In the real world, three of Richard Petty’s historic 200 NASCAR Cup Series wins came at Darlington Raceway behind the wheel of his famous #43 car. In the virtual one, it was Erik Jones adding another historic triumph to the Petty racing legacy at Darlington on Wednesday night.

Jones swooped around Timmy Hill and Anthony Alfredo with two laps remaining to steal the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series victory from the Lady in Black, the ultimate nod to NASCAR’s history in the culmination of an industry-redefining day. Driving a throwback to the late John Andretti’s STP ride that gave Petty Enterprises its final win in 1999, Jones scored the first-ever win in NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which was unveiled to the world on Wednesday afternoon and released in iRacing shortly afterward.

Darlington has hosted NASCAR Throwback Weekend for nearly a decade, and Wednesday’s virtual event featured the unique juxtaposition of retro paint schemes on cars that won’t race for real until next year. One of those throwback designs belonged to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who qualified on pole and led the first third of the race before finally yielding the top spot for the first time to William Byron on Lap 48. Earnhardt Jr. managed to outrun two immediate wrecks on the opening lap, and spent most of the race in the top 10.

Byron and Hill would establish themselves as the fastest cars on track in the middle stretch of the race, before contact between Joey Logano and Austin Dillon bunched the field again with under 20 laps to go. That restart led to an immediate wreck, tearing up many of the top cars, but with Jones and Earnhardt Jr. escaping unscathed.

Hill held the lead coming into the final restart with three laps to go and pounced to an early lead, but a strong run from Anthony Alfredo’s damaged car would force Hill to defend. That opened the door for Jones to pass both on the penultimate lap and establish just enough space to keep Alfredo from challenging to take the spot. Earnhardt Jr., Tyler Reddick, and Chase Elliott would complete the top five, with Hill fading to outside of the top 10 after contact with the wall in the mad dash to the finish.

eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series results from Darlington Raceway were as follows:

Fin.

St.

No.

Name

Manufacturer

Laps

Interval

Led

Best

1 22 43 Erik Jones Chevrolet 120 2 28.620
2 3 38 Anthony Alfredo Ford 120 -0.268 0 28.506
3 1 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr Chevrolet 120 -0.429 47 28.665
4 11 8 Tyler Reddick Chevrolet 120 -0.504 0 28.562
5 37 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 120 -0.720 0 28.575
6 29 1 Kurt  Busch Chevrolet 120 -2.235 0 28.741
7 9 15 James Davison Chevrolet 120 -2.530 0 28.628
8 14 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 120 -3.247 0 28.604
9 33 87 Jesse Iwuji Chevrolet 120 -3.312 0 28.882
10 39 99 Daniel  Suarez Chevrolet 120 -5.035 0 28.621
11 10 66 Timmy Hill Toyota 120 -6.442 39 28.597
12 35 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr Chevrolet 120 -8.737 0 28.763
13 26 53 Joey Gase Chevrolet 120 -13.399 0 29.046
14 24 51 Garrett Smithley Chevrolet 120 -30.682 0 28.597
15 13 19 Martin Truex Jr Toyota 119 -1 L 0 28.780
16 5 20 Christopher Bell Toyota 119 -1 L 0 28.523
17 27 10 Aric Almirola Ford 119 -1 L 0 28.880
18 38 23 Bubba Wallace Toyota 118 -2 L 0 28.642
19 23 22 Joey Logano Ford 118 -2 L 0 28.780
20 25 4 Kevin  Harvick Ford 118 -2 L 0 28.790
21 21 52 Joshua Bilicki Ford 117 -3 L 0 28.463
22 32 0 Quin Houff Chevrolet 115 -5 L 0 28.693
23 6 18 Kyle  Busch Toyota 114 -6 L 0 28.576
24 7 14 Chase Briscoe Ford 114 -6 L 0 28.605
25 4 24 William Byron Jr Chevrolet 113 -7 L 32 28.578
26 12 5 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 112 -8 L 0 28.459
27 15 77 Justin Haley Chevrolet 107 -13 L 0 28.714
28 18 48 Alex W Bowman Chevrolet 94 -26 L 0 28.534
29 16 3 Austin  Dillon Chevrolet 94 -26 L 0 28.813
30 31 25 Bobby Labonte Chevrolet 84 -36 L 0 29.138
31 34 78 BJ Mcleod Ford 78 -42 L 0 28.903
32 30 6 Ryan  Newman Ford 73 -47 L 0 28.602
33 17 41 Cole  Custer Ford 58 -62 L 0 28.606
34 28 7 Corey LaJoie Chevrolet 54 -66 L 0 28.815
35 8 21 Matt DiBenedetto Ford 52 -68 L 0 28.753
36 19 17 Chris Buescher Ford 32 -88 L 0 28.788
37 20 34 Michael McDowell Ford 31 -89 L 0 28.812
38 2 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 18 -102 L 0 29.425
39 36 42 Ross Chastain Chevrolet 0 -120 L 0

The eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series will continue on Wednesday, May 19 at Circuit of the Americas, with racing beginning at 7PM ET on FS1. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iRacing.com.

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