Perhaps even more than the basic skills and techniques of motorsports, iRacing provides a window into the mental game of racing.  After all, it’s one thing to turn a fast lap or two in practice or qualifying, quite another to cope with the mental pressures of running lap after lap with another sim racer breathing down your neck; or vice versa.

Club Italia’s Rocco Barone is one iRacer who was well-versed in the mental aspects of sport when he took his first sim-racing laps.  Long before he began accumulating iRacing race win and championship certificates, the 6’6” Barone had a trophy case bulging with hardware from top flight international volleyball competition: two bronze medals with his Pre-Juniore and Juniore teams in the European Championship, a gold medal from the Mediterranean Games with the Italian B squad and silver medal from the European Championship senior finals.

Unfortunately, Barone’s Tonno Callipo Vibo Valentia team has been experiencing a rough patch of late, which only goes to make his success in iRacing more enjoyable.  And when it comes to iRacing, Barone has been quite a success.  After joining the service in the spring of 2011, Barone raced a variety of series including the Mazda Challenge and Star Mazda Championships before hitting his stride in the HPD ARX 01C in the iRacing.com Prototype GT Challenge. Last season he swept the virtual table Prototype GT Challenge table, scoring a dozen wins in 21 starts to capture the open set-up series and going one better – with 13 wins — to capture the fixed set-up series as well.

Obviously a man who enjoys new challenges, Barone is focusing in the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series in Season 2 and while victory has (so far) proven elusive, he currently holds-down sixth place in the Division One standings with a runner-up finishes at Spa and Road America to his credit.

Q:     How long have you been sim racing?
A:    I started my “career” of sim racing in March last year thanks to the advice of some friends who were already part of iRacing.

Q:     What attracted you to iRacing?
A:    When I was ignorant of iRacing and simply watched videos on YouTube, the thing that surprised me more was the accuracy of online racing. I did not think you could race against so many and with this great quality.

Q:     What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?
A:    I do not have a favorite car, each of those present has its own characteristic and a quality unlike any other that I like. The same applies to the circuits, but here the preference becomes unbalanced to SPA.

Q:     What do you like most about iRacing?
A:    Here at iRacing there is always the possibility of putting yourself in comparison to most people stronger than you. That to me makes the difference.

Q:     What would you change about iRacing?
A:    From the perspective of the overall structure would change very little.  In the beginning it seemed very complicated, but now that I know I have to say is very well structured.  But I would be happy to see great improvements in the immersion of the simulation, so an increase of the NTM accuracy, better graphics (if all the tracks are going to be like Motegi will be the right direction), sounds closer to real life counterparts, climate change,endurance races with transition day / night, a damage model more and more realistic with problems such as punctures during the race, gearbox problems,engine problems, etc. but still  repairable during the stop (hate when i see the phrase “Too much damage you have done”), mechanics who work in the pits during the stop.

Barone was a dominant force in his HPD ARX01c in the 2012 S1 iRacing Prototype GT Challenge.

Q:     How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A:    This is the worst question I could get! too! Seriously 5 hours at week . . . more or less!

Q:     Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s).
A:    I do not like change often, especially the helmet, I use one for each season, with regard to the livery, we have one for each iRacing cars same for me and my teammates.

Q:     What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A:    I played and I loved when I was younger GP3 & GP4 by Geoff Crammond. I also played Forza Motorsport 2 & 3 and Gran Turismo 5 before moving to iRacing.

Q:     What are your favorite video games?
A:    When I do not race on iRacing love to do some games with Fifa12, my favorite team is AC Milan.

Q:     What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A:    My thought is that the race more beautiful must always arrive sooner or later, this leads me to find motivation to go more and more fast.

“I’m inspired by the sacrifices made by my family to make me happy. So this gives me motivation in my career as an athlete to always fight and never give up.”

Q:     What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A:    I’d like to forget the first part of my career when I was a rookie! Surely if I could start over my career would approach the first part in a different way from how I have dealt with. So with fewer accidents and thinking first of all that to finish first, first I need to arrive at the end of the last lap!

Q:     What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A:    As a good Italian I dream of having a Ferrari and Monza track in iRacing. Sometimes dreams do come true, so why not hope?!

Q:     What person, living or dead do you most admire?
A:    There’s not a person who inspired me. I’m inspired by the sacrifices made by my family to make me happy. So this gives me motivation in my career as an athlete to always fight and never give up.

Barone is looking for new challenges in 2012 S2, namely the Williams-Toyota FW31 and the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series.

Q:     What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A:     My favourite racing series is the F1 World Championship.

Q:     Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A:    I’m reading The Lost City of the Templars by CM Palov.

Q:     Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
A:    I do not watch much movies / shows. I like to follow all the sports, especially volleyball and football of course!

Q:     Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A:    No, iRacing is a passion that does not affect in any way those who are my thoughts about what happens every day in the world.

If it’s good to be busy then it’s safe to say 2012 is already a good year for iRacer Joey Hand.  The 32 year old racer from Sacramento is marrying a full-time ride with BMW in the DTM (aka German Tour Car Series) with a partial ALMS season in defense of the GT title he and co-driver Dirk Müller won with BMW and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing last season.

That GT title was only one of Hand’s many accomplishments last year in a season that also saw him co-drive Ganassi/Sabates Racing’s winning Riley-BMW in the 24 Hours of Daytona and score a third place in the GTE class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, along with a handful of top tens in Turner Motorsports’ BMW in the GRAND-AM Continental Challenge.

Is Hand a glutton for punishment or what?

Hand is one busy racer in 2012 . . . and that's just the way he likes it.

“Doing both the ALMS and DTM series, some people think that was something I was forced to do, but I wasn’t,” he grins.  “They asked me if I wanted to do DTM.  I said, ‘Yes.’  They said would you like to continue to do the ALMS?  I said, ‘I’d love to.’  They said, ‘You’re OK with the travel?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’

“I love to race.  I really believe – and it’s the same thing I’ve taught kids all my life as a coach in karting, and even their parents – the more you race, the better you’re going to be.  The more you win, the more you know how to win.  And not a lot of people know how to race, especially young kids now, not a ton of ‘em know how to race and even less of ‘em know how to win.”

If there were any doubters about whether Hand knows how to win in a career that’s seen him atop the podium in everything from go-karts and Toyota Atlantic to GT cars and Daytona Prototypes, the final hours of this year’s Mobile 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring proved otherwise.  With the race on the line, Hand bested Olivier Beretta and his Ferrari F458 in a no-holds-barred battle to stake BMW and RLL to a convincing start in their title defense.

“Winning at Sebring was a great moral booster,” he says. “Coming off a championship last year, you always wonder ‘Do we have enough to repeat?’  The other guys are no different than us; when they got beat they went back and worked twice as hard, while we were working twice as hard knowing they were too. So to win fair and square in an outright dog-fight . . . I really loved it.

“Coming off a championship last year, you always wonder ‘Do we have enough to repeat?’”

“I feel like the competition is even stronger that it was last year, which means you’ll have a tougher time winning a race.   But I predict that we can still win two or three more races and I think if we do that it will be another great year.”

In the wake of Sebring, Hand, Müller, RLL and BMW are still looking for that second win.  They rebounded from an untimely puncture to finish second at Long Beach, then survived a rough ‘n tumble race last weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to come home fourth behind their sister RLL entry driven by  Bill Auberlein and Jörg Müller.

Despite having that lone win to their credit, Hand is confident about BMW’s chances of repeating as ALMS GT champion.

“The competition is so intense and the top cars all have different strengths, so nobody’s going to dominate every weekend,” he says.  “You just have to take what you can get when you can’t win.  And now that we’re going to tracks that have historically been good for us – Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Mosport . . .  I’m not saying that we can just show up and win, but we’ll go there knowing we don’t have to have a picture perfect weekend to challenge for the win.”

Hand already has one big win to his credit in the 2012 ALMS.

However, no matter how well Hand does at Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio and Mosport, he won’t be repeating as co-GT champion.  He’ll miss the final three rounds of the ALMS season at Road America, VIR and Road Atlanta (Petit Le Mans) due to conflicting DTM events . . . which is OK with Hand.

“DTM is my main gig, so I do all the races in the DTM and as many as I can do here,” he says.  “So that ends-up being the first seven here, and then I miss the last three.  It’s not perfect, but at least it’s not sporadic.  So I get to do seven straight, and I think at that point, we’ll either be IN the hunt or not.  Whoever comes in to replace me, it looks like it will be Jonathan Summerton, if we’re in the mix it will be up to him to hold on and be there for the drive to the finish.”

There’s little chance Hand will win the DTM title this year either.  After all, it’s his first year in the series and he’s getting accustomed to a new environment, including new tracks and a car that is very different from anything he’s driven previously – even if it is nominally named a BMW M3.

“I’ve driven so many things in my career that my adaptation skills are pretty good,” he says.  “I took to the DTM car pretty quickly, which I normally do when driving a new car.  I mean I drive a Daytona Prototype and a Continental Challenge car in the same day – so that’s a pretty big swing too!

“Places where you’d be braking at the 300 marker in the GT car, you’re braking at 100 in the DTM car . . .”

“The biggest thing with the DTM car is downforce and brakes.  In first, second and even a little bit in third gear corners, you’re still driving a GT car – a stiff, low center of gravity GT car.  But when you start getting in those higher speed corners you really recognize the aero – the faster you go the more grip you have.  If you go through a particular corner slow, you struggle; but when you go through faster it’s better.

“Then you have carbon brakes.  When they’re cold they don’t work real well, but when they get warm, they’re really good.  That takes some getting used to because the brake zone is very, very short.  Places where you’d be braking at the 300 marker in the GT car, you’re braking at 100 in the DTM car . . .

“It’s definitely different but you’re still pushing it to the limit.  It’s still a matter of ‘Is the tire sliding or is it not sliding?’  Ultimately, that’s all we do: manage the tires – in the rear and in the front.  So that never changes, but it’s a different beast.”

The BMW M3 DTM? “It’s definitely different but you’re still pushing it to the limit," says Hand.

To date, Hand’s two DTM races have been something of a mixed bag.  He’s been right on the pace in practice, but failed to nail a good qualifying time.  In his debut at Hockenheim he made a mistake on what should have been his best lap; at the Lausitzring he ran into traffic on his best lap and, again, failed to advance into the final round of knock-out qualifying.  Starting mid-field both times, he failed to make much progress.

“Hockenheim was the first race and everybody was super-aggressive, lots of banging,” he says. “I got hit a couple of times but still managed to finish, and I was happy to get a full race under my belt.  At Lausitz I made a good start and moved-up a couple of spots but it was tough to make any more headway.  I struggled on my second set of tires, lost some ground and eventually finished where I started.

“It’s so competitive.  The three seconds I lost on the second set of tires at Lausitz translated to four positions at the finish.  The races are an hour and ten minutes – heck I drive longer stints than that in ALMS – and it’s at a qualifying pace the whole time.”

This weekend sees something new for Hand in his DTM career – a track with which he is familiar:  Brands Hatch.  Not only did he race Palmer Audi open wheel cars there in Y2K as part of the Team USA Scholarship program, as an iRacer he’s been able to refresh his memory of the tricky circuit online.

“What I need to do more than anything is practice my iRacing for the next All Star race!”

“I wish iRacing had more European tracks!” he says (stay tuned Joey – Ed).  “I have iRacing locked and loaded at home and I can’t use it as much as I need to to practice.  Hockenheim, Lausitzring, Nurburgring . . . but we have Brands Hatch and Zandvoort.

“Zandvoort is one of the tougher tracks to learn, so that’s going to be something I really work on.  I’ve been trying to do whatever I do when I’m coming up to that race, instead of trying to do everything all at once, like working  on Zandvoort now when the race isn’t until August.  I’m taking it one step at a time and I will definitely use iRacing to get ready.”

There’s an ever better reason for Hand to be practicing his sim racing skills, one that has less to do with either the DTM or ALMS, more to do with something that really matters: the iRacing.com Pro Race of Champions II.  After all, he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory in the inaugural event last December.

Hand renewed acquaintances with Scott Speed in the iRacing.com Pro Race of Champions last year.

“What I need to do more than anything is practice my iRacing for the next All Star race!” Hand says.  “I was definitely not as good as I could have been.  I’d never done an oval race up until that day, when I started practicing a little bit.  I had a real dog-fight in the race with Ron Capps.

