with the calamity that ensued around them, somehow they stayed there at the checkered flag.

Here’s a breakdown on how each driver managed to slide into the Playoffs, keeping their chances at $100,000 and the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup alive for the next three races.

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NO. 1 SEED: BOBBY ZALENSKI | ERA ESPORTS TEAM

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
204	3	2	3	4	9	16	203	15
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
1st	22nd	1st	31st	31st	28th	1st	18th	9th

A championship is the only thing Bobby Zalenski needs to check off the list. He’s won 21 races now, the second-most all-time. He could win another seven and become the driver with the most wins, that record currently belonging to Ray Alfalla, but Alfalla has four championships to go along with those, and Zalenski is still searching for one.

He’s been close a number of times, including two seasons ago, where he was right on Parker White’s bumper through the final two corners at Homestead-Miami until he lost control and wound up fourth. That includes 2022, where he led a good chunk of the race before losing track position to Casey Kirwan on the pit cycle at Phoenix. It also includes 2020, where he and Ryan Luza had a spat racing for the top spot and late-race theatrics led to Nick Ottinger claiming his first and only championship. On top of all of that, he’s qualified for every eNASCAR Playoff ever, and has run in six of the nine eNASCAR Championship 4 races with a chance at claiming the cup.

Zalenski did check off a box that he’s never done before—win the opening race of the Championship Series season. Usually, the season starts in Daytona, which is a track that he’s won on in both oval and road forms, just not at the start of a year. This season started at Charlotte, and Zalenski was pretty much unstoppable the entire night.

The reason that he’s the No. 1 Seed is because he has the most wins despite Steven Wilson having the same amount of points and a better Regular Season points amount. Zalenski collected the inaugural Naval Base Coronado win, and in some late race shenanigans at Nashville Superspeedway, wound up on top of a volatile finish in triple eNASCAR Overtime, another thing he’s not used to being on top of.

With all of that said, is this finally Bobby’s year? Not to say that Wilson has been slacking in the slightest, but by this point last year, he had double the victories while Zalenski only had one at Talladega. Zalenski’s season has seen the most checkered flags, sure, but he’s also finished four of these first nine races on the bottom half of the running order, including a controversial result at Dover which saw him and Wilson tangle at the front of the field. Wilson went on to win that as Zalenski wound up 31st.

Nobody has led more laps than Zalenski this season either. Will that all translate into both a seventh Championship 4 appearance, and will lucky number 7 finally be the one that gets him that coveted Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup? We’ll have to see how it all plays out at Michigan, Texas, and Kansas first.

Zalenski has the most data to look back on, having started his eNASCAR career back in 2017. Surprisingly, Zalenski has no wins at the next three tracks, sporting a best of eighth at Michigan in 2020, a runner-up in 2024 at Texas, and a third place effort at Kansas, also in 2020. Despite having a better average finish at Michigan (13.75 / 8 races) than Texas (14.71 / 7 races), Zalenski has had more top end finishes in Fort Worth, claiming a fourth in 2017 and a third in 2020. If it falls to Kansas, however, that’s a place that Bobby historically struggles at, with a 22.33 average finish over the six races he’s done there.

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NO. 2 SEED: STEVEN WILSON | SPIRE MOTORSPORTS

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
273	2	0	6	6	12	8	47	15
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
3rd	1st	2nd	1st	3rd	23rd	29th	3rd	19th

For six out of the nine races in the Regular Season, it was Steven Wilson, business as usual. For three of those races, however, including three of the last four races, Wilson has not had the same luck as he’s grown so used to having over the course of his two championship seasons. The speed is there, maybe not at Steven Wilson 2025 domination levels, but he’s been in the mix every step of the way, which is why he’s entering the eNASCAR Playoffs in 2026 with as good as a chance as ever to go for title No. 3.

