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5dollarpromo_160x600 Simcraft

February 2012

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iRacing TV

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The Team

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  • David Phillips
    Editor and Chief
    David Phillips is a long-time contributor to print and electronic publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Racer, Autosport, AutoWeek, Motor Sport and SPEEDtv.com, oversees the daily updating of news stories and assigns, edits and contributes feature material for inRacingNews.com.
  • Chris Hall
    iRacing.com Series Writer
    Chris Hall has been writing since the nineties and moved into motorsports reporting in 2005, covering series such as ALMS, British GT, FIA GT, Le Mans and 2CV racing for Full Throttle magazine, Motorsport.com, The-Paddock.net, GTGateway.com, L' Endurance and, of course, inRacingNews. During 2008 and 2009, he worked with the RSS Performance Porsche Carrera Cup Team (and former British GT(C) champions) as a data engineer for a variety of drivers and models of 997s.
  • Jameson Spies
    Contributing Writer
    19 years old, Jameson Spies lives in Quartz Hill, California. He grew-up surrounded by racing. His mother raced late models throughout Southern California while his father built and setup the car. Not surprisingly, Jameson began racing go-karts at the age of 13, and is now racing Spec Trucks at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. He has a passion about all forms of racing and hopes to make a career out of it.
  • Jason Lofing
    iRacing.com Series Writer
    Jason is 21 years old and was born and raised in Elk Grove. California. A big time NASCAR fan, he hasn’t missed a race on Sunday in years. Lofing is also a huge San Fransisco Giants fan and tries to take in at least a couple games a year. Other than sim racing, his biggest (and far more expensive!) hobby is photography. Although he is rather new to sim racing, Lofing has already accomplished some pretty impressive results, qualifying for the 2011 iRacing Oval Pro Series in Season 1, 2011, winning the inaugural Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge and finishing runner-up in the second one.
  • Ray Bryden
    Technical contributor
    Ray grew up in Nova Scotia, which means he’s a hockey nut, but in Nova Scotia’s two non-winter months he had to find other diversions, which meant watching F1 racing on weekends with his dad and brothers. Without the resources to get started in racing, he gravitated to computer versions of racing – first Atari games like Pole Position, followed by PC racing games like Indianapolis 500: The Simulation. Dozens of others came and went, until Grand Prix Legends came along and he decided sim-racing was his official hobby. Years were spent enjoying this both offline and online until a few years of fatherhood took priority. When free-time reappeared he heard about iRacing and signed up in 2008 and became so involved in the service that he wrote one of the first books on the subject of sim-racing, iRacing Paddock. When not writing for inRacingNews.com, his main occupation is as a research associate with Saint-Gobain working on advanced ceramic materials.
  • Patrick Atherton
    Contributing Writer
    Patrick Atherton, originally from Adelaide in the state of South Australia, currently resides just outside of Melbourne, Victoria with wife of 17 years and 3 kids. A business manager by profession, but also dabbles with blogging, cartooning and fine art, having been published both as a writer in a short-lived South Australian motorsport yearbook and later as a cartoonist in a niche trade magazine. At the age of 19 he competed in club circuit events in an Austin Healey Sprite, later indulging in sprint karts between 1994 and 2000. Following the move to the State of Victoria he raced Road Race Karts (“Superkarts” as they are known in Australia) in the popular Rotax class, competing at Phillip Island, Oran Park, Mallala, Wakefield Park, Eastern Creek, Calder Park, Sandown and Winton. It was during this time he met former Australian F2 champion and inventor of Australia’s first, and most prolific race simulator rig, Jon Crooke. This culminated in an introduction to Papyrus’ legendary NR2003 simulation, and the subsequent sim racing addiction which brought him to iRacing.
  • Tim Terry
    Contributing Writer
    Tim Terry, aka the voice of Maritime stock car racing, fell in love with sim racing in 2004 after he joined the Sim Racing Network crew as a pit reporter. From October 2004 to SRNtv’s closure in June 2007, he’s covered prestigious races and leagues such as the Online 500, FLM Fall 400, Real Racing Online and the DMP Racing League – each as the lead broadcaster for the company. At the same time the wheels started to turn in another direction as he began announcing stock car racing locally. Terry became the assistant announcer at Scotia Speedworld in May 2007 and took over full duties in May 2009 when long-time voice Mike Kaplan retired from the track. Terry also became the series voice of the Parts For Trucks Pro Stock Tour in ’09 and continues to hold down both posts in 2011. He has also announced races for the Pro All Stars Series, Atlantic Open Wheel and Maritime League of Legends tours and has called races at six different Atlantic Canadian tracks. Terry can be heard online at WebRacingNetwork.com, RLMtv.com and OLRtv.com covering sim races. He also makes occasional appearances on PSRtv.com. In addition to inRacingNews, his articles and columns can be read on ScotiaSpeedworld.ca, MaritimeProStockTour.com and his own website at timterryonline.com.
  • David Allen
    Contributing Writer
    North Carolina born and raised with over 15 years of computer/IT experience, I combine two of my biggest hobbies -- racing and technology -- here at inRacingNews. In my spare time I run a Nascar fan site and cure my own need for speed riding atvs. If it involves technology or racing I'll be there, but combine the two and I'll be looking a front row seat. Stop by and say hello anytime!
  • Allen Krier
    Contributing Writer
    Allen was born in West Palm Beach, Florida but grew up in Atlanta and attended Georgia College and State University where he received a BS in Information Systems. Currently a resident of Albany, GA, he started sim racing in 2008 while in college when iRacing was first released to the public. Since then, Krier has been a two time iRacing Pro Series driver (2009 and 2010), picking up one Pro Series win at Daytona in ‘09. Besides sim racing, Allen’s other hobbies include RC Car racing as well as “attending and watching any sporting event that I can including going to the local dirt track.