‘I really enjoyed it.  Landon Cassill was on there talking to me.  It was cool to be on there with all those different guys, some of ‘ em you know, some you just recognize by name, and everybody’s talkin smack — ‘Hey get out of the way!’

“It was a lot of fun for everyone.  I hope the people watching it enjoyed it half as much as we did, and I know that event is only going to get bigger in the future.”

With all the new horizons Joey Hand is exploring this season, it’s reassuring to know he still has his priorities right be it DTM, ALMS or iRacing.com Pro Race of Champions.

Brands Hatch played host to the sixth round of the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series. For the first time in the series’ young history, the virtual site of the online racing was outside the United States, which may have given a competitive edge to some of the European drivers.  Indeed, many series regulars on the circuit decided to take the first round of racing overseas off, and elected to use this week as a drop week in points. However, 55 other sim-racers eagerly sought the opportunity to pick-up points at Brands Hatch and improve their positions in the overall standings.

For the past three months, Club Florida’s Christian Aranha has firmly planted his name at the top of the overall standings, making it pretty clear he has no intention at forfeiting his position at the top of the totem pole. Last week showed not even racing overseas could phase the “Flawless Floridian” as he remains atop of the leader board after continuing his winning ways at Brands Hatch.

The morning race (10:00 GMT) had the highest strength of field race of the week with 2717. The fastest qualifier and polesitter was none other than Aranha, who was thus the center of attention for the 10 drivers behind him on the grid.  Although Aranha jumped to the early lead, Lap 4 saw Jan Niesiolowski, a top 10 points contender, sneak past. Niesiolowski led the next 20 laps in succession with Aranha consistently applying pressure.  The battle heated-up during Laps 16 through 19, as the lead duo battled wheel-to-wheel and, with some incidental contact, made it clear to each other that they would not waver.

Finally, Niesiolowski gave Aranha a little too much room, enabling the series leader to retake the lead on Lap 24 and go on to the win by less than 4 tenths of a second. Wade Hayward, a driver unfamiliar with rounding-out the podium the past few weeks, enjoyed the view from third the entire race and finished eight seconds behind the winner. Aranha picked up 165 points for the win, and the small turnout (thus a chance for a higher SoF) resulted in this being the highest week’s highest points-paying race.

Ganzeveld dodges a spinning Jonathan Rex en route to a second place finish. (Jeroen Ganzeveld image)

Two splits of the afternoon races (20:00 GMT) produced higher car counts than the morning race. Niesiolowski took the first split of the afternoon was in coventional Skip Barber Series fashion, leading all 30 laps en route to victory over points contenders Marco Corti and Stuart Adcock.  Although Niesiolowski earned 157 points for his triumph in the 2522 SoF race, he lost eight points to Aranha in the overall scheme thanks to the higher SoF of the day’s first race. Corti and Adcock both earned 146 and 136 points, respectively, for rounding-out the podium positions.

The second split of the afternoon was dominated by the second place driver in the overall standings, Kurt Krumm.  Like Niesiolowski, Krumm led all 30 laps en route to his win over Jeroen Ganzeveld and Ermanno Palumbo2.  Krumm started on the pole and didn’t look back, winning by over 16 seconds — the week’s greatest margin of victory.  Nevertheless, Krumm earned just 160 points for the win and, like Niesiolowski, lost ground to Aranha in the overall standings owing the (slightly) lower SoF  rating.  Meanwhile, Ganzeveld and Palumbo earned 148 and 137 points respectively for their podium finishes.

The night race (2:00 GMT) produced one of the most exciting races of the season, one featuring four lead changes and the week’s slimmest margin of victory on a track where passing opportunities are at a minimum.  Krumm landed on the pole, but succumbed to Curtis Fung after just one lap in the lead. Fung maintained first place until Lap 11, when Jim Shedlick powered through to lead laps 12-23.  Fung regained control from Laps 24-27 only for Krumm to retake the lead on lap 27 and go on to win the final race before the halfway point of the season.

“Luckily I kept just enough of my wits about me to stay ahead and win what had to be my most exciting iRacing race ever.” — Kurt Krumm

“With five to go, I was on Jim’s tail,” Krumm explained. “I pushed like crazy and got ahead of the three car battle with three to go. Curtis closed-in and a couple nervous mistakes and lapped traffic almost gave him an opportunity to regain the lead. Luckily I kept just enough of my wits about me to stay ahead and win what had to be my most exciting iRacing race ever.”

Because of the race’s 2534 SoF, Krumm dropped the points from his win and kept the points from his win in the afternoon race (rated at 2581 SoF).  Fung, who finished a mere .2s behind in second earned 152 points for his efforts while Shedlick edged Duncan Coppedge for third place and collected 144 points.

At the halfway point of the season, Aranha holds a 46 point lead over Krumm, and 260 other sim-racers vying for the prized seats in a Skip Barber Racing School. Week Six saw Brands Hatch provide some very exciting racing given the track’s diverse technical challenges. Week Seven should be no different, as the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series heads to Japan to race at the Okayama International Circuit.  With 11 turns packed into 2.3 miles, Okayama is as technical a race track as you’ll find on any side of the Pacific Ocean.

If the first half of the series wasn’t exciting enough, the intensity and excitement of the following six races should be even greater, creating an unparalleled final few stages in the drivers’ quest for the championship.

The Red Sox Racing League began Season Two of 2012 at the Daytona International Speedway’s road course.  Despite giving considerable thought to using the recently released Cadillac as the Class B vehicle, league officials decided to stick with the Corvette C6R for this season.  “We may switch to the Cadillac for Season Three, or add a third class if we can build both fields”, said Jeff Thomas before the race began.  “But we needed a little more time to hammer out the fixed setups and did not want to rush into this season with a car that wasn’t fully tested.”

The “RUF Automobile Presents 24 Laps of Daytona” was billed as a 24 lap race of endurance.  With eight new drivers hitting the track as members of the RSR league, it also had the potential to be a test of patience.  Pre-race testing sessions proved valuable as several drivers were able to adjust to several changes made to the HPD in iRacing’s recent update.  Less aero, increased low end torque, reduced braking performance and higher top end speed means the car has to be driven less aggressively this season.

Les Turner’s qualifying lap time of 1:35.948 just edged out Brad Vincent’s 1:35.972 to earn the defending league champion the pole.  John Koscielniak (3rd), Terry Daul (4th), Andrew Gantman (5th), and David Weiss (6th) all posted 1:36+ laps times.  Bill Hadden (7th), Ed Sutcliff (8th), Andrew Feldman (9th), Wilburn Gildersleeve Jr. (10th), Jeff Sharp (11th), David Berry (12th), Joshua Friedrichs (13th), Kevin Kyle (14th), Divina Galica (15th), and Gary Jorgensen (16th) rounded out the starting grid for the HPD Class.

Reed Rundell earned the pole in the Class B field with a lap time of 1:40.469.  Dean Moll led the outside of row two with a time of 1:40.594.  Patrick Guerin (3rd), Corey Hastings (4th), Scott Husted (5th), Casey Carpentiere (6th), Jeff Thomas (7th), Tommy Rhyne (8th), and Greg Harris (9th), completed the Corvette grid.

The problem of accidents caused by rapidly accelerating Corvettes hitting the rear of the slower starting HPD field reared its ugly head in several races during the Season One calendar, yet despite extensive off season discussions about how to prevent green flag incidents between the two classes, league officials gambled by not implementing new rules to force a gap between HPD’s and C6R’s during the pace lap at Daytona.  The gamble didn’t pay off as three cars suffered heavy damage when the lead Corvettes attempted to overtake the tail end of the HPD field in Turn One at the start of the race.

Most of the HPD field got a clean start and managed to avoid the mess caused when Rundell’s Corvette slammed into the rear of Jorgensen’s HPD at the entry of Turn One.  The contact turned Jorgensen hard to the right and into the side of Moll’s Corvette.  Jorgensen and Moll both slid off course and came to a stop while the rest of the field drove past.  Drivers are normally concentrating hard for the entry of Turn One, but the high speed corner proved to be the downfall of many drivers as seven different incidents were recorded there during the race.

The rest of the field settled into a nice rhythm on Lap One, and Gantman was sitting comfortably in fifth place when he self-spun in the Bus Stop on the back stretch on Lap Two.  Everyone else avoided his car, so Gantman rejoined the hunt with only his pride hurting from the incident.  Kyle was the next to succumb to aggressive driving when he spun exiting Turn One on Lap Three.  He tapped the inside wall, but was able to continue racing.

Having survived the Turn One incident on the start, Moll was in 23rd place when he destroyed his car on Lap Three.  The incident began when Moll’s car lost grip as he drove over the infield grass exiting the Bus Stop.  Unable to stop his forward momentum, Moll held on for a wild ride as his car slammed hard enough into the outside wall to lift all four wheels completely off the ground.  Amazingly, no one else was collected in the incident and Moll was able to walk away from the accident without injury.

Lap four saw Hadden overshoot the entry of Turn Five and give up 6th position as his car lightly tapped the tire barrier.  Jorgensen’s race ended a lap later when he failed to negotiate the exit of Turn One.  The resulting spin and hard contact with the infield wall took the front end off his car.

Things calmed down a bit for several laps before Friedrichs executed a beautiful 360 spin in Turn Three of Lap Nine.  Jeff Sharp came barreling through the corner as Friedrichs’ car was facing the wrong direction on the track, but neither driver panicked and both escaped without contact.

Kyle had a race full of mishaps, but looked like he might make it to the finish line before a final error on Lap Twenty-Three totaled his car.  Weiss had a great view of the accident and for a brief moment, looked as though he might have to drive under Kyle’s airborne car while it was flipping through the air.

In yet another demonstration of why the RSR league is considered one of the cleanest group of online drivers, there were only 64 incident points during the 519 laps completed by the 24 drivers who started the race.  Most of those were 1-off incidents which did not involve accidents.  Koscielniak, Daul, Sutcliff, Sharp, Galica, and Hastings earned bonus points for completing the race without incident.

Class A results:

Turner led the first four laps of the race before giving way to Vincent.  Vincent almost gave the lead back when he overshot the entry of Turn One on Lap Twelve, but Turner gave him room to rejoin the track and didn’t force the issue as their cars gathered speed for Turns Two and Three.

Turner hounded Vincent up until the pit cycle, but tagged the pit wall on exit. There was no visible damage but the 01 TeamDraft Batmobile lost 6 mph out on the banking, ending his chances to catch Vincent who slowly pulled away and went on to a 10 second margin of victory. Koscielniak was 26 seconds back when he crossed the line for third place.  Daul and Weiss rounded out the top five spots.

Berry (6th), Sutcliff (7th), Friedrichs (8th), Sharp (9th), Gantman (10th), Feldman (11th), Hadden (12th), Galica (13th), Kyle (14th), and Jorgensen (15th) completed the HPD scoring. Gildersleeve Jr. practiced and qualified 10th for the event but did not start the race.
 
Vincent, Koscielniak, Turner, Daul, and Weiss hold the top five spots in the Class A Championship.

Class B results:

Rundell’s lap one incident ruined his chances for a podium finish and allowed Hastings and Guerin to battle for the top spot.  Hastings held the early lead before giving way to Guerin on Lap Eight.  Guerin (83), and Hastings (86), battled hard for the C6R class lead and pitted together on Lap Fourteen.  A costly error by Hastings missing his pit stall forced the driver to come back down pit road for service the next lap.  The mistake ended any chance he had of challenging for the win. Guerin went on to take the checkers and earn his first RSR victory.

Hastings held on for second place in his first RSR start.  His incident free race also earned Hastings a bonus point which gave him a one point lead in the C6R championship after one event.

Rhyne finished third, while Husted (4th) and Thomas (5th) rounded out the top five.  Carpentiere (6th), Rundell (7th), Harris (8th), and Moll (9th) completed the Corvette scoring.

Hastings, Guerin, Rhyne, Husted, and Thomas hold the top five spots in the Class B Championship.

Next Race:

League members travel to Virginia for the “The Virginian 30 at VIR” on May 17, 2012

Race Results:
http://rsr.ileaguerace.com/champ/show_event_result/Red-Sox-Racing-League/1544

League Standings:
http://rsr.ileaguerace.com/champ/show_champ/Red-Sox-Racing-League/285

League Video Site:
http://www.youtube.com/user/draftin11

Fresh from his race win during the opening round of the GP3 season at Circuit Catalunya last weekend, Conor visited the team’s Silverstone headquarters on Tuesday for a seat-fit and to familiarise himself with the systems on the car. It was a chance to meet his engineering crew and run through the functions on a Formula One steering wheel.

