Champion’s Blog: Steven Wilson

As part of winning the 2023 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series championship, Stewart-Haas Racing driver Steven Wilson agreed to walk us through not only his experiences on site at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte for his $100,000 championship win, but also his visit to Phoenix Raceway to celebrate the title and even his 2023 season as a whole. Here’s a look back in Steven’s own words:

2023 is a year that I will never forget. It all started with good friends and good times at the return of media day at the beginning of the year. Almost all of the 40 drivers met up in Charlotte, which was a fun experience to reconnect with old faces, and meet some new ones while shooting some content for the series. As well as getting the nod to race for Stewart-Haas Racing for the 2^nd year in a row, and represent Smithfield and their sponsors as well as the whole organization is a treat I will not take for granted.

As for how my season went this year, I never really made a ton of noise. I had 2 top 10 finishes in the first 9 races, with 1 win coming at the Superspeedway at Atlanta. After the amazing season I had last year where it felt like nothing could go wrong, until I got to the championship race in Phoenix, it just seemed like that wasn’t going to be a possibility again. My confidence after Atlanta grew some, knowing I had that win to lock myself into the playoffs, as long as I could get myself back into a good enough points position. I was barely hovering around the top 20 cutoff for what seemed like half the season, before things started to trend a little upwards as we got closer to the playoffs, and after making a setup team change mid-season.

After working with Deadzone for the first 2 years of my coke career, it just seemed as if I needed to make a change to try and light a spark to get my season back on the right track, and feeling more confident when going into races, which led to me joining Norse Force Racing. Working alongside some new teammates in the series, including names like Donovan Strauss, Femi Olat, Parker White, Wyatt Tinsley, Daniel Faulkingham, and with others who worked with us on the backend was a nice scenery change for me that obviously turned out well, which will be noted later. After this team change it just seemed like something clicked.

I had a top 3 run going at Darlington, and was moving forward until a bad pit call at Charlotte, but after that those good runs started to turn into good finishes. 3 of the next 4 races were top 10’s at Gateway, Chicago, and New Hampshire. The 4^th race in that mix was an 11^th at Nashville. Gateway and New Hampshire were tracks that I usually struggled at, but running well at those gave me the confidence that I needed to think I could actually make a run in the playoffs. The 3^rd at Chicago was a bit of a letdown, which says a lot for what I expected of myself that race. Preparation for that race was going great, I was hitting my laps in practice, and hit a good enough one in qualifying to put it on pole, all I had to do from there was hold the lead through lap 1 and I knew I had it. However, things didn’t work out that way, and I gave it away before we even got to turn 1, and came out of turn 2 in 3^rd and couldn’t pass Bobby or Parker, who are both rapid on the road courses. Even with that finish taking its toll, I had to look at the positives of getting good points and securing myself into the playoffs, which was the main goal at that time.

After getting the berth into the playoffs, I took a full mental reset. I knew that the only way to guarantee myself to make the Championship 4 again was a win, which had only come at a superspeedway way earlier in the season, or else I would have to have consistent top 5 finishes for 3 races. Going into Michigan I didn’t know what to expect. With draft being so heavy and it racing close to a superspeedway, it could turn into a crapshoot at any moment. I was running around 15^th or so coming to the white flag when I got hit into 3 and had to make a big save as the caution was coming out for cars around me. This caution would change things immensely as I had a set of tires in the pits, whereas others in front of me did not. Over the last 2 restarts I went from 20^th up to finishing 2^nd behind Lowe, and from there on I felt like if luck was on my side that big that night, I had to take advantage of that. Going into dover I was confident on my speed that week in the preparation leading up to it, and it is usually a good track for me. I ran 2^nd to Ottinger for basically the entire race, which was another playoff winner, but having 2 2^nd place finishes in the bag meant I was looking good on points. The next challenge was Phoenix, the one that bit me last year. I got caught up in a wreck early in the race and thought my chances were over, but using some strategy and having enough speed to hold on to 5^th place, things were looking good again, that is until the many GWC’s we ended up having. I held on to 6^th through all of them, and locked into the finale on points.

As for the Championship 4, I was the only one who returned from last year, meaning I had the experience of racing in a pressure-filled situation at the HOF in front of many friends, family, and others. With the track also being Homestead, where I ran great and won last season, I was more determined then ever to prove that I could perform. All I heard about after the finale last season was the blunder that Phoenix turned into, and I did not want that to be the case after this season. I qualified 2^nd for the race, tied with my teammate Donovan Strauss, and NFR who I mentioned earlier was my new team for this season, put our cars in the top 6 in qualifying, and 7 of the top 8. The closest competitor in the Championship 4 started all the way back in 15^th, and right there I knew I had to win this thing or I was going to hear all about it again. Getting a good pep talk from my spotter David Schildhouse really kept me in the zone right before the race, as he had been there to do from the moment I joined the NFR team. I followed Strauss around for the entirety of the 100 laps, only having 1 caution hinder our progress, and stayed in control of the top spot of the Champ 4 the entire race, bringing home the Championship. Having my family there to celebrate is something that will stick with me forever, along with the big names such as the Harvick’s and Byron being there made everything just that little bit more special. Of course not every night could be perfect though, as the trophy lifting was blundered and the picture of me falling off of it, but that wouldn’t stop the excitement of being able to take that Dale Jr trophy home, and having the prestige of being a champion forever (along with that $$).

As part of the festivities for celebration I took a weekend trip down to Phoenix for the NASCAR Championship weekend thanks to the folks at iRacing, NASCAR, and Coca-Cola. I met up with a group of friends who also went to the race and had a fun time watching all 3 races that weekend, but of course the experience Sunday was the top of the mountain. Meeting folks from NASCAR, and Coca-Cola who put this entire series, as well as going up onto the intro stage pre-race and being presented with that check was a great experience, and finally put the cherry on top to an amazing year.

To everyone who helped me get here, including SHR, Smithfield, all of my NFR teammates, spotter David Schildhouse, everyone at iRacing, NASCAR, and Coca-Cola who help put this series on, as well as all the supporters who have followed me throughout this season, and my whole career. THANK YOU!

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