If not for a late race caution and a four-wide send by Parker White in the 2024 Championship Finale, we’d likely be talking about a potential record-tying title on the line this year. Ray Alfalla was the only driver to have more than a single championship, until Wilson went and finally got it last year. If Wilson can grab his third this year, 2027 could be the year that all eyes will be on another 4-Time in the making. Wilson is also closing in on the most-wins all-time as well, quicker than anyone else, his next win set to make him the fourth driver in series history to cross over the 20-win mark.

Wilson’s start to the 2026 Championship Series season was almost more impressive than his start last season. His worst finish, between Charlotte, Echo Park, Coronado, Dover, and Iowa was third, twice at Charlotte and Iowa. That was about where the wheels fell off the wagon for the entire season, however, as Indianapolis set up a confusing finish for all. Had that race not gone super crazy, it looked as though, at worst, he’d be ninth. Instead, he was credited with 23rd.

The next race, at Nashville, Wilson had power issues at his own house and had to borrow former eNASCAR driver Briar LaPradd’s setup for the night. It wasn’t the flashiest night, especially considering he had a miserable qualifying lap that set him back in the pack to start the night, but with a handful of laps to go, Wilson just lost it, whether it was tire issues or just a feeling issue racing in an unfamiliar rig, he wound up 29th. Richmond was back to business, finishing third, and Daytona was looking to be in his favor as well, leading the most laps, but too many overtimes forced him to pit for fuel, and late race calamities led to a 19th place finish.

Outliers, for sure, which makes the Steven Wilson Championship threat as great as ever. Even better news for the two-time and defending Series Champion is that he knows how to win at every single track coming up. Last year, Wilson won at Kansas, a non-playoff track at the time, and then kicked off his eNASCAR Playoff run with a Michigan win that he originally wasn’t destined for until a late race caution, plus a well-timed pit stop, set him up for victory. The year prior, in 2024 at Texas, Wilson’s win at Texas was his ticket to the Championship 4.

Michigan has been hit or miss for Wilson, in four races having that win and a second in 2023, but his first start there, he wound up 33rd, which drops his average finish down to 12th over four races. Kansas is kind of similar, where he has that one win last year, but two poor finishes in 2021 and 2022 that make his average finish 20.67 over three races. Texas, however, is a track that has only been kind to Steven, with his worst finish being fourth in 2021, and his average finish at 2.67 over three races.

It won’t be an eight win season, nor will it break any records, but have no doubt, the drive for title No. 3 is very much on for the Spire Motorsports sim driver.

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NO. 3 SEED: PARKER WHITE | WILLIAMS F1 TEAM GAMING

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
251	1	1	3	6	6	11	59	10
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
38th	17th	9th	22nd	9th	1st	8th	4th	4th

At one point in the 2026 season, Parker White was really, really frustrated. It was the end to the Dover race, the fourth race of the 2026 season, and White was running inside the top-five the entire night. As Steven Wilson and Bobby Zalenski wrecked in front of him with only a handful of laps to go, his top-five day turned into a 22nd place recovery. Not his worst finish of the season after early damage at Charlotte derailed his race almost immediately, but far from what was looking to be his best finish of the year to that point.

It turned around completely since then. At Iowa in the fifth round, White wound up ninth, tying his best finish on the season to-date. Then, at Indianapolis, he dominated the day, and through all of the late race calamity, still wound up on top following the official ruling on the finish. With the win, White was basically locked in, and since then, the 2024 Series Champion has just been a model of consistency, finishing eighth at Nashville, fourth at Richmond, and fourth again in the Regular Season finale at Daytona.

Parker is relatively new to the scene, his rookie year being just three seasons ago in 2023. Now in his fourth season, he hasn’t done as much winning as he’d probably have liked, only having three to his name. The two that he got in 2024 were the two that led him to a title that same year. Last year, despite not winning a race, Parker was on the verge of making it back to Uptown Charlotte, just missing out on the transfer that went to Casey Kirwan instead. A win now could be a good sign for later, indeed.