Conor Daly gets acquainted with the Sahara Force India Formula One car.

The test program on Thursday is one of four full-size aerodynamic tests that teams are allowed to complete during the course of the season. The focus is to measure aerodynamic forces to correlate with wind tunnel data.

“I am so excited to get my first taste of a Formula One car, but more importantly, to have the opportunity to help Sahara Force India develop their aero program,” said Conor. “My career is on a great path right now and this is a significant step for me in understanding how complex a Forumula One car can be. I want all of my supporters to feel the same excitiment that I’m feeling right now.”

Drivers run close to the wall at Darlington.

Week Two’s Strength of Field (SoF) race took place at 8:30pm EST on Friday night. The race had 27 drivers and an SoF of 4222. Nascar iRacing.com Pro Series driver Jared Crawford (Michigan) dominated the race, starting from the pole and leading all 100 laps while also turning the fastest lap of the race. Crawford received 270 points for his victory. Last season’s runner up Brad Mahar (New England) finished second to Crawford after started seventh.  Mahar netted 259 points for his second place finish. Brenden Queen (Virginias) started 24^th and finished third while Brian Macklin (Atlantic) started 11^th and finished in the fourth position. For their finishes, they received 249 and 238 points respectively. Rounding out the Top Five was David Cater (Carolina). Cater started ninth and finished in the fifth position and received 228 points.

Watch the broadcast here.

The Top Five in the Weekly standings for Week Two was the same as the Top Five in the week’s SoF race. Crawford finished the week in the first position after winning one of his two races and netting 270 points. Mahar finished second with 259 points after his runner up finish in the SoF race. Queen was third with 249 points after only running one race during the week. Macklin and Cater rounded out the Top Five with 238 and 228 points.

After two weeks, Mahar leads the point’s standings with 511 points. Mahar has run three races and has one Top Five. Devan Hall (Georgia) is second in the season points standings with three starts and one Top Five. Hall has 394 points, 117 points behind Mahar. Cater sits in the third position after making five starts in the first two weeks. Cater has two wins and three Top Five’s and has 391 points. Cody Vincent (Mid-South) and Zach A Hudson (Eastern Canada) round out the Top Five in the season standings. Vincent has five starts with two Top Ten’s and 381 points while Hudson has three starts with two Top Ten’s and 377 points.

Crawford finished the week with the fastest qualifying lap after turning a 28.151 second lap. Ian Hann (Mid-South) finished the week in the second position after turning a 28.213 second lap. Jason Karlavige (Pennsylvania) was third on the week with a 28.241 while Hall finished the week fourth with a 28.265 second lap. Rounded out the Top Five in qualifying was Eric Brundles (Midwest) with a 28.279 second lap.

After Two weeks of the season the top contenders are already making their way to the top. Mahar looks to win the championship after coming up short last season while Crawford looks to dominate the season on his way to the championship. Week Three will see the NiCBS travel to Iowa Speedway. Will anyone be able to stop Jared Crawford? Find out next week at InRacingNews!

ANZ Motorsports Scott McLaughlin would take the pole with a blistering 1:10.816 getting his first pole position in the main event with Rens Broekman second, making these two sim-racers the only two into the eights. George Maris would take third with Richard Hamstead and Mitchell McLeod only .02 behind.

McLaughlin leads the field into Turn One.

When the lights went green, Broekman’s car was nowhere to be seen as Internet trouble saw his race over before it had even started. With Broekman a no show it was McLaughlin having a nice run into Turn One with everyone holding station, coming through the Esses saw McLeod touch the wall and allowing Madison Down and Justin Ruggier to take advantage until McLeod tried to hold strong and going into the Bus Stop two wide doesn’t work and saw McLeod hit the left rear of the Ruggier’s car and spinning him into the dirt and back into 16th place in the race after such a promising start.

Lap 2 coming through the last turn saw contact between Simon Black and Craig Woodhouse which would damage Woodhouse’s car enough that he wouldn’t advance and finish back in 19th. Scott McLaughlin was pulling away from the battle group behind of Maris, Hamstead and Down when at the end of lap nine, Hamstead decided to be the first to pit and jump the drivers in front. McLaughlin would re-act straight away and keep position over Hamstead while Maris and Down would stay out and hope they could catch them with the fresh rubber.

Joshua Muggleton after finishing third and on the podium in the early race, he would take on a new strategy and take no tyres and enough fuel to get home which would cost him a few positions and finished back in eight place.

Down locks the rears and hits Hamstead, with Maris scooting past to take a second place finish.

The end of lap 12 saw Maris and Down come into the lane to take on four tyres and fuel, the TTR pit crew would get Down out in front of Maris and with McLaughlin and Hamstead a few seconds up the road the chase began! A dozen laps later saw the Down and Maris catch the leaders and the fight began, but as quickly as it began it had finished when coming into the second to last corner Down covered Maris but locked the rears and in an attempt to save it, just clipped the rear of Hamstead’s Falcon and would put them both into the dirt and Down would re-address and let Hamstead go by only dropping back just outside the top five in sixth and seventh.

The battle between ANZ Motorsport drivers would resume with McLaughlin trying to hold off Maris with only five laps to go. As Maris caught up to the back of McLaughlin time ran out and it was McLaughlin who would take his second main race win and bring himself into position two in the championship just behind Maris!

An oversteering McLaughlin heads to victory at The Glen.

With the contact between Down and Hamstead, McLeod would pick up the pieces and claim a third place finish with Michael McCabe returning to the series to hold off a hard charging Mick Claridge who would take fifth place! Hamstead and Down would finish sixth and seventh with Muggleton finishing eighth with Stuart Wood finishing ninth and Omar Sòto rounding out the top ten.

Split Two Winner – Anton De Pasquale
Split Three Winner – Derek Toering
Split Four Winner – Ross Ponting
Split Five Winner – Paul Keeghan

You can watch all the race replays on www.v8sonline.com.au

Ray Alfalla continued his early season dominance of the 2012 NASACAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, picking-up his third win of the season at Darlington Raceway. It was also the third straight victory for JRMotorsports, with teammate Steve Sheehan winning two weeks ago at Richmond on the heels of Alfalla’s visit to victory lane at Texas. In fact, it was Sheehan who Alfalla had to hold-off on the final 44 lap dash for the checkers.

Alfalla (2) had an answer for everyone, including Ottinger (05) en route to his third win of the season.

Sheehan appeared to be slightly quicker than Alfalla during the last run.  However, the Richmond winner got a little too aggressive with his grille tape, causing his car to overheat if he stayed tucked up behind Alfalla for more than a couple laps. Sheehan could attack and get right to Alfalla’s bumper, but had to fall back every couple of laps to cool his motor, leaving him unable to challenge for the win. Nick Ottinger finished third, over four seconds adrift of Alfalla, while Robert Hall and Michael Conti rounded-out the top five finishers.

Alfalla’s dominance was nearly undone by his pit crew, which cost him the lead twice.  The defending series champion overcame each setback, making short work of Patrick Baldwin and Ottinger, both of whom had fast cars . . . just not as quick as Alfalla’s machine.

“That was a stressful one,” said Alfalla. “I knew the car was stout, but the pit crew was having a hard time for most of the race. Was able to get the lead a couple times, and fortunately they were on their game for the last stop. That last 44 lap run to the end was amazing.”

“That was a stressful one.” — Ray Alfalla

The Lady in Black lived up to her name several times during the online race, with ten caution flags flying throughout the event. Drivers had particular trouble with the exit of Turn Two, which was “Calamity Corner” on more than one occasion. Even seasoned sim racers such as Josh Parker could not figure out the exit of Turn Two and ended-up with short nights and poor finishes.

Although there were many yellows, there were still periods of green flag racing which really spread out the field. Passing, however, proved very tough on such a narrow track, which made starting-up front important. In fact, seven out of the top ten finishers started in the top ten, underlining the importance of qualifying in a NiSWC race.

Darlington proved "Too Tough To Tame" for a number of drivers including Chris Main (38) and Chris Overland (47).

With his third win, and leading a race high 108 laps, Alfalla earned the maximum amount of points possible, and extended his points lead to 11 points over Conti, who kept his nose clean with a strong fifth place finish to stay within striking distance of the points leader.

Brian Schoenburg was not so lucky.  His night was ended early after contact with the wall, relegating him to a thirty-second place finish, 37 laps behind the leader. While he still holds onto third in the points, he now sits 44 points back of Alfalla and only a single point ahead of Ottinger. Hall is another five points back of Ottinger in a tight battle for third.

With their point gap widening over their competitors, Alfalla and Conti further distance themselves from the competition as the series visits Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 29.  At 200 laps (300 miles), Charlotte is also the longest race of the season, and has seen plenty of drama in past seasons including last year when Thomas Hazard held-off a hard-charging Schoenburg for the victory. With Alfalla and his JRM teammates on a tear, it is up to the rest of the field to find the speed needed to compete. Who will rise to the challenge?

A 29 car field of sim racers took to the track on 21 April, 2012 for the sixth round of the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series (CESCS), a 90 minute contest at the picturesque Road America in Elkart Lake, Wisconsin.  The multi-class online racing series features the Ford Mustang FR500S in the GS class and the Mazda MX-5 Cup in the ST class.

Qualifying

The GS and ST classes ran separate 15 minute qualifying sessions with Trace McRae continuing his dominance of the GS class posting a time of 2:28.567 for the pole; more than a second faster than his nearest competitor Oscar Sahlin (2:29.770).  Steve Brown completed the top three in GS.

ST championship leader, and undefeated this season, Aussie James Stevenson did not race opening the door for second in points Giancarlo Lenzi to try to close some of the gap.  Lenzi got off to a good start by taking the ST class pole position with a time of 2:38.162, followed closely by Arthur Chan at 2:38.215 and Flavien Vidal.  The top six in ST would be separated by less than one second.

Race Review

Trace McRae leads the field through Turn 1.

At the drop of the green McRae got the jump on the field and lead into turn 1.  The opening few laps in GS were uneventful with the leaders holding position and McRae slowly extending a lead over the field, but back in the ST class an odd number of GS cars had put pole sitter Lenzi on the outside for the start and Chan gained the ST class lead in turn 1.  The ST class lead became a four way battle between Chan, Lenzi, Vidal, and Ryan Worley.  Vidal would make a few attempts on Lenzi’s position during the opening couple laps including attempting an outside pass at Canada Corner after Lenzi had gone into the grass off the Carousel then defended the inside after the kink.  But a mistake on the brakes put Vidal into the sand and he lost 3rd to Worley.  A lap later Vidal gained back the position when Worley spun exiting turn 8.  On lap 4, Lenzi finally got a good run off the last corner and was able to drive past Chan to take the lead.

Chan decided to visit pit road on lap 6 for his mandatory stop along with Worley and Wes Earick (ST).  The timing would prove fortuitous as shortly after exiting the pits the caution flew for the first time for an incident in turn 1 where Antti Tuominen dropped a tire into the grass exiting the corner and spun hard into the inside wall, bouncing back onto the track.  GS class driver Joseph Ottofaro narrowly squeaked by on the outside, but Jason Bryfogle (ST) was not as lucky as Tuominen’s car continued across in front of him and hard contact is made.  Both drivers would eventually return to the track, but laps down.

Pit road became a beehive of activity as nearly the entire GS field visited pit road along with many ST cars including the top 5 in ST.  McRae had a slow stop, dropping two positions exiting the pits while Steve Brown’s stop jumped him in front of both Sahlin and McRae.  The overall lead, however, would belong to Chan, and GS lead to Ottofaro who had also already made his stop.

As the track went back to green on lap 10 the GS cars swept past the slower ST cars, and it did not take long for the top three in GS before the caution to reassume their positions with Brown, Sahlin, then McRae all taking their turn passing Ottofaro before the field reached turn 5.  Green flag racing was short-lived, however, as on the front stretch Lenzi drifted toward the right side of the track not noticing GS driver Bill Daily was already passing to his inside.  The two made contact and Lenzi spun into the inside wall then across the track collecting fellow ST driver Matthew Reinoehl and GS driver Matt Ferris.  Those still coming up the hill could not see the stopped cars over the rise and a secondary incident added Stephen McPherson (GS), Ayrton Ellis (GS), and Stephane Morien (ST) to the number of cars involved.  Reinoehl, McPherson, and Morien would all be done for the day.

