Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr. has definitely been showing some speed recently, hosting races against other content creators and wiping the floor with them. Most recently, at a high school athletics track in the June heat, he held a sprint race against challenger Daniel Labelle; almost half a million concurrent viewers tuned in for the race, coinciding with Speed happening to pass the 41M subscribers mark.
Fans have been waiting for months for the showdown between IShowSpeed and Daniel Labelle, who is well known for his literally fast-paced content, usually involving running, since Labelle issued a challenge to Speed. Even though the globetrotting superstar was sporting a mild injury, Labelle wasn’t able to keep up with Watkin Jr.’s rapid strides.
?| BREAKING: Speed just BEAT Daniel LaBelle in their 80m RACE all while having a bruised ankle! ??? pic.twitter.com/pTr29sjDA0
— Speedy HQ (@IShowSpeedHQ) June 23, 2025
In the immediate aftermath of the race, Speed passed the 41M subscribers mark on YouTube. Labelle himself boasts tens of millions of his own followers, and Speed’s follower count was surging forward in the middle of their anticipated collaboration. After a short celebration for the landmark, Speed again took to the track to school the challenger and prove the result wasn’t a fluke.
The short half-hour broadcast of Speed’s two races against Labelle was not one to forget, and will surely be remembered by the hundreds of thousands of viewers who tuned in to Speed’s stream. At its peak excitement, the race between the two creators was watched by over 480,000 concurrent viewers. Of course, this wasn’t Speed’s first rodeo; just earlier this month, the creator raced against another fitness influencer, Ashton Hall.
Speed’s previous race against Asthon failed to reach 300,000 Peak Viewers (PV) on his own channel, with the recent sprint against Daniel Labelle reaching much higher viewership. Will Speed find a worthy rival who is able to best him? It’s a tough one to call, but his YouTube streams will definitely reap the rewards of the building excitement behind these collaborative races.
Read also: Streamer sprint showdown: IShowSpeed leaves Ashton Hall in the dust
Another W for Speed and another highly popular broadcast added to his belt. The American streamer is proving inexorable on the race track, and the day that someone is able to give him a run for his money, the stream’s viewership is likely to explode.
