Q&A with the 2024 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series Championship 4

On Tuesday night, the four best drivers from the 2024 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series season will fight at Homestead-Miami Speedway for a $100,000 payday and the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup, live on stage at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Uptown Charlotte.

Steven Wilson, the 2023 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series champion, returns to the NASCAR Hall of Fame for the third-straight season, this time to defend his crown against Parker White, Bobby Zalenski, and Graham Bowlin. All four qualified over the last month and a half of the eNASCAR Playoffs. Steven and Parker won their way in, at Texas and Phoenix, respectively. Graham and Bobby made it on points, earning more over three races than the other six playoff drivers in contention.

On Sunday, the Championship 4 took to the NASCAR Hall of Fame to get a lay of the land, where they’ll go to war for this year’s top honors. I sat down with them all afterwards and gathered their thoughts on the storylines entering the final race night of the season.

What does it mean to be at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, racing for the eNASCAR Championship this year?

• PARKER: “It basically means everything to be here at the Hall of Fame. It’s my first time racing with a live audience, so it’s gonna definitely be a really good experience. Just making it here alone is a really big accomplishment. Once I started racing in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series last year, I was just kind of here to be here last year, and then this year, I knew I had the pace to make the playoffs, maybe not the Championship 4, but now that I’m here, it definitely means a lot to me to be here.”
• BOBBY: “It’s my second time back here at the Hall of Fame. I’m just kind of more grateful to make it this time, and I’m just kind of enjoying it more. Last time, and to no fault of my own, I was a lot more, I guess, intense about it, and focused. It was just like a brand new experience. I never left California on a plane before, so I’m just kind of chilling this time, and just happy to be here. We’ll see if that matters, if the second time back matters, if it’ll make a difference, and I’ll actually get the job done.”
• GRAHAM: “Racing here at the Hall of Fame again for the second time is going to be a good experience. I mean, I really can’t wait for Tuesday just to go for 100k again. I’m just excited and ready to compete. I’ll need to be a little bit more calm, like it’s just another race. I’ve been here before, and my experience will help me on the actual stage, trying to get ready to race again for 100k again.”
• STEVEN: “Racing here again at the Hall of Fame means everything. Obviously, being here three years in a row is pretty meaningful for me. Having my family here again will also mean everything to me. You know, they watch me every week, every race. That’s really who I do it for at this point. I think that experience will be good knowing what to expect going into race day and just knowing the vibes before that whole day as well.”

How has practice gone so far, mostly with the different sim racing rig made by Sim Seats that you’ll be racing in on Tuesday night?

• PARKER: “Practice has been very good. Sim Seats did a very good job at setting our rigs up in our hotel rooms. I feel very comfortable with my wheel, my pedals, everything, and my pace feels very good.”
• BOBBY: “Not going to lie, practice has been a bit tough. I’m always having to adjust to a new rig, but this time, the guys at Sim Seats did a good job, and I like my rig this time more than in 2022, but I’m still hard at work. I’ve got a lot more work to do to be ready on Tuesday.”
• GRAHAM: “Practicing on the new rig that I have from Sim Seats has been pretty good. I mean, I feel like my inputs are actually better on this rig. I normally race on a desk with a single monitor. Anything is really an improvement with this rig.”
• STEVEN: “Practice for me, so far has gone pretty well. I haven’t done a whole lot, but I like the rig. I’ve got to thank Sim Seats for setting that up for us. They did a good job, doing everything that I wanted, and just really making good adjustments so that I feel comfortable, which is the most important part come Tuesday. I’m pretty comfortable with what’s going to happen.”

What does your team dynamic look like for Tuesday night? Who is helping you prepare, and will anyone be in your ear as a spotter or crew chief?

