Garrett Manes delivered one of the most dramatic finishes in eNASCAR Daytona history on Tuesday, winning his first career Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series race from 34th starting position after triple overtime. The victory completed the 10-driver 2026 playoff field and left Zack Novak on the outside looking in by just three points.
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➡️ The eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series Explained
🏁 Garrett Manes Breaks Through for Elusive eNASCAR Victory at Daytona (iRacing.com)
Manes started from pit road following a restart violation at Richmond the previous round. He worked through the field across 80 scheduled laps before chaos broke out in Turn 4. Tucker Minter spun with two laps remaining, triggering the first of three consecutive overtime periods. The eNASCAR Daytona race stretched to 92 laps total — twelve beyond the scheduled distance — with 41 lead changes among 20 different drivers over the course of the night.
The final lap unraveled quickly for several frontrunners. Matthew Morton crashed off Minter’s nose. Bobby Zalenski, who entered as the series points leader with three wins, ran dry on fuel at the worst possible moment. Blaze Crawford’s tank also emptied, opening the door for Manes to pass on the inside and take the checkered flag by 0.000 seconds. Jake Nichols finished second, Blake Reynolds third, Parker White fourth, and Crawford fifth despite running out of fuel on the last lap.
For Manes, the win came in his 80th career start and closed a four-year chapter that included losing a Daytona race by a nose to Femi Olatunbosun. The No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet team finally had its eNASCAR Daytona celebration, and Manes led only the final lap to earn it — which is exactly how overtime chaos tends to work at this track.
The 2026 eNASCAR Daytona Playoff Field and Seedings
Here is how the full 10-driver eNASCAR Daytona playoff field seeded out after Tuesday’s race:
- Bobby Zalenski (ERA eSports Team) — 3 wins
- Steven Wilson* (Spire Motorsports) — Regular Season Champion, 2 wins
- Parker White* (Williams F1 Team Gaming) — 1 win
- Vicente Salas (Kanaan Esports) — 1 win
- Garrett Lowe* (BS+COMPETITION) — 1 win
- Tucker Minter (William Byron eSports)
- Shawn Conklin [R] (RFK Racing) — Top Rookie
- Connor Yeroschak (Letarte eSports)
- Wyatt Tinsley (Kansas City Pioneers)
- Casey Kirwan (Kansas City Pioneers)
*Segment champion (+5 Playoff Points). [R] = Rookie.
Zalenski earned the top seed with three wins despite Steven Wilson winning the Regular Season Championship for Spire Motorsports. Win count determines seeding first, so Wilson sits second. Shawn Conklin of RFK Racing is the only rookie in the field, holding the seventh seed heading into the bracket.
The three-point margin separating 10th and 11th shows exactly how tight the cutline ran. Zack Novak, the 2025 eNASCAR champion driving for JR Motorsports, finished eighth at Daytona but still came up three points behind Casey Kirwan. Quentin Warman, the Qualifying Series champion, missed the playoffs by 17 points. Christopher Hill spun on the final restart and fell from inside the cut to 22nd, ending the day 31 points outside.
Playoffs Open at Michigan International Speedway on September 1
The 2026 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Championship Series playoffs begin at Michigan International Speedway on September 1. Coverage starts at 7:45 p.m. ET with the Countdown to Green pre-show. The $500,000 prize pool and the Dale Earnhardt Jr Cup are on the line across a three-round bracket that runs through Michigan, Texas, and Kansas before a Championship 4 finale in October.
Steven Wilson, the regular season champion, won the 2025 playoff race at Michigan, putting him in the spotlight immediately. Tucker Minter carries complicated history at the track — he was eliminated from Championship 4 contention at Michigan in 2025 — giving the playoff opener an extra layer of stakes before the first lap runs. For Zalenski, holding the top seed means he enters the bracket with the best positioning, but the win-and-you-advance format of eNASCAR playoffs means the three points separating Kirwan from Novak could matter a lot less than getting to victory lane first.
