Over 20,000 participate in 2026 iRacing Daytona 24h Special Event

iRacing’s Daytona 24-hour kicked off the platform’s Special Event season, with sim racing’s preeminent mass-participation event attracting 21,028 drivers.

The figure, published by the platform, marks the second time the race has seen over 20,000 participants, keeping its place at the top of the sim racing event tree.

Across a gigantic 104 splits, 3,535,282 laps were completed and a staggering 12,585,603 miles were driven.

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Last year, iRacing touted a record-breaking 23,397 drivers, a claimed 26% increase from 2024. Looking at 2026’s driver numbers, there’s an 11.2% decrease compared to 2025 – although still far above other multi-split sim racing events.

However, the number of teams and splits increased year-on-year. 6,072 unique teams in 2026 compared to 4,703 in 2025.

The next Special Event for the title is a Dale Jr Charity Event, followed by the Daytona 500 between 11th and 18th February.

Drago Racing claimed its first top split Daytona victory, with Grid and Go and Williams winning in LMP2 and GTD, respectively.