All of the data looks great for White as we enter Michigan, Texas, and Kansas. His rookie season, in 2023, only had Michigan on the schedule of those three tracks, and he finished 16th. He’s since collected a runner-up and a fourth place effort in 2024 and 2025, respectively, which makes that track’s average finish 7.33 over three races.

Texas didn’t run in 2023, but White finished third there in 2024 and fourth last season, making that average 3.5 over two races. Kansas only has one data point for Parker, last season’s non-Playoff race, where he finished fourth. Phoenix is what ultimately did him in last season for the transfer, and with that out of the equation this year, despite being the venue where he claimed his first career win, that could prove to put these three races in his favor for pointing in, at the minimum.

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NO. 4 SEED: GARRETT LOWE | BS+COMPETITION

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
183	1	0	1	2	14	18	67	10
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
12th	35th	12th	9th	1st	17th	17th	28th	39th

It’s been a rollercoaster of a year for the “Hybrid Racer”. Historically, 2025 was Garrett Lowe’s worst season, as he finished 23rd in the final standings and was forced back into the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Qualifying Series to kick off 2026. While his Qualifying Series season was nothing much to write home about, the goal to finish in the top-30 was achieved, which meant that his real-world organization, BS+COMPETITION, could re-sign him for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series season in 2026.

Historically, Garrett’s been one of the most consistent drivers in the series, kicking off his rookie season in 2019 with a win that nearly led to a Championship 4 berth. He followed that up with a solid, yet winless 2020 season where he finished seventh in the standings, but then it fell off the rails in 2021, as he was relegated down to the Qualifying Series for that year. Lowe returned and won in 2022, finishing eighth in the final standings, and then in 2023, he made it all the way up to the Championship 4 finally, competing at the NASCAR Hall of Fame for the title while also getting excused by NASCAR from a midterm exam at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte in his Senior Year.

2024 was the year he linked up with BS+COMPETITION, winning in the closest finish in eNASCAR history against Jimmy Mullis. That, and a whole bunch of other factors, led to Lowe earning a real-world drive that included BS+COMPETITION over in the NASCAR Euro Series in 2025. His first full-time season in that also clashed with his seventh eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series season, and ultimately, just one top-5 finish was not enough to keep him above the cut.

Now in 2026, that balance is back, and Lowe is set to compete in his sixth eNASCAR Playoffs, looking to make his second Championship 4. Lowe added on his sixth career win at Iowa Speedway to clinch his place in the Playoffs. Looking ahead, the historical numbers are looking great for him as well, especially at Michigan and Kansas.

His average finishes at the next three tracks are 13.83 at Michigan over six races—that including two wins in 2019 and 2023—24.4 at Texas over five races—including four finishes outside the top-20—and 10.4 at Kansas—that including a win in the 2022 event, the last win for the Wood Brothers in the series before they exited that same year.

The Iowa win is ultimately the reason why Garrett is playing in these Playoffs, as he would have been well out on points without it, but points are just one method to advancing. Lowe knows how to get it done at two of these tracks, and could repeat that to make another Championship 4 appearance in October.

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NO. 5 SEED: VICENTE SALAS | KANAAN ESPORTS

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
229	1	2	3	5	9	13	70	5
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
11th	6th	2nd	10th	4th	34th	22nd	1st	33rd

It really wasn’t a question of whether Vicente Salas could return to the eNASCAR Playoffs in 2026, it was more if he could keep up the momentum he displayed in the 2025 season. Despite just one victory in these nine races, I would say yes, that sentiment is there. Through the opening five round of the 2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series season, just the opening round at Charlotte was a finish outside the top-10, but just barely as ‘Chente wound up 11th after originally starting fifth.

Still, without a win, sitting second in the points was likely going to be plenty to make the eNASCAR Playoffs if he managed to keep up the effort. However, like a few others listed here today, Salas’s season nearly turned on its head at Indianapolis. It was looking to be a potential top-10 or just outside of a top-10 finish, but the late race caution saw Vicente and his team choose to stay out on low fuel, which after three eNASCAR Overtimes, he did not make it back around under power, which forced a tow and a 34th place effort instead.