Reinoehl (44, Center) spins-off the front of Ferris while trying to avoid the spinning Lenzi (R).

Going back green on lap 15 the action in ST heats up quickly.  In Turn 1 Vidal swept around the outside of Chan to take the lead of ST, and James Farrugia, Hang Ho Tao, and Ryan Worley went three wide into the braking zone for turn 1 for third with Farrugia also making the outside pass work, coming out ahead and completing a great restart that moved him from sixth to third.  He would not be able to hold the position, though, falling first to Worley in turn 3, then to Tao in Turn 5.

Vidal takes the lead from Chan on the outside while Worley (L), Tao, and Farrugia go three wide for third.

Up in front in GS, McRae got a run on Sahlin through Kettle Bottoms completing the pass at Canada Corner to take second.  A few seconds later, the caution flies for the third time for an incident in the same corner when ST driver John Montoya gets into the back of Ferris.  Daily and Lenzi were added to the pile when Lenzi made contact with Daily — for their second incident together in less than two green flag laps – in a near duplicate incident of Montoya and Ferris. Montoya was done and Ferris called it quits a few laps later.  Lenzi managed to not only continue, but benefitted from the caution and got back onto the lead lap with the help of a wave around.

The green flag waved for the last time on lap 19 and on the back stretch McRae peaks to the inside of leader Steve Brown at Canada Corner and Brown goes wide of the apex giving McRae the room he needs to get fully alongside.  Brown tries to hold on coming up Thunder Valley but McRae completes the pass at the Billy Mitchell Bend to take back the lead.  Two laps later Sahlin takes his shot at Brown, getting a run off the last corner to pull alongside at the line, and complete the pass at the turn 1.  The best battle in GS over the closing laps would be between Brown and Russell Klaesson for third.  Klaesson made a pass at Canada Corner when Brown went wide into the sand on lap 24, but three laps later Klaesson lost momentum after dipping wheels into the beach off the last turn and Brown would get to the inside going into turn 1.  Klaesson fought back on the outside but would finally succumb at turn 3.  With less than 10 minutes to go, Klaesson made an attempt to out-brake Brown at turn 5 but went too deep and lost contact with Brown by the time he drove it back out of the sand.  That would set the podium for GS with McRae winning by 5 seconds, followed by Sahlin, then Brown.

McRae (Left) re-takes the lead from Brown.

In ST, pole-sitter Lenzi was trying hard to work his way back up through the field when on lap 27 his bad day was made complete as he got involved in his third incident of the race, this time when he went to the inside of Farrugia at turn 5 for fourth position.  Farrugia apparently did not see him and turned down to the apex spinning Lenzi who was then hit by Tao.  Lenzi would not return.

Up in the ST lead, Vidal and Chan foght it out for the win from the lap 19 green until the last lap.  Chan made several attempts at passing Vidal with Vidal often defending the inside to force Chan to make the attempt the long way around.  But Chan was unable to complete any of the pass attempts and on the last lap when making another attempt on the outside of turn 1 he finally found the beach and lost contact.  It was Vidal taking the win in ST, followed by Chan, then Worley.

GS Class Podium
1.    Trace McRae (#69 Team Green)
2.    Oscar Sahlin (#84 The Black Rebels)
3.    Steve Brown (#82 Buffalo Wild Wings Bar & Grill)

ST Class Podium
1.    Flavien Vidal (#09)
2.    Arthur Chan (#50)
3.    Ryan Worley (#33 Team Northwest / Wrangler)

Race Statistics
Laps completed (by leader):  31 laps
Cars finishing on lead lap: 15
Overall lap leaders:  Trace McRae, Steve Brown, Stephen McPherson, Arthur Chan
Full-course Cautions: 3
DNF’s: 13
Fastest Lap (GS class): 2:29.078 – Trace McRae
Fastest Lap (ST Class): 2:38.569 – Arthur Chan
Race Marshal: Mike Perry

Championship points after 6 of 10 races:

GS
Trace McRae    210
Oscar Sahlin    -24
Russell Klaesson    -51

ST
James Stevenson    220
Giancarlo Lenzi    -58
Jason Bryfogle    -64

——————————————————————————–

The CESCS is an official iRacing league which mirrors the Grand-Am Continental Tires Series. It features the Mazda MX-5 Cup competing in Street Touring (ST) and the Ford Mustang FR500S competing in the Grand Sport (GS) class. It was established to provide a proper mixed-class racing experience for drivers of the MX5 and the Mustang beyond what is currently offered and especially to provide a true endurance series for drivers of both vehicles. The schedule aims to replicate the real-world series featuring timed endurance race distances (currently 90 minutes) run at the same tracks as the real series including Daytona, Mid-Ohio and, this season, Indianapolis!

You can follow our races streamed live over the internet through Glacier TV or via our Live Timing & Scoring app. Both links are located on our Schedule page.

For more information on the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series check out the official website: http://www.wix.com/contienduranceseries/cescs

Nixon dominated Road America for Lotus taking three wins from three starts.

Unchanged in layout since it opened back in 1955 Elkhart Lake features many elevation changes, along with a very high speed front stretch and the famous Kink in the middle of the back stretch. In other words, an ideal venue for the Classic Teams Championship contenders to stretch their legs. It was also the site for four new drivers to join the circus this week making a total of 75 point scoring competitors in the first two weeks. This week saw 17 races gain official status with Sunday again providing the main race of the week with 44 starters. Drivers spent the week searching for the perfect balance between speed and grip, most running a much lower downforce setup than they did last week at The Glen.

Valentiejus lead Ligier to a great result and closed the gap to Alfa Romeo in the Constructors Championship.

Once again the man who found himself at the top of the qualifying sheet was Nixon (Lotus). This week the gap back to the flying Chevron of sensational debutante Hulbert was less than a tenth of a second over the 4 mile, 14 turn Road America circuit. Hulbert had pushed the series leader Ruokola (Williams) off the front row and back to third just ahead of Valentiejus (Ligier), the first man not a member of the 1.48 club. Behind these five there was a little gap back to Ventura in sixth on an impressive 1.49.572 just 3 one-thousandths ahead of Dobie’s Tyrrell in seventh. Just over a tenth covered the next group of four cars. Herfjord (Ligier) eighth fastest on a 1.49.774, Maguire (Fittipaldi) ninth on 1.49.782, Schmidt (Lotus) tenth on 1.49.825, Schwecke (ATS) eleventh on 1.49.890. In twelfth was the first of the Interscopes, Roberts just .004 ahead of his team mate Nicol. Close behind was Beyer’s Tyrrell on a 1.49.982, just ahead of the fastest of the Alfa’s this week and last man in the 49‘s Garese in fifteenth. De Rooij was having another good run and was sixteenth, followed by another surprising debut from a Chevron,this one with Moreira at the wheel. Jeppesen (Ensign), Incledon (Fittipaldi) and Strang (Rizla) rounded out the top twenty qualifiers.

Racing was very tight in the midfield and a number of incidents were to shake-up the results.

Nixon (Lotus) was undoubtedly the fastest man at Road America with three wins, including a 194 point win over Ruokola (Williams) in the biggest race of the round. But at the end of the week, once again his love of racing had compromised his points haul and let Ruokola steal the round with 184 points. Valentiejus (Ligier) had also grabbed second with a total of 175 points, whilst Nixon was left sitting back in equal third with a very happy Herfjord (Ligier). Herfjord jumped 8 spots up the leaderboard with one great drive and then put the car away. StAmans (Alfa) dropped four spots to sixth whilst Lavecchia (Renault) gained four to be right behind him in seventh. Eighth and ninth were Maguire (Fittipaldi) and Roberts (Interscope) going toe to toe in the point race but both dropping a spot to the Renault. Also in the fight is Dobie (Tyrrell), the last man in the top ten.

Hulbert was a new name at the sharp end, qualifying an incredible second fastest.

Nixon’s three wins were unmatched in Round 2, nobody else winning more than once. Wednesday saw a win on debut go to Moreira’s Chevron, as well as Nixon grab his first of the week. Friday Ventura took a hard fought one, Tincani posted his first, and Nixon grabbed another. Saturday Maguire (Fittipaldi) took a strong win, and De Rooij posted his second of the season. Sunday began with Jeppesen on the rostrum, followed by Nixon taking the biggest win of the week, Incledon grabbing another for Fittipaldi, and Ruokola taking the last win of the week. Hachez (Kauhsen) was once again relentless in his efforts making six starts and turning 145 laps. Relative newcomer Poole (Surtees) also made six starts and completed over 100 laps.

Hulbert also had his share of drama, this the result of equipment failure.

Third drivers performed well again at Road America, Fastest of the number threes was once again De Rooij (Shadow) but Jeppesen (Ensign) is shaping up to challenge. Incledon (Fittipaldi) is another coming man as is Taylor (Renault) and Sagmeister (ATS). Boscus did a great job for Alfa again as did Nye for Interscope and the unstoppable Hachez at Kauhsen. In the Aurora ranks Hulbert (Chevron) just blew everyone away. Although he had his moments on the way there having a huge accident in the main event when his cockpit disconnected. How long can it be before he finds himself in a championship team? His team mate Moreira also did a sterling job for Chevron, and should help push this team toward the front. A great performance was put in by Van Velsen (Surtees) who’s quickly coming to grips with his new ride. Arnall put in a typically strong showing for Penthouse Rizla as he and his teammate Strang lead the Aurora runners points. Brättemark (Ram) currently sits in third just 20 points back.

Papenbrock has taken the lead role at McLaren, but Hentschell and Knoll had a much improved run at Road America.

Autodelta Alfa Romeo retained its lead in the Constructors Championship although the gap to second was cut drastically by the incredibly quick Ligiers. Renault drop to third just ahead of Fittipaldi and Interscope. Rebaque still sit sixth  but Williams have arrived with a rush at round 2 shooting 16 steps up the ladder to now sit seventh. Lotus followed their lead and leapt 15 places to tenth. Ensign and Arrows split them due to good runs from all 3 drivers at Elkhart. Big losers this week were Brabham, ATS and Samson. Let’s hope they regroup for Brands Hatch.

Recent recruits Van Velsen and Poole gave Surtees Garage a strong week at Elkhart Lake.

Driver of the Week:
Nixon/Lotus – Everyone loves a racer. Three wins and a total disregard for championship points earns Erik this week’s Driver of the Week.

]]> http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/iracing-news/nixon-wins-ruokola-scores/feed 2 http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/iracing-news/a-new-chapter http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/iracing-news/a-new-chapter#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 14:32:11 +0000 DavidP http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/?p=109376

The start of another iRacing season means the start of another chapter in the inRacingNews Challenge. Entering its seventh season, the second with three classes, the iRNC will see three sim-racers attempt to defend championships: two-time champion Marius Golombeck in Pontiac Solstice, Mitch Weatherly in SpecRacer Ford, and Dylan Sharman in Mazda MX-5 Roadster.

Coming-out of Week One, which took place at Okayama’s short course, three different drivers led series points. Two were familiar faces; Chris Hughson, winner of the first two Solstice championships, led that class with 158 points, while Niccolo Cedrati, one of the fastest drivers in SRF qualifying and time trials last year, paced his class with 177 points. The lone new face atop the standings was Mark Megens, whose seven-for-seven performance was good for 139 points and the Mazda class lead.

The flash of the green lights at Okayama, heralded the start of another chapter in the inRacingNews Challenge. (Scott Hanley image)

John Duffy led all Solstice drivers in starts with 19 and poles with 13. But Bryan J Miller was the big winner on the week, scoring seven victories in nine races on his way to fourth in points. Duffy, James Ayre, and Mauro Falzone tied for second in the category with five wins apiece. Miller’s 61.019-second lap topped all drivers in Time Trials, and his improvement to 60.885 seconds in qualifying made him one of two drivers to break the 61-second barrier.

Two drivers topped the 20-start mark in SRF: Lorin Theriault with 25 and Hughson with 20. But while Theriault only scored 77 points and eight wins, Hughson’s 17 wins led the class and enabled him to score 146 points to rank fifth in class. His 17 poles were more than twice the amount of second place in the category. Three drivers broke the 61-second barrier in Time Trials, with Steven Jones’ 60.834-second lap the fastest among them, But Jones would fall to sixth-fastest on the speed charts in qualifying, with Cedrati’s 60.490s edging Frank Bloem’s 60.515s at the top.

