NASCAR announced on Friday, that six new teams will enter the 2024 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing series – the highest-level oval sim racing esports competition. The digital 18-race motorsports series kicks off its 14th season in less than four weeks. Once the green flag falls for the competition on Feb. 13 at the virtual counterpart of Daytona International Speedway, 40 drivers from 20 teams will fight for a share of the $300K USD prize pool, with $100K on the line for the driver winning the series’ playoffs on Oct. 1 in front of a live audience.
M80 and Oxygen Esports, two additional multi-titled North American esports organizations this season, join the series. Oxygen Esports was founded in 2020 and operates out of Patriot Place in Foxborough, Massachusetts, competing in Overwatch, Call of Duty, Valorant, Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, and Apex Legends. M80 was founded last year by Marco Mereu (following his departure from XSET) and began as a Valorant team, which quickly expanded to multiple titles including Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, Counter-Strike 2, and Street Fighter. Those two rookie teams bring the count of multi-titled esports organizations competing in the event to four with both the Kansas City Pioneers and Pittsburgh Knights returning in 2024.
Curiously, XSET – an esports organization M80 founder Marco Mereu co-founded and served as COO at – leaving the series and opening up one of the spots for the six new teams paved the way for M80 entering the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series. During the series’ free agency, which wrapped up on Thursday, M80 picked up former XSET driver Ryan Luza who placed 38th in last year’s competition.
XSET’s other driver – the 2023 champion and last year’s P7 – Casey Kirwan, was picked up by one of the four other new teams in the series, Spire Motorsports. Spire is a motorsports team that mostly competes in the NASCAR Cup Series but also runs part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Also joining the series as new contenders are Kevin Harvick Inc. – founded by 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion and recent full-time driver retiree, Kevin Harvick, Nitro Circus Sim Racing Team – a Travis Pastrana-affiliated brand mostly competing in off-road sim racing competitions but also recently featured as a guest in IMSA Esports, and BS+COMPETITION – a German sim racing team owned by bürosüd that is a mainstay in many other top-level sim racing series, including the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup, Grand Prix Turn Racing iRacing Series, and IMSA Esports Global Championship.
Returning in 2024 are five teams fielding drivers in both the top-level NASCAR events and the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series: 23XI Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, JR Motorsports, RFK Racing, and Front Row Motorsports. Formula 1 is represented by Williams Esports and six teams are curated or owned by NASCAR or IndyCar drivers and personalities: Letarte eSports by Steve Letarte, Team Dillon Esports by Austin Dillon, eRacr by Parker Kligerman and Landon Cassill, fgrAccel eRacing with Joe Graf Jr., William Byron eSports with William Byron, and Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan-turned iRacing streamer on Twitch with his outfit Kanaan Esport.