Nashville didn’t get much better, but it all changed in Round 8 at Richmond, the site of Vicente’s first career win. In a similar fashion to that day in 2021, Salas led nearly ever lap—a nice 69 of them—to claim the win and solidify his place in the Playoffs.

Another sim-to-reality story, Salas hasn’t made an appearance in any of the NASCAR National Series yet in 2026, having made his Truck Series debut in 2024, then a pair of O’Reilly Series races in 2025. He is racing, of course, with a real-world rockstar known as Tony Kanaan on Kanaan Esports once again, so opportunities are likely still in the works. While those irons stay hot, his next chance at the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup is now, and he’ll need to grab another gear to get back to Uptown Charlotte in October now that Phoenix is out of the picture.

2021 saw Salas make his eNASCAR Playoff debut in his rookie season, but it took a couple of tough seasons in 2022 and 2023 for Salas to find his footing in 2024 to become one of the top drivers week in and week out. Salas returned to the winner’s circle at Darlington in 2024, which nearly had him racing for a title that year, instead finishing the best of the rest in fifth. In 2025, Salas finally broke through, winning at Phoenix to punch his ticket to Homestead-Miami, ultimately finishing third in his first Championship 4 attempt.

Without that win at Phoenix, Salas didn’t have the points to transfer. He finishes fifth at Michigan, but at Texas, everything that could have gone wrong did, and he wound up 32nd. Texas might be his biggest hurdle in the next three races, having an average finish of 24 over three starts. His Michigan average is worse, at 26.25 over four races, but that includes two finishes of 39th and 40th in 2021 and 2023, respectively, and as mentioned above, he did pick up a top-five last year.

Kansas takes the place of Phoenix this year, and that is likely his best shot to shine. With an average finish of 10.33 in three races, two of those finishes being top-fives, he’ll need to either pick it up at the other two tracks or break through for a win at Kansas to fight for the title once again.

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NO. 6 SEED: TUCKER MINTER | WILLIAM BYRON ESPORTS

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
252	0	0	6	6	16	10	57	0
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
4th	33rd	4th	3rd	26th	2nd	4th	5th	16th

Tucker Minter does not have a win yet this season. Weird to say out loud, considering his very first race in 2023 resulted in a win, and he’s followed that up with six more after that, another two in 2023, one in 2024, and three last year in 2025. Despite all of this as well, the William Byron eSports driver only has one single Championship 4 appearance in his rookie year, and probably should have berthed one last year if not for it all coming off of the rails at Michigan, a race he dominated and instead finished 35th.

Minter is a championship caliber driver, no doubt. His best result this season was a second place effort at Indianapolis, however, and for the races that didn’t end in calamity, a three-pack of fourth place finishes at Charlotte, Coronado, and Nashville. I said non-calamity races, which is why I skipped over Dover’s third place run, even though he was good all day on the concrete banks in virtual Delaware.

Surely, a win at any point could be just what Tucker needs to go off and win a title. Without the win, Minter scored the second-most points in the Regular Season, and all of his top-10 runs were also top-five runs. Truly, he’s been so close to winning one, it’s just crazy that he hasn’t yet.

Looking at Minter’s numbers at Michigan, you’d expect that might be his worst track on the schedule. Over three races, his average finish is 28.33. Last year, he qualified on pole and led nearly every lap before an errant caution threw a wrench into his plans. On the ensuing restarts, it just got worse and worse. In the preseason, Minter said this place owes him one, and what better payback than getting his first win of the season to open the 2026 Playoffs?

Like Parker White, who’s rookie season was also 2023, there’s not a lot of data for Minter at Texas and Kansas, but the data that does exist bodes well. Minter has an average finish of 3 at Texas, finishing fourth in 2024 and second in 2025. In Minter’s only Kansas race last year, he finished second as well.