iGPS Goes Down Under

by Simon Cattell on February 22nd, 2012

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Slocombe and Reip had quite a battle in Sunday's 6:15 SoF-race.

From one side of the map to another, the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series circus travelled across the globe and Down-Under to the Phillip Island Circuit in Victoria, Australia for Round 3 of the 2012 Season 1 Championship. New faces emerging as top contenders for the race to the Pro series including Max Dell’Orco and Laurent Beteille put an end to Jake Stergios’ so far dominant performances by out-qualifying him in the Strength of Field (SoF) races taking places on Friday and Sunday respectively. An exciting race prospect was in full swing for the Friday night American SoF race. An impressive qualifying performance from Dell’Orco put his car on pole ahead of Stergios, but the New Englander’s better launch saw him grab the lead and never look back en route to [...]

Allen Takes NiSWC Opener

by Jason Lofing on February 22nd, 2012

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Allen (14) was in the right place at the right time, edging Hall (13) and Davidowitz (20) for the win as chaos erupted in their wake.

The third season of the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship (NiSWC) kicked-off Tuesday night at Daytona International Speedway, with 50 sim racers ready to compete in the 17 race season and win part of the $19,000 championship purse. NASCAR iRacing Pro Series (NiPS) champion Alex Warren headlined several newcomers ready to challenge the likes of Richard Towler, Brad Davies and defending NiSWC champion, Ray Alfalla, The 2012 season started off with another first as well. The Daytona race offered a cash prize to the winner, $500 to be exact, with second place also taking home $250 worth of iRacing credits. Changes to the cars’ aero package meant that for the first time in the NiSWC, the two car tandem style of drafting seen in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series would [...]

Thriller at Spa

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on February 22nd, 2012

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RSR_R6_Spa_last_lap_1280

Twenty-two drivers traveled to Belgium for the “Van Ophen 30 at the famous Circuit de Spa GP” in Francorchamps, Belgium during week six of the Red Sox Racing League’s 2012 Season One schedule.  After hearing about the photo finish between Chad Peterson and Les Turner in last week’s race at Okayama, race fans in Belgium were eager to see a repeat performance.  They would not be disappointed. Pre-race practice and qualifying sessions at the 19 turn, 4.35 mile track gave everyone a hint of what was to come as Peterson and Turner once again battled for the top spot.  Peterson won the pre-race competition by earning his 2nd pole of the season with a qualifying lap of 2:06.356.  Turner posted the only other sub-2:07 lap and secured the outside position [...]

New & Improved Live Broadcast Page on iRacing.com

by David Phillips on February 21st, 2012

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motorsport simulations

The new and improved iRacing Live debuts today on iRacing.com.  The landing page highlights iRacing.com’s upcoming broadcasts and includes complete NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship and iRacing World Championship Grand Prix Series schedules that automatically adjust time and dates to your time zone. Other great new features include: •        A live count of the number of spectators on iRacing Live •        Live chat can now be popped out in its own window •        An RSS feed for live broadcasts •        Coming soon will be an Archive function enabling you to watch past iRacing broadcasts. In addition, PSRTV has been working hard this “off-season” on the broadcast itself to make it better than ever.  Here are some of the highlights of the broadcast improvements: •        720p (HD) HTTP dynamic streaming •        [...]