• PARKER: “I’ve been prepping with everyone at NFR, Norse Force Racing. Three of us in the Championship 4, Graham, Steven and I, we’re all from NFR, so we’ve been prepping with them, and the prep has been very good. So far, our base setup was very good. We’ve made some adjustments, and we feel very good. On Tuesday night, I actually will not have a crew chief or spotter. That’s just the way I prefer to do it. I’ll be on a call with Donovan Strauss, and we’ll just kind of go through the race as it goes.”
• BOBBY: “I’ve got all my guys on the setup team Altanda that I’ve been working with. This is the second full season now, and I just enjoy hanging out with the guys, and we just have a lot of fun. I think we’ve got something good, but we’re still working on it. I’m going to have Zac Campbell and Andrew Fayash III, who both are World Championship-level drivers in their own disciplines at one time or currently, and they’ve been helping me all year by spotting, being my eyes in the sky, looking for stuff I need. If we win, it’s definitely a lot to do with them.”
• GRAHAM: “The way we prep for these eNASCAR races, me, Steven, and Parker are actually on the same setup team, and we just get into the session and start racing against each other and testing setups. I have a spotter, Jarrett (Liebert). He helps me with a lot of stuff, and throughout the races, we make adjustments to the car and we get faster.”
• STEVEN: “When it comes to Tuesday night, I’ll have my spotter, Eddie (Kerner) in my ears. I race in the same audio channel with Femi (Olatunbosun) and Graham. That’s who I’m listening to the whole race. I listen to what they have to say. I listen to Eddie in my ear telling me all the information that I need. Me, Parker, Graham, we also race on the same setup team, so we’ve been practicing and prepping the whole week, getting ready for this race. For three weeks, actually, I guess, so we’ll all be really close together on speed and as a team. We’ve been prepping really well and we’re confident heading in.”

What are your pre-race rituals or routines that you have planned for Tuesday?

• PARKER: “I don’t have anything planned pre-race. I’m just going to try to do as many laps as I can, just try to get comfortable racing inside the Hall of Fame. I’ve already gotten comfortable with my rig, so mainly just adjusting to the environment, just making sure I’m comfortable come race time.”
• BOBBY: “I’m not really big on pre-race routines or anything like that, or superstitions. I kind of got rid of those quite a few years back, but I’ll just make sure I’m fed, I’m not hungry, I’m not thirsty, and I’m just energized for the race. Simple as that, you show up on the stage and do your work. It’s pretty simple.”
• GRAHAM: “My pre-race routine is usually just eating a lot of protein, drinking a lot of water, trying to get a lot of energy, just from, like, natural stuff and being healthy, and then just doing breathing exercises to make sure I’m as calm as possible in high pressure situations.”
• STEVEN: “My pre-race rituals before Tuesday are not really anything special. I mean, I just try to stay calm before the race, not trying to get too excited, and I feel like that’s where I make more mistakes. When it came to 2022, I feel like that was my problem. Learning from that last year, and just taking everything I learned last year, and what I did well, and what I can still improve on, that’s what I’ll work for on Tuesday.”

Who is here supporting you on Tuesday night at the NASCAR Hall of Fame?

• PARKER: “This Tuesday night, I’m going to have my mom, my grandma, and my mom’s friend here as well.”
• BOBBY: “I’ll have a few friends from the area that also have experience racing in the series at one point, none of them currently drivers. Hopefully they can all make it, and I’ll just get to meet up with them and say hi and have a good time.”
• GRAHAM: “My dad will be here to support me, and a couple other friends will be here just for me as well.”
• STEVEN: “Come Tuesday night, I’ll have most of my family here, about seven members I think will come. I’ve also got a school buddy coming down, so it’s cool to have people who weren’t really into racing. You know, my school buddy watches F1, but he’s not really a NASCAR fan, but now that he’s over here in the area, he’ll come down and watch, and I’ll just be happy to have him here, as well as the rest of my family.”

What is more important? The trophy, or the check?

• PARKER: “For me, the check would be much more important. I want to be an airline pilot. A lot of cost goes into flight training. If I could win the 100 grand, that’s going to help a lot.”
• BOBBY: “Years ago, I would say, purely, the trophy, and I’m still going to say the trophy, because maybe I’m just immature, but I really just want to get that. I still care about the money too. I think as you get older every year, just more appreciate how hard money is to come by, and 100 grand really helps just kind of build yourself a foundation. So, I definitely need the money, but I’m immature and I want the championship trophy.”
• GRAHAM: “I would say the trophy, but like the check… Man, that thing is huge. So, I would like to win that 100k.”
• STEVEN: “At this point, I would say the check is more important for me. I do have college funds to pay for, and maybe make a purchase this year. Last year was nothing special. I just kind of invested a little bit, paid the taxes, did the normal thing. So this year, maybe, if I went again, we’ll see what purchase I could make. I probably would have said the same answer last year.”

If you were to bring it home, where would you put the Dale Earnhardt Jr. Cup?