Diego Said and Carl Langton tied for most starts in Mazda with 15 apiece, but despite six wins for Said and four for Langton, neither topped 100 points. Megens’ seven wins were best in class, while Paul Linek and Lari Niskala tied for most poles with seven apiece. Thiago Moreira would lead all drivers in Time Trials with a lap of 61.559 seconds, while Daniel Schon would post a 60.809 to beat all drivers in qualifying.

Week Two will see a visit to Summit Point Raceway, the first of four this season, and the Jefferson Reverse layout. Last year, this event came in Week Seven; Hughson’s 167 points paced the Mazda class, Golombeck topped all Solstice drivers with 198 points, and Cedrati was the big winner on the week with 218 points in SRF.

Although Huttu scored a resounding victory at Road America, Kerkhof was destined for an early exit.

As the green flag dropped on the 47 lap race, Team Redline’s Luke McLean struggled to control his virtual Williams-Toyota FW31 as it wheel-spun off the line from second on the grid. After slewing from right to left, McLean finally regained control in front of My3id’s Luis as he got up to speed. The pair connected, sending Luis into the path of Martin Krönke’s iGPManager entry, resulting in Krönke flipping over the pit wall, whilst the defending champion barrel-rolled along the start/finish straight. With the field behind trying to hazard a guess at Luis’ flight plan, the concertina effect caused further problems as sim-racers darted left, right and even underneath the ‘flying’ Brazilian; but the ‘Carnag-edon’ wasn’t to end there.

Luis' unintentional aerobatics put-paid to his championship lead.

Carrying damage from the initial contact, McLean found himself in the thick of things once again in Turn One.  Spearing to the right, he bounced off the inside wall back across the track beneath the famous Briggs and Stratton sign. Just as the Australian’s car came to a rest, Jason Lovett caught its front wing, sending the Team Redline pilot into a further spin, whilst knocking Lovett into Ryan Terpstra’s car and punting Terpstra into the wall on the inside of Turn Three.

Meanwhile, at the front of the pack, pole-sitter Huttu had retained his lead position with Team Redline team-mate Atze Kerkhof following closely behind as the carnage unfolded in their mirrors.  The pair remained locked together in a form of car-ballet for the opening dozen laps, until the Dutch sim racer was forced to retire from second place with technical gremlins.

“In the end it was an easy win for me with others in the qualifying top-four having bad luck.” — Greger Huttu

By the time Huttu had completed 17 laps, he had amassed a substantial lead over the rest of the field, as behind him the majority of the top-ten headed to the pits for their first scheduled service of a two-stop strategy. Once he completed his one and only pit-stop of the race 10 laps later, the 2011 World Champion sat in second position, secure in the knowledge the cars around him would be making a return to pit-lane. And so it was, that despite being passed by Jeremy Bouteloup in the early stages on his final stint, Huttu was back at the front with a 20 second lead, when the Frenchman and Jake Stergios ahead of him took to pit lane for a second time. Unchallenged, Huttu maintained the margin to power the Team Redline entry home for his fourth win of the season.

“Well, getting the win is a perfect result after Okayama. Too bad about what happened in the start and was a shame for everyone involved in it,” Huttu shared post race. “I got away well from the line but mayhem ensued behind me. After Atze dropped out with a connection issue the race was pretty lonely. Jake [Stergios] and Jeremy [Bouteloup] were very fast on their two-stop strategies and after my stop I didn’t make it difficult for them to pass when they got a good run. In the end it was an easy win for me with others in the qualifying top-four having bad luck.”

A perfect strategy plus a patient drive (and a little divine intervention) enabled Ehnström to take second place.

Also making a single pit-stop strategy work was Orion Racing’s Roland Ehnström, who meticulously followed his predetermined tactics to secure his best finish of the season so far. Narrowly avoiding the start line carnage, Ehnström was up to fifth place once the open lap was completed. Although he lost spots in his heavily- fuelled digital F1 car to Andre Boettcher, Fulvio Barozzini and Pablo López by Lap 10, Ehnström was in second position nine circuits later, as one-by-one the field ahead of him pitted. The Orion racer dropped to seventh after his only stop on Lap 26 but, as the cars in front headed for a second service, Ehnström stepped back into the runners-up spot – a position he maintained until the finish line.

“Talk about unexpected results, the (i)Racing Gods really smiled at me this time!” enthused Ehnström. “Later all the two-stopping drivers had completed their second stops, and I was back up into second place, with Ilkka (Haapala) now some seven seconds behind and crucially in front of Jake Stergios, who was the leading two-stopper. With 11 laps to go Jake got past Ilkka, but I now had a nine-second gap to him, so even with his fresher tires I wasn’t too worried that he would catch me.”

“The (i)Racing Gods really smiled at me this time!” — Roland Ehnström.

Equalling his third position from his 2011 iWCGPS Road America appearance, Stergios brought home his Formula One car as the leading two-stopper – quite a feat considering he started ninth on the grid.

Employing a one-stop race plan, Haapala worked his way through the order from fourteenth on the grid to a fourth place finish, his best result of the season so far. The Team Orion pilot miraculously avoided the opening lap shenanigans (driving underneath the barrel-rolling Luis), to hold ninth spot in the opening stages. This became eighth once the Finn had taken his only service of the race and then third, once the ‘two-stoppers’ ahead made a second visit to pit-lane. Alas for Haapala, he was unable to hold-off the charge of Stergios, who made the pass for the final podium spot with 10 laps to go.

Stergios snatched the final podium spot from Haapala in the closing laps.

Making it two top-five finishes in a row, Radical Racing’s newest member, Jeremy Bouteloup, overcame an error during one of his pit-stops to finish three-seconds behind Haapala and move into striking distance of the top ten in the iRacing.com World Championship Grand Prix Series standings.

“Bringing home P5 for the second week in a row is an excellent feeling, even if it’s thanks to the mayhem that happened at the beginning of the race,” Bouteloup told inRacingNews. “I’m really happy about my race even though my pace could have been faster. This excellent result brought me back to P11 in the standings, which is close to my initial goal of the season.”

Putting on one of the greatest shows of Round Six was Pablo López, who tussled and traded blows with My3id’s Andre Boettcher throughout the race, as they shared a similar two-stop plan. In fact, the Radicals Racing team-member had to pass Boettcher three times over the course of the 47 lap race, with the Spaniard planting overtakes on the inside of Canada Corner during his first, second and third stints. The scale of battle for sixth position was reflected by Boettcher following López across the finish line by just two-seconds.

López bested Boettcher in a torrid battle for sixth place.

Likewise, Ben Cornett kept his Team Redline team-mate, Darren Marsh, at bay, despite the latter putting on a late charge in an attempt to take eighth spot. Heading into the final few laps, Cornett held an advantage of several seconds, but as the chequered flag drew nearer, Marsh found a turn of speed and began to reel-in his fellow Australian. Fortunately for Cornett, the flag flew just in time, with his team-mate a mere half-second behind; placings that could have easily been reversed if there’d had been any more laps.

Whilst Barozzini had been fighting for a top-five with the likes of López, Boettcher and Bouteloup during the early exchanges, a mistake just ahead of his first scheduled pit-stop sent the Italian falling down the order. Taking an excursion across the Turn 6 grass whilst closely following Boettcher, the Mortadella Motor Mission Racing Team driver lost a hat-full of time, which was further compounded when he missed his pit-stall during his first scheduled stop; errors that sent consigned him to an eventual finish of tenth place.

With six rounds of the iRacing.com Grand Prix World Championship Series now complete, Huttu (236) returns to the top of the points table, with a 42 mark advantage over Hugo Luis, who failed to score at Road America.  With McLean’s second early exit in as many races, Ehnström moves into third spot with 150 points to his name, six more than Jake Stergios, who is 20 clear of Cornett.

Round Seven of the iGPWCS heads to the technically challenging Infineon Raceway in the virtual hills of Sonoma, California. Will Huttu be able to maintain the momentum, or can Luis bounce back from a race to forget at Road America?  Tune in to iRacingLive in two weeks time to find out who will be on top in the globe’s number one online road racing championship.

On the face of it, Marcus Dean is a bit of a contradiction.  The Greenville, SC resident loves his short track racing, particularly at his “home” track, ½ mile Greenville-Pickens Speedway, a track awash in stock car racing history.  Given that, you might expect Dean to be a regular in iRacing Street Stocks, Late Models and Class C.  Instead, Dean’s sim-racing tastes run to open wheels, IndyCars, Sprint Cars and, most of all, Silver Crown.

He’s currently in a familiar spot in the iRacing Silver Crown Cup – chasing perennial front runner Vinnie Sansone in the overall standings while vying for the Division 2 title.  It’s a title he won in a Season 1 that also saw him place runner-up to Sansone in the overall rankings and one he’d very much like to retain in Season 2.  With a little help from his friends and teammates at Crankenstein Racing — not to mention his “co-pilot” –  it’s a goal that’s within reach.

Q:        How long have you been sim racing?

A:        I’ve been sim racing a little over two years.

Q:        What attracted you to iRacing?

A:        I had a friend that told me about iRacing and let me use his wheel and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Dean gravitates to the short track open wheel series like the Sprint Car and Silver Crown Cup.

Q:        What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?

A:        My favorite iRacing car would be the Silver Crown, I think it is the best car in the sim. My favorite track is Irwindale with the Silver Crown. It’s a hard track to pass on but a lot fun with the right group of iRacers.

Q:        What do you like most about iRacing?

A:        What I like most is that iRacing keeps evolving and improving with every new build.

Q:        What would you change about iRacing?

A.       If I could change something about iRacing i would give the Silver Crown and the Sprint Car the new tire model.

Q:       How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?

A.       I usually spend about 10 to 15 hours a week on iRacing.

Q:      Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s).

A.     My paint scheme on my Silver Crown is based-off the Caterpillar NASCAR Sprint Cup car. The reason why I chose Caterpillar is because I deliver Caterpillar heads to one of their plants here in Fountain Inn, SC.

Q:     What other sim racing activities (Forza, rFactor, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?

A.      I don’t play any other sim racing games.

Q:     What are your favorite video games?

A:      My favorite game to play is UFC on Xbox 360. I like to play it with my kids.

Q:     What is your most memorable iRacing moment?

A:      My most memorable moments in iRacing to date is, one, winning an official race in the Silver Crown at Las Vegas with Vinnie Sansone.  I’ve been trying to win a race with him in it for close to a year.  Number two is winning the Division 2 2012 Season 1 championship and finishing second overall in the Silver Crown.

“I couldn’t make it without (my wife).  She is my spotter in life.”

Q:     What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?

A:      I was running a live web broadcast, don’t remember who was hosting but it was Indy cars at Indy.  I came in for the first round of pit stops and come out of the pits, looped it, hit the wall and ended my race. I watched the replay later and saw they were talking about it in the broadcast.

Q:     What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?

A:      The car would I add to iRacing would have to be a Monte Carlo street stock. The track would I add would have to be my local track Greenville-Pickens Speedway. It has a lot of history, GPS held the first flag-to-flag televised NASCAR race and the past track champions are painted on the wall starting in Turn 3 and continuing down the backstretch to the middle of Turns 1 and 2. Drivers like Lee Petty, Ralph Earnhardt and David Pearson just just to name a few.

Q:      What person, living or dead do you most admire?

A:      My wife.  I couldn’t make it without her.  She is my spotter in life.

Q:      What’s your favorite real world racing series?

A:      Local short track racing at Greenville-Pickens Speedway.

Memorable moment #2 in Dean's sim-racing career.

Q:      Name the title of the most recent book you read.

A:      Dave Ramsey Financial Peace.

Q:      Name of your favorite movie/TV show?

A:      South Beach Tow.

Q:      How many of your close friends are iRacing members?

A:      There are 17 of my closest friends on iRacing and we all make up the team of Crankenstein Racing.

I must say that Nim’s statement is very accurate and profound.  There have been literally thousands of forum strings, emails, video reviews, opinions and discussions over the years about how to deal with those cursed incidents and accidents on iRacing.   Passionate discussions and ideas abound about the sporting code, safe driving, unsafe driving, intentional wrecking, blocking, sportsmanship, acceptable behavior, flaws in the protest system and ideas for more automation  . . . to name a few.

