Minter Masters OT Restarts For Charlotte eNASCAR Score

CONCORD, N.C. – William Byron eSports’ Tucker Minter extended the veteran dominance of the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series season with his second win in three races Tuesday night.

With extreme poise on a pair of overtime restarts, Minter fended off the best efforts of defending series champion Parker White, grabbing his sixth career victory in a dramatic run to the checkered flag.

After pulling out to a three car-length gap on the first lap of double overtime, Minter kept White from making a last-ditch charge to the outside and came home the winner by a scant .060 seconds.

It also marked Minter’s second Charlotte win in the Coca-Cola Series, after previously visiting victory lane there during his rookie season in 2023.

“It would have been nice to run it out and win [by] battling side-by-side green to the end, but there was definitely some added pressure with the green-white-checkers,” said Minter after the race. “To be able to pull it off, but also have a great race up front with everyone, was just a ton of fun. I can’t thank everyone with William Byron eSports enough; we had a hot rod all race long.

“We were a little bit nervous about how the weather [changes] might play out for us, but once we got confidence in how the car would handle we were absolutely flying over the long runs.”

Though past series champion Casey Kirwan earned the Coca-Cola 160 pole position in qualifying, it was Six Karma’s Daniel Faulkingham using the outside lane on the initial start to propel himself to the early advantage.

But while Faulkingham led the opening laps, Kirwan was in tow less than two car lengths back. Deeper in the field, three-time season winner and Spire Motorsports driver Steven Wilson was the big mover early on after launching from 16th to fourth in just 12 circuits.

Wilson continued his charge forward with an outside sweep on Tony Kanaan eSports’ Vicente Salas for third on lap 14, asserting his claim as the fastest car on track in the opening quarter at Charlotte.

From there, it took just five more circuits – and continued pounding of the high groove – for Wilson to complete his charge to the point and overhaul Faulkingham to take control of the race.

His Spire teammate, Femi Olatunbosun, followed suit to make it an organizational one-two by lap 25, but by that point Wilson had already opened up a half-second lead and continued to grow the margin.

Olatunbosun began to fade shortly past one-quarter distance, with Salas climbing to second and defending series champion Parker White advancing to third from 12th on the grid, but a lap-51 caution after Quami Scott spun and crashed led to the first round of pit stops on the night.

Wilson was undeterred, however, easily winning the race off pit road and holding serve when the green flag returned. He launched off the outside and resumed command over new second-place man White.

That order stayed until right at the halfway point, when White finally got a run to the inside of Wilson and completed the pass on the frontstretch, moving to the head of the order for the first time.

Perennial title contender Bobby Zalenski followed suit shortly after, with veteran experience dominating the top five as the race wound into its second half. Zalenski wasn’t done, though, and roared past White on the inside of turn three to grab the lead coming to 70 to go.

Another former champion, xx titlist Ryan Luza, entered the fray with 65 laps left in a masterful run forward from 31st to second behind Zalenski. Ten laps later, the final round of pit service began as drivers began to duck off the racing surface to set themselves up for the finish.

The top five – Zalenski, Kirwan, Luza, and White all among them – pitted with 55 to go, but Minter held out until lap 113 to make his final stop in hopes of having a late-race tire edge.

That strategy began playing out with 15 laps left in regulation, when Minter got to fifth place and made the front scrum a fierce five-horse race for the win – stacked two- and three-wide at times.

Minter’s fresher rubber allowed him to complete a turn-two sliding pass for the lead with nine to go, but he then had to contend with FGR Accel eRacing’s Seth DeMerchant in a side-by-side duel after that.

The caution waved, however, coming to four laps left when Kirwan spun down the backstretch in the duel for third. That set up the first of the two overtime restarts that ended the race, but also allowed the field to come down pit road for fresh tires.

After the top 17 took two tires – burying Wilson on the 10th row as the first on four tires – Minter easily escaped during the first green flag of overtime, but a four-wide squeeze play exiting turn two in the middle of the pack led to a multi-car incident and the race-deciding second extra period.

White admitted after the race that he felt better off settling for runner-up honors than wrecking Minter for a victory.