Lambert Leads Lates out of SoBo

by Tim Terry on February 21st, 2012

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Lambert Leads Lates out of SoBo

It’s pretty hard to beat the numbers put up on the board by Mark Lambert in the first two weeks of the iRacing.com Late Model Tour.  After all, Lambert has started eleven races in the two weeks and has won in all eleven of those starts! To add to that, when all the dust settled from the first two weeks of sim racing at Lanier National and South Boston Speedways, Lambert held the lead in the standings in a highly competitive series that saw nearly a thousand sim racers take to the virtual asphalt for each of the first two rounds of the series. While Lambert won seven races during the first week at Lanier, the amount of races and strength of field in those races affected his point position [...]

Return to Okayama

by Christopher Leone on February 21st, 2012

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Return to Okayama

Week Two of the inRacingNews Challenge season, the first of 2012, saw a return to the Okayama International Circuit, this time on the track’s short course. While the Pontiac Solstice and SpecRacer Ford drivers should be quite familiar with the track in their cars, this marks the first time that the new Mazda MX-5 Roadster class hits this track in the iRNC. Many sim racers haven’t been shy about trying out the new car, and the points leaders frequently transcend multiple classes. Ralf Janiak was the story of the week, posting the best points totals in all three classes and never losing a race. He beat Michael Booth in Solstice, scoring 168 points in one perfect race (won from the pole and led every lap) while Booth went three for [...]

2012 NiSWC Opener Broadcast Tonight!

by David Phillips on February 21st, 2012

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motorsport simulations

The 2012 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship kicks-off tonight with iRacing’s broadcast of the world’s top stock car sim racers going head-to-head at Daytona International Speedway.  iRacing and PSRTV have been working hard during the off-season to insure the NiSWC broadcasts are the best ever. Tonight’s broadcast will feature the debut of Hotlaps, an insider’s preview of the race hosted by NiSWC veteran Steve Sheehan. In just two years, the Daytona round of the NiSWC has developed a remarkable history. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the inaugural running of the event and last season, iRacer of the Year Ray Alfalla opened his run to the 2011 NiSWC crown with a win at Daytona.  Needless to say, Alfalla will be looking to open his title defense in similar fashion, and not just to get a [...]

One-on-One with Joshua Muggleton

by Eric Forster on February 20th, 2012

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"Muggo" battles with van Gisbergen at Silverstone.

Following the iRacing.com V8 Supercar Series Presented by Big Pond’s visit to Silverstone in Week 2, inRacingNews contributor Eric Forster had the opportunity to interview Joshua Muggleton.  Note that while Silverstone had not yielded much in the way of good results (a ninth and a 17th place in two outings), following his chat with Forster, Muggleton scored his second win of the season at Watkins Glen this week and the Sydney-based sim racer now finds himself in the thick of the battle for the series lead. Eric Forster: Can I call you Muggo? Joshua Muggleton: Of course! That’s what everyone else calls me. EF: The season is off to a bit of a rough start for you: two races down and it’s pretty clear that your finishes aren’t level with [...]

McLaughlin Tops at Silverstone

February 19th, 2012

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Pancho Carter once said "If you can't win, be spectacular."  Better yet, McGlaughin might say, "Win spectacularly."

Week Two of the iRacing.com V8 Supercar Series Presented by Big Pond, and the drivers of the V8SC Ford Falcons found themselves tackling the wide-open expanses of Silverstone. With some of the most storied corners in all of motor racing—Stowe, Chapel, Copse, Club, Becketts, Woodcote, Abbey—the Grand Prix track proved the perfect venue to host some big-iron online road racing. The stage for some fierce competition in the main race (10:45 GMT Monday, February 13th) was set by two earlier races: the first (08:45 GMT Sunday; Strength of Field 3334) saw two professional drivers in a back-and-forth duel, as International V8SC driver, Shane van Gisbergen, beat New Zealand Touring Car and Fujitsu V8 Supercar driver, Scott McLaughlin, by less than a second, with Justin Ruggier taking the final spot on [...]