The only thing holding Minter back from the likes of Bobby Zalenski, Steven Wilson, and even Parker White, is the fact that he comes into these Playoffs with no bonuses to show for his Regular Season. Minter is one of five drivers with no wins, no Segment titles, nothing adding onto the reset points at 2000. Depending on how these Playoffs shake out, he could ultimately be starting this round 15 points in the hole to Zalenski and Wilson. The only thing that could make that not matter, however, would be a win on any given Tuesday over these next three events.

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NO. 7 SEED: CASEY KIRWAN | KANSAS CITY PIONEERS

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
210	0	1	3	3	12	13	28	0
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
25th	19th	5th	24th	23rd	3rd	2nd	16th	12th

Casey Kirwan snuck into these Playoffs by the skin of his teeth. Only three points separated Kirwan from missing out entirely, as Zack Novak nearly took it away coming to the line at Daytona. For the third straight season as well, Kirwan hasn’t been able to break back into eNASCAR victory lane. The 2022 Series Champion’s last win was back on May 16th, 2023, at Darlington Raceway. Casey finished seventh in the final standings that year. The next season, no win prevented Kirwan from participating in the eNASCAR Playoffs.

It did not stop him in 2025, however, as Casey powered into the Championship 4 on points after making the Playoffs on points as well. If something would have happened to Steven Wilson last season, Kirwan could have done the improbable and won the title without winning a race, as his sixth place effort last year was good enough to claim second in points over Vicente Salas in eighth and Novak in 12th.

A good points day is something Kirwan knows how to do without question, but a win could be beyond beneficial to the Coca-Cola driver in his chase for a second championship.

Daytona was a roller coaster in itself for the former champion, but his whole season’s been like that as well. Coronado, Indianapolis, and Nashville stood out as his best runs, but even Casey’s bad days weren’t too bad, his worst finish of the season being in the opening race where he finished 25th at Charlotte. More of a roller coaster with some tall heights, but not too low of drops. Daytona, however, saw Kirwan go from in to out multiple times as he kept getting collected, fixing damage, returning to the track and gaining spots, just to lose them all again in another wreck.

Besides Bobby Zalenski, Kirwan’s been in the series longer than anyone else competing for the title this year. Michigan is the site of one of Kirwan’s five wins back in 2020, back when he was driving the Jordan-branded No. 23 for Denny Hamlin Racing, the precursor to 23XI Racing in the real-world. That, combined with a third in 2024 and a second in 2025 makes Michigan Kirwan’s best bet in these Playoffs, with a 10.14 average finish over seven races there.

Texas and Kansas aren’t that much worse, as Kirwan sport’s top-20 averages at all three of these tracks. Texas is the middle of the three, at a 15.17 average finish over six races, while Kansas is a 19.83 average finish. The latter, however, has gone up drastically in Kirwan’s last two races there, in 2022 and 2025, where he finished third there in both races.

We know he can get it done on points, but with the way these Playoffs are stacked this season, a win may be the only thing that gets Kirwan to the Championship 4 stage again in 2026.

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NO. 8 SEED: CONNOR YEROSCHAK | LETARTE ESPORTS

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
232	0	0	2	7	19	11	15	0
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
9th	3rd	38th	4th	8th	7th	26th	6th	10th

The eNASCAR College iRacing Series champion is ready to dance on the biggest stage. The University of Calgary’s Connor Yeroschak is only in his second season of the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series, but he’s already accomplished more than most having won the hardware for the Dino’s just one season ago.

Yeroschak enters his first eNASCAR Playoffs in 2026, ranking 12th at the end of the year in his rookie campaign. Connor’s already doubled his top-five count year-over-year, going from one in 2025 to two in 2026, but he’s still searching for that elusive first win.

A win isn’t necessarily needed for the Canadian college student to fight for his first Coca-Cola Series Championship, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how to win. In the eNASCAR College iRacing Series, Yeroschak scored three Tournament wins in the 2025-26 season, none of them at tracks in these Playoffs, but against many of the same names that will be competing.

