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David Phillips
Editor and ChiefDavid 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 WriterChris 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 Writer19 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 WriterJason 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 contributorRay 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 WriterPatrick 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 WriterTim 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 WriterNorth 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 WriterAllen 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.
SFI Decertifies All Impact Racing Products
March 26th, 2010
Orders Refunds To All Impact Racing Customers
Racers using Impact Racing safety equipment will need to make significant changes within the next month.
The SFI Foundation, Inc., which certifies safety equipment for auto racing and other applications, has issued a “Notice of Decertification,” and an order of Cease and Desist, which terminates all contracts of participation to Impact Racing.
The order goes into effect April 27, 2010. The order pertains to all products manufactured and/or distributed by Impact Racing in relation to SFI Specification Programs 3.2A, 3.3, 16.1 and 16.5.
According to a statement by the SFI Foundation on its Web site, SFI has evidence that over a period of years Impact Racing has engaged in production and use of counterfeit SFI conformance labels and patches and affixed them to Impact products that had not been properly certified by SFI. According to the statement, “Impact Racing never advised its customers that its products contained phony SFI labels and patches.”
As well, SFI has “directed Impact to immediately notify all affected customers to remove the counterfeit labeling and to offer the affected customers a full refund of the purchase price. SFI is requesting that all counterfeit conformance labels removed from Impact products be sent to SFI.”
SFI will terminate all contracts of participation with Impact Racing after 90 days from March 24, 2010. As a result, Impact will not be able to participate in any SFI programs after 90 days.
Impact Racing is owned and operated by former racer Bill Simpson, who built Simpson safety equipment into the sport’s leading safety company until selling it several years ago following the controversy surrounding his lawsuit against NASCAR after Dale Earnhardt’s 2001 death at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
The SFI Foundation, Inc. (SFI) is a non-profit organization established to issue and administer standards for specialty-performance automotive and racing equipment.
Many sanctioning bodies utilize SFI certifications as standards in order to compete in events under that group’s organization. In addition, some racing insurance policies require participants to utilize SFI-certified safety equipment.
Representatives with Impact Racing had no comment when contacted by phone.
Stay tuned to nationalspeedsportnews.com for additional details as they become available.
To read the complete SFI statement, log onto http://www.sfifoundation.com.
Christer Brolin
March 28th, 2010 at 9:14 amI have an e-mail from SFI saying “All brand new 2009 Impact Racing suits, gloves, and boots are properly constructed and certified.” How can they decertifie just because there is a label that is incorrect. All of us are not pros that can afford buying new stuff just because the label is wrong. Christer Brolin Sweden.
Nick
March 28th, 2010 at 1:56 pmThey are being decertified because of on going serious breaches of the terms of contract they signed with SFI. Do a little more research on SFI’s homepage (scroll down to last year’s news.. it isn’t pretty) and do a Google search for “Impact Hans counterfeit”. I doublt SFI would do something over a simple miss understanding. This has to be serious and SFI is trying to protect their creditability.
Christer Brolin
March 28th, 2010 at 7:13 pmOK Nick. I understand and agree. As things will turn out me and all other racers that have Impact race wear are the ones who will pay the price instead of Impact. Impact will not be able to make refunds to all there customers.
Bobby
March 29th, 2010 at 1:56 amWe are not a high budget race team, and we can’t afford as of now to reequip or race team with new suits and harnesses. We have a special designed suit and paid $1,900 for it. It was bought in 2009 and would like to know if it will be ok. It will be hard to get a new one even with refund in time for us to race due to our sponsors embrodering. This is going to hurt many teams and racers in an economy that is hard enough on all of us to race now.
C.R. Krieger
March 29th, 2010 at 1:37 pmYou should check with your individual race sanctioning body to see what action they decide to take. It may be that their rule is not directly tied to SFI certification, but is worded as meeting certain requirements, such as “two layer Nomex” without reference to a particular certification. It may be that the SFI or FIA rating is simply a ‘shorthand’ method of determining that a suit, for example, meets the standard of the rules.