There have also been literally thousands of protests filed by concerned members regarding perceived violations of the iRacing sporting code by other members.  In 2010, for example, there were 1,945 protests filed and 3,541 filed in 2011. Those numbers only include accepted protests in which we created a “case.”   In the past, if there was some missing information in the protest submission (for example, a replay if the protest was a racing-based incident) an accepted “case” was NOT created in our CRM system.  Therefore, there were actually quite a few more protests than the numbers show above.  More on that later.

As iRacing's membership rolls have increased so have the number of racing incidents . . . and protests.

“What is a CRM system you might ask? Or maybe you don’t really care!  Well if you care it stands for Customer Relationship Management.  It is a third party software package that records the complete history of our interaction with each iRacing member.  We can see all the details about your membership, what you purchased, how long you have been a member, if you have called customer service and, if so, exactly why you called and how it has been resolved.  FYI, we create a case for everything in customer service/technical support in the CRM system as well.   We track how long cases are open, the result, how long before we contacted you back if you did not reach us live and things like that.

Like I said, we also use this system for protests (and appeals for that matter) so that everything is documented for each case created.  Each member has a permanent historical record. For example, if 10 protests are filed against a member we know that; we also know how we resolved each protest. Staying with that example, we know if 10 different people filed the protests or if the same person filed 10 protests against that particular member.    We track both sides of the protest in the system.

iRacing.com’s protest process is obviously unique in the world of sim racing or racing games. The centralized service itself including official racing is equally unique.   How did this all come about?   When we started iRacing, we felt the single biggest obstacle to the continuing evolution of online racing – even more than the technical challenges – was the lack of a global sim racing community.

“We felt the single biggest obstacle to the continuing evolution of online racing . . . was the lack of a global sim racing community.”

Additionally, there was no decent centralized arena for public racing and competition.  In other words, it was a completely fragmented community and sport (or hobby, depending on how you look at it).   Part of that was because there was no method for managing the frustration caused by wreckers or racers consistently driving over their heads and skill level, etc.   As a result, sim racers often gave-up racing on public servers even when the technology was available and retreated back to the safety of their small groups or private leagues.
We set out to change that.  Don’t get me wrong: Leagues are great.   But we wanted to create (or at least re-invent) the sport of sim-racing so that there was an enjoyable and challenging environment for drivers of all experience and abilities, from “amateur” all the way up to pros; one that  would attract real-world sanctioning bodies and create a world-wide sense of community.  To do that you need to have public, open racing competition.  But how do you get people to behave and drive appropriately based on their skill?  That was obviously one of the fundamental questions we faced, and there was no easy solution.

We thought about the question long and hard from all the angles and niches of sim racers, including brand new sim racers.  We worked even longer and harder to implement what we believed was a practical system that addressed those issues.  As a result, we developed and engineered into the service our incident system, our license class and promotion system, our division system, our safety rating system, and our iRating system.  That is just some of the automated functionality we built into the system — all to foster an environment of clean, public racing.  We continue thinking about those issues and how well our systems are addressing them as well as whether what, if any, additional automation is desirable.  And, needless to say, we have already tweaked all of those features many times over along our journey.

Of course, we also decided to take it to the next step and create our own sanctioning and governing racing body which we called FIRST.  We created a full Sporting Code at the core of FIRST to lay out the expectations and rules for racing, including a protest process and appeal system in which a racing steward would review and arbitrate each protest.  We spent a lot of time deciding the tone and the goals of the protest process.  Along the way we have tweaked and altered our approach based on what we have learned over the years reviewing and discussing thousands of protests.   As many have said — and it is true — we are also a for-profit software company, not just a racing sanctioning body.  Luckily, we found the goals of both to be mainly in concert.

Our goal is simple.  Create a good, clean racing and family environment for our members no matter your level of skill or passion. Easier said than done.  With all the built-in systems like license class and safety rating geared to reward clean driving, we still get thousands of protests per year.  That’s not really a shock, I suppose. Thankfully, there are a lot of people doing a lot of racing.  I often say (and our marketing material states) we have over 1,500 official races per week.  In fact, the numbers are much higher, as that 1,500 figure only counts the starting times of the different series and races.  When you take into account all the different splits, we actually have well over 5,000 official races per week – which adds-up to more than 250,000 unique races every year.   No wonder our membership has driven over 500,000,000 laps!  That is a lot of potential for racing incidents, frustration and tempers to flare!   Luckily flaring tempers are the exception not the rule.

We obviously can’t have a race steward in every race, not by a long shot.  Even if we did that does not solve all the problems.  For example,  we do have live race stewards for our World Championship races.   In fact we have three or four experienced stewards in each race, plus an additional video incident review system in which four other people review each incident!  With all that there is still controversy and second-guessing!  I guess just like the NASCAR Sprint Series or any real-world series, even with just one race per week to officiate, it is tough to keep everyone happy and there are still problems!

iRacing hardly has a monopoly on disagreements between officials and competitors.

Contrary to what some might think, our system works pretty well.   We are assigning fault or no fault which, by its very nature, is going to upset one or both parties.  Sometimes we catch someone simply completely losing control.  Those are the easy cases.  Other times, it is more subtle and everything in between.  Often it is hard to know what really happened and what truly was someone’s intention.  Did someone purposely block you or did they lose concentration because their son walked across the room?   Maybe they just messed-up and did not see you.   That is why the CRM system is so important for racing-based protests.  Is this the first time the guy blocked someone or dived-bombed someone in a corner?  Or is this the third time they have been protested for the same behavior?  If it’s the third time, what happened with the other cases?  Is it the third time out of 2,000 races or the third time in 10 races?   What are the two different sides saying?  Is the person at fault understanding the issue, being respectful and willing to work at correcting it?  Are their actions consistent with what they are saying they will do to correct it or are they full of hot air? Those sort of questions factor into whether we decide to coach someone and offer suggestions, warn them or remove them from the system for a period of time.

Earlier I provided the number of protest cases created, so now let me offer you a number for another category: punishments. In 2010 we suspended 224 people for a specific length of time and banned 43 outright.  Banned means there is no time table in allowing them to rejoin iRacing.  It could mean forever.  In 2011 we suspended 598 people and banned 52.

We are certainly not proud, nor do we feel good about, suspending someone.  But the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few at the end of the day.  (By the way another Star Trek reference is below)  If one person is ruining the experience for many, especially habitually, we take action.  For the record, we get criticized that we are too tough on people . . . and too easy on people.

“Are we completely satisfied with the protest system and process?  No, not completely.  It works but there’s always room to improve and we will.”

That brings me to the next subject.  Are we completely satisfied with the protest system and process?  No, not completely.  It works but like anything on iRacing, there’s always room to improve and we will.

One thing we did in the software update/build just a couple weeks ago that was not mentioned in the software release notes was give ourselves a lot more flexibility.  In the past, we had three choices: Suspend someone, shut off their in-sim communication (voice chat and or text chat) or make the forums “read only.”  (I guess a fourth would be a combination of making forums “read only” and shut off text chat. Actually, we could also shut off their forums completely.)

Anyway, with just those three basic choices (in-sim communication, forums, suspend from service), some tough decisions had to be made that frankly in some cases could have been more fair.  But our options were limited.  In some cases, we wanted to send a message for an incident but felt at the end of the day a suspension was too tough a penalty, so the person merely received a warning when something more serious may have been warranted.  On the flip side, in some cases we felt something had to be done and while a suspension was too tough we did it anyway because, again, that was the tool we had.

The goal of the iRacing protest system is close, clean and enjoyable racing for everyone.

The good news is with this build we have added several options to the three we already had.  Now we can suspend parts of the service to a member for a period of time instead of suspending them from the whole service.  (Although we can and will still suspend people from the service entirely.)   For example, we can suspend people from “contact” with other members, so they will still be able to test and time trial but will be ineligible to participate in race sessions with other members.  We can suspend people from public racing but they can still do hosted sessions, time trials and testing.  We can suspend people just from official racing and qualifying but they can do everything else including hosted sessions and open practice.   We now have about seven or eight options, giving us much more flexibility.  In addition, now if you are suspended from some part of the service (not including in-sim communication or forums), you will be able to see when the full service will be restored.   That comes under the heading “better communication.”

You’re still reading this?  Wow, good for you.  Might as well finish reading at this point.

Earlier, I noted that we create a “case” for every properly submitted protest.  Going forward we will create a case for every protest, properly submitted or not, because that is also valuable information in several regards.  We have also created more categories of protests, so we can review things on a macro-level and identify trends.  We have also reviewed all of our form letters, added some new ones and rewritten some old ones, and revised our criteria for when to use which letters.  We have also given ourselves more room to include additional detail and notes when communicating with members, and have encouraged our race stewards to take advantage of that opportunity.  This is important because using the correct reply letter and providing added detail can be the difference between a member getting even more frustrated or starting to at least understand our position.   Again, communication is critical.  On that note, we plan on providing macro level protest results each quarter.

If you have been a bad boy or girl, you may have also seen less of Nim Cross’s name recently.  Nim is our chief race steward and, for those of you who are new to the service, he has historically reviewed every single protest.   The reason you won’t see Nim’s name as much is not because he doesn’t treat each protest with an unrelenting sense of urgency or because he is not super awesome; it is because we are adding more resources in this area so Nim might not be the one reviewing your protest in the future.  You will start seeing emails from the race steward’s office instead of from Nim.  I wish we had many more people in this area, because they could really get involved in not only reviewing protests but in more “positive” measures like coaching and personal feedback, and also serving  as “random” in-race stewards and being available for secondary protest review as a matter of process.

“Another big project in the works is automating the protest process.”

You may say, why not have the community get involved to help?  They know sim racing and proper sportsmanship.  Although I agree that is very true, the protest process really needs to be very organized.  Everything needs to be documented in our systems properly, and internal communication is also a key.  Long story short, we absolutely must be able to count on people doing this as a job.

We’ll keep thinking about resources and how we might tackle that within our budget, but automation could help as well.  For example, there’s a project on the table now that would automatically boot a driver from a race if he gets xyz incident points.  Hit the magic number and race control would black flag the driver, and he’d be forced to the pits for good.  Then the guy/lady can’t race again until the steward flips the switch.

I wouldn’t worry about this being too draconian.  We would start pretty high, for example 20+ incident points in a race as the threshold, but at least it will take that guy out of the race who is just a menace.  You know the guy I am talking about!    He will eventually get suspended anyway probably and have a hundred excuses, but this just gets him out fast until we can figure out what is going on before he or she does any more damage.

Another big project in the works is automating the protest process.  It always bothered me that protests are probably filed at a member’s peak of frustration.  As it is now, they have to thumb (or scroll) through the sporting code with their eyes glazing over reading that thing, trying to figure out what to do — and all the while steam is coming out their ears because some hero wrecked them on the last lap and they got ripped-off from their first podium!

Khaaannnn!!!!

Believe me, it’s not our intention for iRacing to trigger Kirk-like facial expressions!   With the automation or semi-automation of the protest process, you will be able to click on “File a Protest.”   There will be a drop-down requiring you to fill out necessary information including a drop down of the key Sporting Code sections, and all you have to do is click on it.  The process will be very intuitive.

Obviously, since it will be so much easier to file a protest, we may institute a one hour waiting (cooling-off) period or something like that before you can file a protest  in order to minimize the frivolous protests.  We’re still thinking about that to some degree.

Just like most things worthwhile, sim racing is very tough for most of us – which is probably why we like it so much.    On that note, I want to sincerely thank all of our members for being unbelievably patient with one another and incredibly supportive of each other generally on the track, because we all make mistakes.  Also, thanks also for being patient and supportive of us as we try manage the racing here because, as Nim said, racing incidents do happen.    All these things we have worked on are very important and we will continue to try and make your time on track as pleasurable as we can — but all of you are what makes that work at the end of the day!!!

Good racing,

Tony

Going into my second race at Miller Motorsports Park the weekend of April 28, I hadn’t been on a road course in over a year and a half.  Naturally, I got online and started doing laps on iRacing in the old Nationwide car, which is basically the car I race in the K&N Series.  Although iRacing doesn’t have MMP, it does have Mid-Ohio which has a lot of similarities to Miller and I thought it would be pretty useful.