Last year, Connor finished 24th at Michigan. 14th at Texas, and 16th at Kansas. He’s definitely picked it up all together, so don’t count out this young racer just yet!

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NO. 9 SEED: SHAWN CONKLIN | RFK RACING

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
234	0	0	1	4	19	11	0	0
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
15th	14th	23rd	8th	10th	15th	3rd	15th	6th

A rookie! If a second-year driver was crazy enough, how about a driver making his first starts ever in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series ranks. RFK Racing’s Shawn Conklin nearly had it won at Nashville, although we won’t ever know if his strategy to pit, or his teammate, Dylan Basen’s strategy to stay out, was going to be the winning one. Conklin ended up in the fray against Bobby Zalenski and Casey Kirwan in the closing laps, holding on for third, his best career finish.

Through his first nine races, his consistency has been the key to his success. In all but one 23rd place finish at Coronado, which ironically could have been his best race given his road course prowess, Conklin’s worst finish has been 15th. That’s four races inside the top-10, and four races between 11th and 15th in his first nine starts. It’s not like he hasn’t gone up against many of these big names in iRacing Special Events, or official series such as the NASCAR iRacing Series, or even in leagues. It’s just impressive to continue that consistency at the very top level.

Anything can happen, and has before. It’s not impossible for a rookie to win the championship, just ask Ryan Luza in 2017. Could the same happen in 2026? We’ll have to wait and watch.

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NO. 10 SEED: WYATT TINSLEY | KANSAS CITY PIONEERS

PTS	WINS	POLES	T5’S	T10’S	AVG ST	AVG FIN	LED	P.P.
211	0	0	1	2	24	13	7	0
Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
5th	16th	18th	7th	13th	14th	11th	22nd	18th

Wyatt Tinsley has qualified for the last four eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series seasons, but last year, he was left without a ride and sat on the sidelines most of the season, returning for a fill-in opportunity at Talladega with Team Dillon Esports. This year, he was reunited with his former team, the Kansas City Pioneers, and now, he’s racing in his first ever eNASCAR Playoffs. Quite the journey for the young talent.

Tinsley joined the series in 2023 alongside the likes of Parker White and Tucker Minter. While a 21st place effort in his first full-time season was respectable, it wasn’t enough to keep him above relegation, which forced him back into the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Qualifying Series in 2024. Once again qualifying for the top level, this time Tinsley was paired with Graham Bowlin instead of Derek Justis for his second season, and the two pushed each other to new heights, with Tinsley winning the opening round of the season and Bowlin advancing to the Championship 4.

2025 came and once again, Tinsley was qualified for a ride, but this season, an additional 10 drivers were added to the Free Agency pool, and that left some drivers without a seat. The Pioneers had the opportunity to pair their Championship 4 driver, Bowlin, with a former champion in Casey Kirwan, which left Tinsley without a ride in 2025. Despite this, Tinsley kept his dream alive and once again re-qualified for the 2026 season. This time, Kirwan needed a teammate, as Bowlin did not re-qualify, and the Pioneers were able to get back one of their original drivers.

It hasn’t been the flashiest return for Wyatt in 2026, but it’s been solid enough to have him in the Playoffs for the first time. On the surface, a single top-5 and just two top-10s are not much to look at, but digging in deeper, you’ll find that Tinsley’s worst finish was 22nd at Richmond, after having to start from the back of the field, and all of his other results have been 18th or better, just good enough to make the cut.

He will need more than that if he wants to compete for the Championship, however. In the two seasons he ran full-time, Tinsley’s best result at Michigan was 11th in 2023, while his 2024 result was down in 27th. He’s only ever raced Texas once in this series, and it was an unfortunate 34th place effort. Kansas will be a new track for him this season, another ironic twist in everything considering he has only ever raced for the Kansas City Pioneers.

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The 2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series Playoffs start at Michigan International Speedway, at 8 p.m. ET on September 1st, which is this upcoming Tuesday night. The show starts with the Countdown to Green pre-race show at 7:45 p.m. ET.

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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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