Bobby Zalenski wins e-NASCAR’s virtual Coca-Cola iRacing Series

Bobby Zalenski powered to his 12th victory in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series after earning his 12th career pole position on Tuesday at a virtual Richmond Raceway. Zalenski is currently tied for sixth position on the series' all-time victories list with Keegan Leahy.

Since there were less than 10 playoff-eligible race wins in the series last year and Bobby Zalenski was the highest-scoring winless driver in the cutoff, his road to the playoffs in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series was through points. After winning the series' comeback race at Richmond Raceway, he won't have to worry about it again this year.

It was the Joe Gibbs Racing driver's first victory since his playoff triumph at Talladega in September 2022 and the seventh year in a row he has won an eNASCAR race.

Zalenski won the pole position and started alongside 23XI's Keegan Leahy, a past series winner who made real-world NASCAR headlines this week when team owner Denny Hamlin cited their collaboration with Tyler Reddick as a major factor in Reddick's victory at Circuit of the Americas last weekend.

Zalenski led for the first 40 laps of the 130-lap race before Nicholas Ottinger of William Byron eSports passed him on Lap 40, with the majority of the first half of the race remaining green.

Richmond is one of the only tracks that has been on every schedule in eNASCAR history. If Richmond has shown anything, it's that caution tends to spawn caution. Joey Brown of fgrACCEL and Steven Wilson of Stewart-Haas Racing collided on Lap 33 to bring out the first caution, although the race completed 20 more laps under green after that caution period ended.

With the help of the second, which featured Garrett Manes of fgrACCEL, Dylan Duval of Stewart-Haas Racing and Brandon McKissic of Letarte Esports, race management finally switched to single-file restarts.

Collin Bowden of eRacr briefly held the lead due to a different pit strategy, but Zalenski eventually reclaimed it on Lap 73, shortly before the fourth yellow came out. Thankfully for Zalenski, there was only one yellow flag throughout the race's last 30 laps, which occurred on lap 114 when Tyler Garey of Tony Kanaan Esports collided with Malik Ray of Jim Beaver eSports.

The Fresno native led 95 laps overall and was able to gain nearly a second on the field with a 10-lap green-flag sprint to the finish. Jimmy Mullis of Rise Esports and Michael Conti of JR Motorsports finished second and third, respectively, with Ottinger and Leahy rounding out the top five.

---

NASCAR penalized Suarez $50,000 for ramming cars on pit road

On Wednesday, NASCAR penalized Daniel Suarez $50,000 for impacting another vehicle on pit road after the race at Circuit of the Americas. The fine was a behavioral penalty for "contact with another car on pit road after the race."