Continental Endurance Sports Car Series Debuts at Daytona

by Stephen McPherson on February 19th, 2012

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Continental Endurance Sports Car Series Debuts at Daytona

41 drivers took to the field for Round 1 of the inaugural Continental Endurance Sports Car Series (CESCS) at Daytona International Speedway – Road Course on February 11th (just prior to the much anticipated resurfacing of the circuit).  The mixed class online racing competition features the Ford Mustang FR500S in the GS Class and Mazda MX5 of the ST Class. Practice and Qualifying Trace McRae was quickest in the Mustang in final practice with a 2:04.190, .1s faster than Brian Strodtbeck. But it was Strodtbeck who managed to put his car on pole with a blistering qualifying time of 2:03.910. Coincidently, Brian currently holds a Top 10 spot in the list of all-time Mustang qualifiers at this track. James Stevenson was quickest in the Mazda MX5 in both final practice [...]

iRacer Profile: Farid Laggoune

by David Phillips on February 18th, 2012

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motorsport simulations

What’s a nice guy from Algeria doing at Lanier and South Boston?  Well if you’re speaking of Farid Laggoune the answer is: winning sim races.  Lots of them.  Laggoune (who sports the red, white and green colors of Algeria on his helmet despite having since moved to France) finds himself in familiar territory these days, namely leading the iRacing.com Legends Cup midway through the third week of 2012 Season 1 on the strength of 15 wins in 28 starts.  That’s right where he finished 2011 Season 4C, by the way, atop the Legends Cup standings (ahead of some guy named Scott Speed) after a Season 4B that saw him visit Victory Lane no less than 30 times in 66 outings. Laggoune isn’t ALL about Legends.  Of late he’s dipped his [...]

Intel GT Series Battles the World ‘Round

by Otto Szebeni on February 17th, 2012

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The green flag waves on the Intel GT European Finals at Spa.

The Intel GT Series featured some great battles on two continents last week, with both the European Finals and the South American regionals taking place at Spa-Francorchamps. First came the European Finals which produced a race full of drama and not a little controversy. Lap 7 saw second place Jesse Nieminen (Finland) get a run on leader Atze Kerkhof (Netherlands) going into a corner. There was contact (first place claiming “ghost” contact) which took the European Regional Series winner and race leader out of contention, while Nieminen went on to finish 7th. Raymond Mooney (Scotland) had a clean, incident-free race which found him in the lead with nine laps to go.  He never looked back en route to the victory, the spoils of which include an Intel Core i5 processor [...]

Classic Prototype and GT Action

by Michael Booth on February 17th, 2012

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Tomas Klopp leads the Prototype and GT field into Turn One at Road America.

For 2012 Season 1, the iRacing.com Prototype and GT Challenge opened at two of North America’s classic circuits, Watkins Glen and Road America, for the third season of Le Mans-style multiclass online racing featuring LMP2, GT1 and GT2 classes.  A few changes took place during the off season, namely adding extra weight to bring the HPD ARX-01c up to its correct minimum of 825kg, updates to the tyre model for all three cars, and gridding by class to make starts safer for all concerned. The schedule saw increases to some of the race lengths in the open setup series – half of the tracks, including Watkins Glen and Road America, were bumped up to 70 minutes, forcing sim racers in all three classes to make a pit stop in those [...]

Stroud Takes Milwaukee

by Tim Doyle on February 16th, 2012

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Stroud cruising to victory!

The Milwaukee Mile, the oldest operating motor speedway in the world, hosted Round 3 of the 2012 Season 1 iRacing.com IZOD IndyCar Series.  The one mile track is one of the toughest the series travels to and usually provides great short track action.  29 drivers showed-up to do battle, with the Top Split comprising 15 of the higher iRated drivers. Shaun Stroud led qualifying to earn the pole position with a 21.702 second lap, while Tim Doyle’s 21.767s lap earned him a  spot on the outside of the front row.  Chris Cahoe, Matthew Lambertson and Niles Anders rounded-out the top five in a starting field blanketed by just over half a second. The start of the 135 lap race saw Stroud jump out to the early lead with Doyle and [...]

A Battle is Joined

by Jameson Spies on February 16th, 2012

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Hot 'lanta! Nearly 850 iRacers answered the challenge of AMS in Week 2, with ? of them earning 200 or more points.