At first I struggled ‘cause the Nationwide car has way more horsepower and is much heavier than the last car I drove on a road course – a Skip Barber F2000!  But the good thing about testing on iRacing is that you get unlimited track time and the only thing you hurt when you make a mistake is your pride.  So with some time and patience, I got the hang of it and was pretty excited to get to Miller and drive for real.

But before going to Utah, we tested at Buttonwillow Raceway and were fortunate to have Patrick Long there to coach my teammate Derek Thorn and me. As I’m sure you know, Pat is one of the best road racers in the world and it was an honor to work with a guy like him.  Pat really helped me transition from the Skippy formula car to the K&N stock car.

Comparing notes with Patrick Long.

Finally it was time to head to Miller Motorsports Park.  Going into the weekend my goal was pretty simple: finish the race with the car intact. Our first and only practice went pretty well, and I ended-up P9 with a William Rast Ford that was pretty good, although a little bit on the snug side. So going into qualifying we loosened-up the car and I also tracked-down Pat as he racing in both the K&N Series and the Pirelli World Challenge at MMP that weekend.

After talking with Pat I realized I wasn’t in the right gear in certain turns, and I also came up with some ideas on how to could carry more speed through a couple of different spots on the track.  But rather than risk making a big mistake in qualifying, I waited until the race to put try some of Pat’s suggestions rather than try something new and risk a bad qualifying.   In the end, I qualified P9 – but I wasn’t able to finish my first lap on fresh tires, because another car’s engine blew-up.  Unfortunately it was Pat’s car that lost the engine and, as a result, he failed to qualify for the K&N race.

So I was kind of racing for both of us!   In the race I started following some of Pat’s suggestions and found they helped quite a bit, as did some things I found out on my own.

On the grid at Miller Motorsports Park.

There was a caution on Lap 15 and we pitted early for fuel.  I took over the lead on Lap 24 and was pushing really hard but also trying to be consistent and not make mistakes. My crew told me to start saving fuel after I’d built a good gap to second. It was pretty hard to save fuel and make certain lap times they wanted me to hit, but I was able to do it and things were looking pretty good until another caution came out with four laps to go. Although I got a really good restart, I had trouble on that lap with dirty, cold tires and got passed by second and third. The next lap the tires ‘came-in’ but it was too late to do anything about the guys up front and so I ended-up third.

Overall it was a good finish for the Sunrise Ford team, and both iRacing and Pat contributed to the result.  Best of all, Pat went on to win the Pirelli World Challenge event later that day!

I’m looking forward to the rest of the K&N West season and to sharing my experiences with you.

Thanks!

Austin

Hamstead claimed a hard-fought victory over Maris at scenic Road America.

With George Maris taking control in the early race, he would qualify on pole for the main race which saw a near record strength of field (4228). Maris  took the pole with a lap of 2:08.259, ahead of the defending champion Richard Hamstead, while ANZ Motorsport combo of Justin Ruggier and their new recruit who came off a Dunlop Series round win — Scott McLaughlin — rounding-out the second row of the grid.  Simon Madden and three time V8 Supercar champion Madison Down would start on the third row.

As the lights went green Hamstead got the jump on the field but going into Turn One Maris was sitting just enough up the inside that he would hold onto the position and take the lead and control of the race. With Maris in the lead the rest of the field was still getting themselves sorted and surprisingly everyone got through relatively cleanly. Going down into Turn Three and the first heavy braking zone, Ruggier had troubles getting it stopped.  He overshot the corner, almost hitting team mate Maris, but safely re-joined only costing himself two positions with Down and Madden getting by.

Maris leads the field into Turn 3 on the opening lap.

As the online race settled into a rhythm it was Maris slightly pulling a gap over Hamstead and Down, but as they hit the half way mark it was Hamstead making the call and pitting first to try and undercut the leader. As quickly as he pitted Maris, Down and the rest of the pack quickly following but as the sim racers rejoined the track it was Down taking the lead via taking only rears and fuel.

Fellow TTR driver Joshua Muggleton followed his team mate with the same fuel and rears-only strategy, jumping up the field and now under attack from Mitchell McLeod.  But on Lap 10 it came unstuck when McLeod made the pass through One and Two.  When they got on the back straight the pace from the TTR car put Muggleton in prime spot to retake the position.  With McLeod slightly covering and catching Muggleton off guard by braking a little harder than expected it was touch and go, with the emphasis on touch.   Unfortunately both went off, along with Rens Broekman who had nowhere to go but into the back of Muggleton, ending the trio’s chance of a good result.

Muggleton leads McLeod and Broekman before they all ran into trouble at Turn 5.

On Lap 11, Hamstead had caught Down.  Down’s “rears-only” gamble was starting to show as Hamstead made easy work of the former champion and took control of the race but with only five laps to go.   Maris had passed Down and was now chasing down Hamstead.  Coming through Turn 13 with one lap to go, Maris used to much kerb (like plenty of others) and got thrown wide on exit onto the grass costing him valuable time.  Maris again closed the gap on the final tour, but with Hamstead blocking strong and getting some help through Turn 13 from the front bumper of Maris’ Ford it was Hamstead who took the win and the championship points lead.  Maris was forced to settle for second place while Down saved just enough fuel to come home third ahead of Scott McLaughlin and a three wide finish for fifth through seventh with Cal Whatmore just beating Ruggier and Madden to the line to snatch the final spot in the top five.

Split 2 Winner – Josh Smith
Split 3 Winner – Justin Di Giandomenico
Split 4 Winner – Jason Scandolera
Split 5 Winner – Benjamin Rigby

You can watch all the race replays on www.v8sonline.com.au

iRacing.com has bolstered its commitment to its Asian market with the announcement of new partnerships with Japan’s Super GT Series and the Honda Motor Company.  Beginning in 2013, the Japanese Super GT Series will join NASCAR, GRAND-AM, IZOD IndyCar and the Australian V8 Supercar Championship in staging an officially sanctioned iRacing series:  the iRacing.com Super GT Series.  And thanks to a new agreement between iRacing and Honda, the featured car in that online racing series will be the Honda HSV-010.

“We’re pleased, make that doubly pleased, to join our new partners in bringing all the excitement of the Super GT Series and the Honda HSV-010 GT to iRacing,” says Steve Myers, iRacing.com executive vice president and executive producer.  “The Super GT Series offers some of the fastest, most innovative and competitive GT racing in the world, and no car better embodies that speed and innovation than the Honda HSV-010.

“With our digital versions of Okayama International, Twin Ring Motegi and the Suzuka International Racing Course, iRacing has an excellent foundation of tracks for our Super GT Series.  We also have a licensing agreement in place with the Tsukuba Circuit and have laser-scanned the track, so the iRacing.com Super GT Series will certainly have an authentic flavor to its schedule.”

The Super GT Series enjoys an enthusiastic following throughout Japan and Asia, and is renowned as one of the last bastions of “open” competition among manufacturers.

According to the Super GT Series, “we are excited to work with iRacing to develop an online version of the Super GT Series.  We believe ours is the most innovative and exciting GT racing series in the world, and our fans around the world obviously agree.  The Super GT Series is proud to join some of the world’s other leading sanctioning bodies in sanctioning an online racing series with iRacing.”

Among the world’s most potent GT racers, the Honda HSV-010  is well-suited to the Super GT Series with a 3.4 liter V8 that produces 289 lb-ft of torque and nearly 500 horsepower.   In keeping with the Super GT Series’ open regulations, the Honda’s engine is front-mounted and the car is not based on a production vehicle available for purchase by the general public.

“Honda is delighted to be partnering with iRacing.com on the HSV-010 project,” says America Honda Motorsports Manager T.E. McHale. “Previously, we have worked together to develop iRacing’s IndyCar Dallara and the HPD-ARX01c sports prototype, and have been very pleased with the results.  We have no doubt that the Honda HSV-010 will quickly become one of the most popular cars on the iRacing service.”

iRacing expects to begin work on a prototype version of its Honda HSV-010 this fall.  The prototype will subsequently undergo a rigorous online test program in order to insure iRacers of an authentic experience driving and racing the car in the iRacing.com Super GT Series.

iRacer Josh Parker is set for his "real" racing debut at Stafford on Friday.

Parker, who drives online in the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship (NiSWC), practiced a DARE Stock car during the Spring Sizzler weekend and was set to make his maiden race laps in the car one week ago but rain halted the plans of the 21 year old.

“I am excited to get behind the wheel of the car again,” said Parker of his upcoming debut. “The car drove close to what I expected it would and I adapted pretty quickly over the practice laps I had. With those practice laps and the team backing me, I am more than ready to get on the track this Friday night!”

Parker began his racing career by running on simulators on his home computer. Currently, Parker runs on the iRacing Motorsports Simulation, which is recognized as the world’s most accurate and popular online motorsport simulation service. He races in the NiSWC division, the highest competition in all of the iRacing service every second Tuesday night. He has recorded one win in his career at that level, combined with 187 other wins in other competitions on the service in the last four years. Parker credits his knowledge and awareness skills within a car to iRacing.

“You can make a lot of comparisons between the two,” Parker explains. “The awareness of being in traffic, racing against others along with what lines to take around a race track make the learning curve a bit smaller when you get to the real track. From practicing Stafford within the sim, I had an idea of what I needed to do when I got into the DARE Stock last month and picked the car up quickly in practice. If it wasn’t for iRacing, I would have been behind on that and I may not have felt ready to make my debut this soon.”

Parker has nearly 200 online racing wins to his credit.

The car Parker will be driving on Friday night will be emblazoned with the #26 and will be sponsored by in part by GSRacing.net, a privately run series on the iRacing service which features many of the top drivers in the simulation racing world. GSRacing.net also funds Parker’s entry in the NiSWC series on Tuesday evenings. The effort will also be backed by Foodshare, Rent a Racecar New England, Exlander Design Solutions and Tim’s Corner Motorsports.

The DARE Stock division will compete in a five lap heat race followed by a 15-lap feature on Friday night at the Stafford Motor Speedway as a part of the Late Model Xtra Mart Xtra D event. The afternoon kicks-off at 3pm when the Pit Gates open followed by practice at 4pm. Grandstand gates open at 5:15pm with racing set to start at 6:15pm.

For more information on the event or the track, please visit StaffordMotorSpeedway.com. To follow along with Parker’s progress throughout the day, be sure to follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JoshParker81.

The 2012 S2 NiCAS wasted no time getting down to business at Talladega.

Coming into the week, much was in there air about what kind of racing we would see. Early in the week however, it was shown that the tandem drafting method would reign superior over pack racing. With that being said, the cars could only push for 2-3 laps before overheating became and issue, and a swap would be needed.

Joshua B Gerrald of Texas is one man who proved he could master this style of sim-racing, winning the top race of the week and earning 360 points to give him the early Division One points lead. It was a race that Gerrald was almost unable to take a part in, being car number 27 of the 29 car field in a race where a  driver’s rating (iRating) determined their seeding. That was not a problem at all for Gerrald or Cody Byus, as the top two finishers pushed their way through the field to a one-two finish after starting outside the top twenty-five. Adam Gilliland, Alex Ciambrone and defending NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship overall champion Ray Alfalla rounded-out the top five.

Gerrald (27) and Byus (26) drafted their ways to the front to win the top split of the week from Gilliland (14) and Ciambrone (7).

As was the case with the last NiCAS season, come season’s end the top ten Class A licensed drivers will be promoted to the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) taking place this coming winter. This is the second of three season which will make out the field, and as always it is huge to get a good start to the season. Along with Gerrald and Byus, Maxime Paquetter had a stellar start to the season, along with former NiPS competitor Jukka Savolainen, Brandon Atkinson, and Chase Raudman.

For the drivers who couldn’t care less about points and just want to race, there is a spot for them too. Joey Schmidt threw down nine wins to earn the most trips to victory lane of the 1,653 competitors who took part in the opening week of the season. Mike Burnell raced a staggering 39 times, winning three with nine top fives. A great week of participation, one of the best ever, as 108 drivers raced ten or more times, with the most laps completed going to Rick Savage who made it around the 2.66 mile track 2,314 times.

From one of the easiest tracks to drive on the circuit, to undoubtedly the hardest oval the series will face. Week Two will weed out the boys from the men in a hurry as the haulers make the trek to Darlington, South Carolina for a visit to the track “Too Tough To Tame”. Wheeling a car as it slips and slides around Darlington Raceway will put some hair on your chest, but only the best can make a trip to victory lane.