Nick
March 29th, 2010 at 2:35 pmI agree it is not the racer and/or the distributors that should pay the price here! If the product is safe they need to find a way to allow it to be used.
Rob
March 31st, 2010 at 5:56 amI had a 3-layer race suit made by Impact just before Christmas, mine is FIA certified so I don’t have any worries with it.
Reading up on it all last night, it looks like Impact had some racewear made in Asia, and it’s this gear that carries the counterfeit SFI labels. The people responsible for setting up that arrangement were fired last year, and where they attempted to recall all of those suits, they did state that only 70% of people responded to the recall, which means that 30% of the suits/product were still out there, and if SFI have picked up on those. According to Impact’s statements last year, there was a problem with about 15% of their gear shipped in 2007/8. So if they shipped 1000 items, that’s 300 items still out there, and if SFI have picked up on those, then it’s unfair because Impact had already issued a recall, just that customers didn’t respond.
They have said that all 2009 production is correct, even SFI have agreed, so why they are decertifying EVERYTHING is crazy.
I guess the HANS issue will be something similar. They probably had a buyer that found a supply of them at a discount, and wanting to save the company money, unilaterally decided to buy them in.
The problem is that Impact didn’t own up to that soon enough, and they are no longer allowed to supply HANS posts. They can fit them, but can’t supply them.
With all of this bad publicity, I’m not sure if I want to wear my suit now! It’s got Impact’s logo across the front and back of it as I’d done a deal with them on a top-to-toe supply.
What I can say is that what I have is good quality, I’m pleased with it. One of the comments I read was that Impact’s suits were lighter than others because the material was allegedly thinner, well this one is heavier and thicker than my old AWS 3-layer FIA suit.
I do hope that there’s a swift and satisfactory resolution to this fight, and that we can all go about our business without the pain of having to buy new suits.
Ed
April 1st, 2010 at 1:49 amAll of this….is just another case of Bill SImpson….put’n to the racers again.
I feel for ALL you racers that bought his crap….over the last few years.
Randy
May 7th, 2010 at 9:44 pmI believe it deserves Bill Simpson right! Phony SFI lables is no laughing matter and the fact is if all you racers that own Impact stuff are pissed, you should take the time and drive to the headquartes and demand a refund in person because NO RACE GROUP, ASSOCIATION OR SANCTIONING BODY IS GOING TO LET YOU ON THE TRACK WITH ANY IMPACT GEAR….PERIOD!
Safe or not is not the issue…..he faked some stuff, put lives in jepordy and got busted.
Nothing would thrill me more than to have Impact go belly up and Bill Simpson have a class action lawsuit on his hands from a few thousand racers.
What he and his company did was not only illigal but morally wrong. What racer would want to race with his shit anymore anyway?
Face the facts, everyone with Impact gear wont pass tech and thats that!
steve
May 10th, 2010 at 11:44 pmRob – what’s crazy is your attitude towards this. YOU ARE GOING TO SUPPORT SOME CHEESEDIK THAT PUT YOUR SAFETY AT RISK AND PROFITED FROM IT? That is despicable – I hope Simpson and the whole bullsh*t company go bankrupt! I am disgusted and outraged by all of this…arent you?? look, I’m lucky enough never to have bought any cheesy Impact crap – but hey, I agree..IF YOU WANT TO WEAR THE SH*T by all means go for it, just don’t whine that you cant wear it in a LEGITIMATE race series that values the safety of it’s participants, and makes rules and regulations to insure it. If you are racing on THAT much of a budget that you can’t afford new gear and would prefer to save some $$ – if that is more important than your health – your spine, your skin, etc.. call me – I have some EXCELLENT penny stocks for ya….I also have some excellent opportunities in Florida real estate, Sub prime MBS, the list goes on and on. YOU ARE A IDIOT…..
Carl
June 18th, 2010 at 12:24 pmI have an Impact Racing 5-Point harness that I purchased and installed in December 2010. Summit tells me these are fine and are not being decertified. Am I going to have a problem at the track with belts or not?
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