Week Two of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series has come and gone and the battle to make the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series is in full force. Class A drivers stepping up their game to unheard of levels made Week Two at Atlanta Motor Speedway the most thrilling week in quite some time. Top names in sim racing took part in Atlanta’s festivities and made the week’s points totals sky rocket. Jason Karlavige edged-out Jared Crawford to win the top split of the week, and the absurdly high total of 360 points that went along with it. Karlavige’s record was unblemished on the week, as he only made the one start, earning the pole, and leading 37 of the 110 laps to put his name at the top of the [...]

Quick Start Jumps Jarrell to Lead

by Tim Terry on February 16th, 2012

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Quick Start Jumps Jarrell to Lead

Virginias Club sim racer Trey Jarrell started-off the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) in 2012 Season One with a boost of momentum. After hitting the ground running in Week One at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jarrell followed-up with an overall weekly victory during the Week Two stop at the Richmond International Raceway. With only twelve weeks comprising this season, Jarrell has made a quick, but impressive bid in a short period of time to take away the popular oval series crown this season. The season started with over 1,600 sim racers taking to the virtual track at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Scotty MacMichael escaped the 1.5-mile oval with the most points of his peers following a win in a 3481 Strength of Field (SoF) race on February 1st. MacMichael [...]

iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series Debuts

by David Phillips on February 15th, 2012

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irnPremier

Three Day Skip Barber Racing School Awarded to Series Champion iRacing.com and the Skip Barber Racing School are teaming-up to give a talented driver the opportunity of lifetime: a Skip Barber Racing School 3-Day Racing School.   The prize will be awarded to the winner of the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series, a new 24 week-long series of 12 races on iRacing’s online motorsports simulation service featuring precise digital replicas of the Skip Barber Racing School Formula 2000 open wheel racer and many of the world’s most challenging race tracks. “We’re really excited about the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series and the associated prize packages,” says Dave Kaemmer, co-founder and chief executive officer of iRacing.com.  “In addition to being a lot of fun, iRacing has proven to [...]

Gerrald Scores Big at Iowa

by Allen Krier on February 15th, 2012

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Defending NiCBS champion Karlavige posted a win and second fastest qualifying time at Iowa last week.

Week Two of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class B Series (NiCBS) saw the world’s top sim racers travel to Newton, Iowa’s Iowa Speedway. The 7/8th mile track, which was designed by Rusty Wallace, has become a staple in the NASCAR Nationwide Series as well as the NiCBS series. During Week Two, 529 drivers attempted atleast one race while 176 drivers turned at least one qualifying lap. Week Two’s Strength of Field race took place on Thursday and paid 204 points for the victory. At the end of the race, Joshua B Gerrald (Texas) found himself in victory lane. Gerrald started seventh but would take the lead on lap 45 and cruise to the victory. “We had a good car tonight. Starting in the back worried me, but the car was hooked-up [...]

2012 World Tour of iRacing’s Doubleheader Kick-Off

by David Phillips on February 14th, 2012

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motorsport simulations

iRacers will have not one but two chances to channel their inner AJ Allmendingers, Justin Wilsons, Billy Johnsons and Jack Roush, Jrs this weekend, with a doubleheaded kick-off to the 2012 World Tour of iRacing. That’s right, not one but two events – the Roar Before the 2.4 and the 2.4 Hours of Daytona – are coming your way Friday and Saturday at Daytona International Speedway. The weekend begins with the 2012 iRacing.com Roar Before the 2.4, a mixed class GT event featuring the VW Jetta TDi, Mazda MX5 Cup and Pontiac Solstice. The green flag drops at 21:00 GMT (4 pm ET) on Friday, February 17 for a sixty minute race on the new Daytona Road Course in daylight conditions. The field will be divided into fields of 43 [...]

Photo finish at Okayama

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on February 14th, 2012

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006_RSR_R5_Okayama_photo_finish

It all came down to about four inches or 0.003 of a second.  That was the difference between first and second place after 50+ miles of racing action during the Red Sox Racing League’s 5th race of the 2012 Season One schedule.  Twenty-two drivers participated in the “Kōraku-en 30 at Okayama” in Mimasaka, Okayama Japan, but two of them gave fans the best road course finish in RSR history.   The tightly designed, 2.314 mile, eleven corner course at Okayama promised fans a delightful event, but race organizers couldn’t have predicted the incredible finish RSR drivers produced during the event.  The final outcome of the Class A event wasn’t decided until high speed photography confirmed the results posted on the electronic scoreboard.  Chad Peterson earned the win after recovering from [...]