“I knew I wasn’t going to send him for it,” said White. “A lot of other drivers would have in that spot, but going into [turn] two I knew I’d have a big run down the back[stretch]. I never considered wrecking him as an option; I wanted to do it the clean way.

“I knew Tucker would drive it into [turn three] deep, but if I’d done the same thing I’d have lost the momentum from the corner off, so I tried to peek high and it just didn’t quite work to cross over.”

DeMerchant tied his career-best mark by finishing third, followed by Kansas City Pioneers’ Graham Bowlin and Jim Beaver eSports’ Kollin Keister, the night’s hard charger after advancing from 38th to fifth.

Wilson made it back to ninth at the checkered flag, but lost the regular season point lead to Minter after seven races. Minter holds a four-point edge after his second win of the year.

Next for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series is Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway on Tuesday night, May 27, the middle leg of a three-race stretch in three straight weeks.

Coverage begins at 8 p.m. ET, streamed live on the iRacing eSports Network at eNASCAR.com/live. A replay of every eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series event is available via iRacing’s YouTube channel.

The results:

Race (165 laps, extended from 160 due to overtime finish): 1. 97-Tucker Minter [19], 2. 95-Parker White [12], 3. 14-Seth DeMerchant [17], 4. 48-Graham Bowlin [22], 5. 15-Kollin Keister [38], 6. 99-Garrett Lowe [26], 7. 34-Michael Cosey Jr. [13], 8. 2-Zack Novak [11], 9. 77-Steven Wilson [16], 10. 22-Bobby Zalenski [10], 11. 24-Casey Kirwan [1], 12. 4-Donovan Strauss [36], 13. 89-Jordy Lopez [25], 14. 21-Michael Guest [35], 15. 12-Ryan Luza [31], 16. 3-Blaze Crawford [9], 17. 19-Eddie Kerner [40], 18. 7-Femi Olatunbosun [5], 19. 6-Collin Bowden [4], 20. 8-Blake McCandless [7], 21. 25-Nick Ottinger [14], 22. 98-Cody Byus [27], 23. 199-Dylan Duval [37], 24. 40-Connor Yeroschak [18], 25. 47-Dylan Ault [15], 26. 29-Jimmy Mullis [28], 27. 96-Christopher Hill [29], 28. 39-Daniel Faulkingham [2], 29. 42-Logan Clampitt [33], 30. 11-Vicente Salas [8], 31. 33-Taylor Hurst [6], 32. 66-Alexander Russell [30], 33. 88-Briar LaPradd [23], 34. 5-Nate Stewart [34], 35. 36-Quami Scott [39], 36. 1-Malik Ray [3], 37. 50-Quentin Warman [21], 38. 62-Matt Bussa [20], 39. 17-Timmy Holmes [24], 40. 69-Tyler Garey [32].

Lead Changes: 16 among nine drivers

Lap Leader(s): Casey Kirwan Grid, Daniel Faulkingham 1-18, Steven Wilson 19-80, White 81-89, Bobby Zalenski 90-106, Seth DeMerchant 107-111, Jimmy Mullis 112, Briar LaPradd 113-119, Steven Wilson 120, Casey Kirwan 121-124, Bobby Zalenski 125, Steven Wilson 126-151, Tucker Minter 152-154, Seth DeMerchant 155, Tucker Minter 156, Seth DeMerchant 157, Tucker Minter 158-165.

Laps Led: Steven Wilson 89, Daniel Faulkingham 18, Bobby Zalenski 18, Tucker Minter 12, Parker White 9, Seth DeMerchant 7, Briar LaPradd 7, Casey Kirwan 4, Jimmy Mullis 1.

Hard Charger: 15-Kollin Keister (+33)

Fastest Qualifier: 24-Casey Kirwan; 29.415 seconds (183.580 mph); second career and first of season

Rookie of the Race: 3-Blaze Crawford (16th)

Caution Flags: Three for nine laps.

Winning Team: William Byron eSports

Margin of Victory: .060 seconds

Time of Race: One hour, 35 minutes, 4.539 seconds

Average Speed: 156.191 mph

Fastest Lap: 99-Garrett Lowe; Lap 165, 29.932 seconds (180.409 mph)