• PARKER: “‘I’m going to put the trophy, if I can get it, like, right behind my sim rig. I know I’m known for having a lot of chairs back there, so maybe we’ll put the trophy on one of the chairs. I don’t know. We’ll see.”
• BOBBY: “I’ve not thought about where I would put the trophy. I just haven’t, but it’d probably be smart to put it in the backdrop of the racing I’m doing next year, when they go to my webcam, like it just makes a lot of sense to put it there, because you can just flex it and just be a little bit cocky.”
• GRAHAM: “I’m going to put the Dale Jr Cup wherever there’s space, like in the living room. I don’t know, somewhere where it fits, I don’t know, but I’ll find a place for it.”
• STEVEN: “If I get a second Dale Jr Cup, I’ll probably try to squeeze it in, next to the other one I have, but there’s really not a lot of room next to me, so I might have to do some moving around in my room, but I’d like to have that on the camera as well for every race.”

What would be your most frivolous purchase with $100,000?

• PARKER: “I don’t really know what I would buy with 100 grand. Honestly, I’d probably try to save most of it. As I said, my flight training is very expensive, so I’d rather have too much money rather than just use it up too quickly.”
• BOBBY: “Gosh, I’m such a dweeb for not wanting to use this money for something cool if I win it, but I feel like I’ve got to use some of that money to, like, actually race something in real life, big or small, because I know I can race something in real life. I don’t know if I’d be good, but I just want to do it.”
• GRAHAM: “Well, I am going to Vegas next month, so I’m going to have a fun time, and hopefully I can go there with 100k. Not saying I would put it all on black, but that would be kind of funny to do… I’m joking.”
• STEVEN: “If I get 100k this year, I might look into buying a car. I had a lot of people last year tell me to do that, but we’ll see when it comes down to it, this year, if I really want to make that purchase. I’m more of a classic car guy, so it would kind of not be, like, a new car thing for me, but I also already have one, so that may not be the perfect fit, as my family would normally tell me, but we’ll see.”

How confident are you for Tuesday night, and how do you think the race will play out?

• PARKER: “I feel very confident so far. My pace alone is good. I just need to work on driving in a pack. As I’ve said, I felt very good with the rig that Sim Seats set up in our hotel rooms. We’ve been practicing ever since Friday, so as long as I can execute, and like I said before, if I can get used to driving in the Hall of Fame with a live audience, I’ll be good.”
• BOBBY: “If I’m honest, I’m not super duper confident, because I know I have a big task ahead, and I have not won this race before. How can you lose this race five times and just be blindly confident? I’m more so just being smart about it, and knowing that confidence doesn’t mean anything. You just show up and you keep working, you keep working, and I’m not going to be nervous about it. I’m just going to show up the best I can and not even think about if I’m confident or not. We’re here to win.”
• GRAHAM: “I’m pretty confident. I think we’re all going to be brawling for the 100k. I don’t think it’s going to be as dominant-slash-boring as last year. I think we’re going to be, like, on top of each other in reality, like, leading is a disadvantage. So I think we’ll be brawling for the 100K. We could wreck each other, to be honest. That’s how close we are. There’s only a little bit separating us.”
• STEVEN: “My confidence level for Tuesday is pretty high. I’m pretty comfortable with the speed we have and the comfort in our setup. I just feel like it’ll all come down to execution. I feel good at Homestead, just to put it that way, I mean, I’m really confident. I won the championship there last year, I won the race there in 2022, and I won the College Series race there this year. So we have good momentum at that racetrack.”

Who is your strongest competitor, among the other three, fighting you for the title?

• PARKER: “There can be a lot of different answers to who’s going to be my strongest competitor. I feel like all the other three, they have their strengths and weaknesses in all different aspects. I think you could just say Steven is probably going to have just the best overall chance. I would say he won last year. He’s coming in with all the momentum. He has like three or four wins this season. Graham, he’s going to be very aggressive. Bobby is just overall, really good as well. So it’s hard to say, but if I had to choose one, I’d probably say Steven, just because he’s got four wins this season, he’s the defending champion, and he’s going to have all the momentum.”
• BOBBY: “They’re all setup teammates, and their team at NFR have done really good for the past year and a half. We know we have to just be on our game, because they will be too, and it could be any three of them. I’m not going to pick one, because they’ve all been strong at these kinds of tracks as well… but I think Parker has the momentum.”
• GRAHAM: “I think they’re all pretty good? Obviously, Steve’s on a hot streak, but I think in all reality, it just comes down to whoever is good that night, like there’s not a lot separating us speed-wise. I think whoever performs that night is going to win the 100k.”
• STEVEN: “I feel like going into this year, all three of these guys are going to be tough to beat. You know, obviously each of them have been fast recently. That’s why they’re here in the top-four. I just think we’re all going to be really close on speed. We’ve had the same set of things pretty much for the entire year, so everybody keeps getting closer and closer, and it’s just really about how you execute in qualifying, and then we’ll see how it goes from there.”

FOR GRAHAM AND STEVEN: At Iowa, Graham wasn’t happy with Steven. Graham said Steven would regret it when he made it to the Championship 4 with him. Here you both are. Have you talked about that night? Do either of you have any thoughts on it? Is this something to worry about?

• GRAHAM: “When I made that quote, it was obviously a heat of the moment thing, but it did motivate me a lot.””We haven’t really talked about it that much, but yeah, we’re just going to be racing hard against each other.””I’m going to keep it clean, there’s no point in wrecking someone else, because, like, it would be like a rare situation where it would benefit me, where I would cross the start-finish line beating everybody if I wrecked someone else.”
• STEVEN: “Going back to Iowa, I mean, it was just a ‘me really wanting to win that race’ sort of thing. I think Graham, at this point, is much less heated about it than he was at the time.”
  
  “We’ve talked about it very little, but we’re still on the same setup. We’ve worked together, so we’ve still been doing that every week and been fine. So, I don’t think it’ll change the way he races me on Tuesday. I think he’s going to race me hard. He’s going to do what he has to do to win a championship. I don’t think I was really going to affect that at all.”

FOR GRAHAM: Does the title of ‘underdog’ fit you?

• GRAHAM: “From an outside POV, I think the underdog title does fit me, but ever since Charlotte, I’ve been competing at the top of the pack against like Steve, Parker, Tucker, Bobby, all those top guys. I’m probably forgetting some names, but in my mind, I’m not an underdog, but it can come off as if I am an underdog, sure.”

FOR PARKER: Does it matter to you that the other three have raced here at the Hall of Fame, and you haven’t?

• PARKER: “It doesn’t matter to me that they have raced here. I’m just treating it as if I’ve been here already. I’m not going to overthink it, because if I overthink it, then that’s just going to basically ruin all my chances. I’ll just be too stressed. I’m just going to go into it thinking it’s like all of our first times here. And I think I’ll be good that way.”

FOR PARKER: You finally broke through with a win at Phoenix three weeks ago. Are we looking at Parker White momentum? Will that make going back to victory lane easier if needed on Tuesday?

• PARKER: “Momentum is a very big part of having success in racing, and I feel like the storyline coming into this race, if I didn’t win three weeks ago, was going to be that I’m the only one in the Championship 4 that doesn’t have a win. All these other three guys have been here before, so I feel like I was just going to be the underdog by far. But now that I have that win, that definitely helps a lot.”

FOR BOBBY: With the other three being technical teammates, does that give you an advantage or disadvantage on Tuesday?

• BOBBY: “I don’t really know if them being teammates helps me or not. Iron sharpens iron. I think that will make them better as a group, but then they’re going to have to race each other. The last time I was here, I was also racing three setup teammates, and I don’t think it really mattered. I think all four of us are just here to win, but we’ve all raced each other plenty in the past, and I think it’ll be a good time.”

FOR STEVEN: You have the chance to become the second driver ever in series history with multiple championships. Does that weigh on you any that you have that chance to earn that distinction?

• STEVEN: “I don’t think, when it comes to being back-to-back, or a multiple time champion, I don’t think that’s going to really affect me. I think just knowing that a championship is in front of me is all I’m focused on. Same mindset as last year. It’s just one race, that’s all it comes down to, and it’s one championship, and whether it’s back-to-back, two-time, I don’t really care. I just want to win that one come Tuesday.”

LAST QUESTION FOR ALL: Why will you be the 2024 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series Champion?

• PARKER: “I’m going to be the champion on Tuesday night because I really want to win. I think everyone wants to win it, but, man, I don’t know, it just means so much to win the 100 grand and the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup. Dale Jr is my all-time favorite driver, so I’d love to have the trophy in his name.”
• BOBBY: “Why am I going to be champion? I think you’re just going to have to wait until Tuesday for that answer, and see it yourself.”
• GRAHAM:  “I think I’m, like, really good under pressure, and I’m usually a little bit better, like, when all the lights are really bright. So, I think if I qualify well, which is what I’m going to focus on, I think I’ll have a really good shot at winning this 100k.”
• STEVEN: “Steven Wilson will be a back-to-back champion on Tuesday night, because he’s going to go into Homestead, he’s going to dominate, and he’s going to own everyone, because he has the most aura out of the four.”

The quest for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series championship, and the road to $500,000, concludes tonight at 8:00 pm ET, live on eNASCAR.com/live. Tune in to a special pre-race Countdown to Green starting at 7:00 pm ET.

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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