Daley (2) beating Coleman (15) to the line.

“I’ll have to say that was one of the best races I’ve been a part of on iRacing.” – Byron Daley

For season two, the high Strength of Field (SoF) races were moved to Friday nights. Week One’s SoF race had 28 drivers and a SoF of 5060. When it was all said and done, NiSWC driver Byron Daley (New York) came out on top after taking the lead for the final time with 4 laps to go. Daley had help from teammate Chad Coleman (Georgia), who finished second after pushing Daley to the win. Byron received 324 points for the win while Coleman received 312 points for finishing second. Lee Herron (Carolina) finished in the third position while Peter Bennett (Connecticut) finished in the fourth position. For their finishes, Herron netted 300 points while Bennett netted 288. Alex Ciambrone (Pennsylvania) rounded out the Top Five and received 276 points. The race had three cautions for 11 laps and 14 leaders for 38 lead changes.

Daley had this to say after the race, “I’ll have to say that was one of the best races I’ve been a part of on iRacing. The competition was stout and it made for an action packed race. I think the key that race was when I got tagged and about wrecked out of turn 4 that gave me the run laps later to make a 4 wide pass which put me out front for the end. Narrowly sliding in front of Chad Coleman sealed the win as everyone fought for position to the start finish line.”

Five wide at Talladega.

After the first week of the season, Daley led the weekly and season standings with 324 points after his victory in the SoF race. Coleman was second in the standings with 312 points after his second place finish while Herron was third at the end of the week with 300 points. Defending NiSWC champion Ray Alfalla (Florida) finished the week in the fourth position after finishing sixth in the SoF race and winning his second race of the week. Alfalla finished the week with 281 points. Ciambrone rounded out the Top Five for the week after his fifth place finish in the SoF race. Ciambrone finished with 276 points.

At the end of the week Gary Czlapinski (New Jersey) sat on top of the qualifying charts. Czlapinski turned a 52.728 second lap. Adrian Duncan (Eastern Canada) was second on the charts with a 52.732 second lap while Helge Gravemeyer (DE-AT-CH) was third with a 52.736 second lap. Chris Jessee (Plains) finished the week fourth with a 52.737 second lap while James Howard (Mid-South) rounded out the Top Five with a 52.747 second lap around the 2.66 mile track.

Week one of the NiCBS saw high participation with high points. Week Two looks to be just as exciting as the series will travel to the track that is too tough to tame, Darlington Raceway. Racers will look to gain as many points as possible in route to possibly taking the crown from defending champion Phil Juhring (Atlantic). Who will make their names known at Darlington? Find out next week at InRacingNews!

iRacing is many things to many people.  For most, it’s an enjoyable past-time offering very real insights into the world of motorsports; for some it’s a nearly full-time (some would say “addictive”) hobby offering very real rewards.  For established race drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr, Justin Wilson, Alex Gurney and Shane van Gisbergen, it’s a fun way to stay on top of their game; for emerging racers like Jim Caudill Jr, Wyatt Gooden and Josh Wise, it’s a valuable tool for honing their skills in pursuit of their dreams.

For Michael Main, iRacing was the catalyst to the start-up of Main Performance PC, the Arlington, VA-based builder/servicer of custom gaming computers and distributor for Obutto gaming cockpits and CXC motion simulators.  As you’ll see, it’s a business he takes personally. . .

Q: How did you get your start in sim racing?

A: I got my start in 1994 racing on the Hawaii Online Service from Papyrus using NASCAR Racing 1.  Been involved in sim-racing ever since, including the NROS, NASCAR 4 and  NASCAR Racing 2003.

Q: When did you find out about iRacing?

A: My brother, Chris Main joined iRacing by invite, and I got into it soon after it went public.

Q: How did your company, Main Performance PC, come about?

A: When I joined iRacing I saw one gentleman (Richard Buttonshaw) on the hardware section of the Forum who was interested in getting a new computer.  I’d just built mine, so I private messaged him and said I’d be willing to build him a computer if he didn’t want to build his own or buy one from a company.  He replied and said he was interested.  So I priced everything, gave him a number and he gave me the go-ahead. Main Performance PC was born!

Q: How did you acquire the Obutto distributorship in the United States?

A: I contacted Chris Duanagan (owner of Obutto, LTD) a few different times regarding the Obutto. After learning of some issues the Obutto brand was having in the US with a prior distributor, I decided it was time to go ahead with it. One of our previous computer customers was an investor, and we were lucky enough to work out a great deal to get our first container of Obutto cockpits over to the US. We signed our agreement on September 8th 2010, and have since sold 1092 Obutto cockpits in the US!

Q: What sets Main Performance PC apart from other OEM System Manufacturers?

A: I think what sets us apart from other OEMs is that we take customer service so seriously.  My name is on the company, so anytime there is a problem, I take it extremely personal. I really do want every customer to feel like they are the only one. So many times have I gone into an establishment, or bought a service/product and felt like just another customer to them.

We also take a very direct and careful approach to system configurations. When possible, we always try to contact the customer prior to building their system. We ask them questions about what games they like to play, what their other computer related activities are such as video editing, Photoshop, etc and try to build a personal user profile.  It also allows us to make recommendations to the customer about their system, whether it is a cost saving option, or a performance enhancing one.

“I always like to check the customer’s name and see if they are an iRacing member; that way I know exactly what they are looking for.”

I always like to check the customer’s name and see if they are an iRacing member; that way I know exactly what they are looking for.  Over the years I have developed a number of personal tweaks to a PC system that I make regarding iRacing. I don’t want to say these tweaks are proprietary, but they are little things here and there that I have found that give the systems a bit of a performing edge, while also increasing quality.

Building computers is the easy part.  We need to sell ourselves as a company to our customers, so when we can provide services and knowledge that other companies don’t, that’s an advantage for us. For example, I wrote an article in the iRacing forums about how to build/buy a computer specifically for iRacing. I want gamers to feel empowered, if we provide the tools & knowledge to help that along, then we’ve met our goals.  Hopefully they buy a few computers from us along the way!

Main isn't just about sim racing. Main Performance sponsored iRacer Daniel Pope's Late Model at Martinsville Speedway last year.

Q: Anything new in the pipeline for Main Performance PC?

A: There is something regarding Obutto coming up, but I cannot say what it is right now. We do have long term plans to have our very own building complete with warehouse, a “clean room” to build our computer systems in, rather than just a large conference room. We do plan to start designing our own sim-racing hardware over the next few months. Button boxes, high end dashboards with working gauges, things like that. Marketing/Advertising is also in our pipeline, our biggest problem is not enough people know about Main Performance PC.

Lastly, we have plans for a much more robust website with a new shopping cart complete with a “System Designer” that will make recommendations based on the users input to key questions will be implemented. We want to educate the customer as well during the buying process; that is important. We have also started to place bids on contracts for organizations, the government, and large corporate offices looking for work stations. We have won final bid approval on one big contract, still waiting to hear if we were selected though, that will be huge for us!

“Customer service is the building block of any good company that delivers or charges for a service.”

Q: What is the hardest part of running your own business?

A: Managing the finances and working with my wife. I live and breathe MPPC, I am constantly thinking of new things I can or should do to grow the business. It tends to put a strain on our relationship, but we are slowly learning how to differentiate work from our personal lives. She really is great though, I couldn’t have asked for a better business partner through it all. She is an economics major, so she’s got a really great business head on her shoulders. I am also currently trying to teach myself SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to help get our name higher up on the search ranks for gaming PCs.  That is proving to be very difficult for me, as I am really not well versed on web design and how search engines work, but I am learning!

Q: It seems from many comments I have seen, that customer service is really MPPC’s specialty, and can you tell us a bit more about that?

A: Customer service is the building block of any good company that delivers or charges for a service. If we treated our customers poorly, we would eventually have no customers.  My name is on the company, so anytime there is an issue, I take it VERY personally. We bend over backwards for our customers; I’d rather take a profit loss with one customer then have that customer not be satisfied with our service, or products.  If they are satisfied, they will recommend us and we will make up for that loss with added business.

Main has first-hand knowledge of sim racers' computer needs.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: I am into drag racing! I own a Trans-Am that I drag race, but it currently needs a lot of work before it’s ready to hit the track again.  Maybe next year!  Other than that, TV, iRacing, and my wife and I like to try new places to eat on the weekends.  We are currently on the quest for the best burger in DC, still looking!

Q: Most memorable sim-racing moment?

A: I would have to say a Chicagoland Race with Jason Lofing and Ray Alfalla. It was in 2009 on the Old Tire Model, and there was a yellow with like 8-10 laps to go. I pitted for four tires, Lofing took two, and Ray stayed out.  I ended up passing Ray coming to the checkered, and Lofing was coming on strong too.  We finished three wide, and the difference between first and second was 0.001s.

The 2012 Season 2 edition of the iRacing.com Star Mazda Championship got off to a sizzling start at Silverstone.

The opening week of Season 2 in the iRacing.com Star Mazda Championship looked quite similar to the way Season 1 ended, with perennial front-runner and defending overall champion Tony Repussard taking control of the standings after a week of online racing at Silverstone.  However, several new challengers have emerged to bring the fight to the defending two-time series champion. The 2012 Season 1 Star Mazda champion ended the week with a 10 point lead on second place Michele Mancusi and 14 over third place Joao Rodrigues.

The grid prepares for the strongest race of the week, with Mancusi (#11) on pole for Sunday’s 16:30 GMT race.

Among these challengers was Petar Peic who won the first high strength of field (SOF) race for the week, Sunday 16:30 GMT with a 2981 SOF that awarded 186 points. Peic started in third position behind Michele Mancusi and Frederic Evers, but shot to the race lead before the first turn with a blazing start through the middle of the grid. Soon after the race was on for second, but the battle for position between Mancusi and Evers ended with contact in Priory that sent Evers spinning off track. Evers retired soon after from the race with suspension damage, while Mancusi had to deal with an understeering car due to front wing damage.

Trouble on Lap 2 between Evers (#8) and Mancusi resulted in damage for both drivers.

After the contact in the battle for second, Mark Ursel shot past the wrecked cars of Mancusi and Evers to take the spot to try to run down Piec. But Peic laid-down laps faster than anyone else throughout the week, including a 1:44.140 that bested his own qualifying time and Reprussard’s fastest race lap of 1:44.493 by over three tenths of a second. The Serbian driver then pulled out a lead of well over five seconds to win the race over Ursel and Mancusi, who limped home with wing damage to finish on the podium.

Mancusi’s damaged front wing prevented him from contending for second position. He currently sits second in the overall standings.

The very next SOF race at 18:30 GMT would feature Repussard in his only race of the week, a strong 2908 SOF that would be the second highest of the week. Starting on pole with fastest lap of the week, Repussard didn’t lead for long as Evers looked to redeem himself after wrecking in the previous race and took the lead on the first lap. But after leading the first seven laps, Evers again ran into trouble and went off the track giving the lead back to Repussard. The defending champion then began to run faster and faster laps to pull away from Joao Rodrigues and take a dominating win by over 11 seconds. Series regular Diego Communi had a relatively calm race to finish out the podium scoring 152 points, followed by early leader Evers who had troubles for the second straight race but still scored 138 points to start the season top 15 in the overall points.

Communi (#2) with troubles earlier in the week being passed by Joonas Nukarinen (#10).

Monday would also feature a high SOF race, with Mancusi taking a 2715 SOF that paid out 170 points for the win. Mancusi again started from pole, similar to Sunday’s race. But he would capitalize on a poor start from second place Joshua Chin to gap the field and avoid the pressure. Chin’s poor start left him in a battle to get around Ronny Fantini for several laps before finally passing the Belgian driver to regain P2 on Lap 4. Despite fast laps, Chin was unable to close the gap to Mancusi and had to settle for second behind the Italian, scoring 160 points and fifth in the standings. Fantini held his podium position ahead of former series regular Paul Ilbrink who fought Repussard for the overall series title back in Season 3 of 2011.

Fantini (#12) and Chin (#3) battle it out for second in the Monday 20:30 GMT race.

Leading the series in wins for the week was Kari V. Saastamoinen, who won an impressive eight of nine starts for the week. Equally impressive was Peter Piec, who went a perfect four-for-four while leading 95 out of 96 total laps run. In the Time Trial standings, Nicholas Bihan took home 100 points for winning the week with an average time of 1:44.356, ahead of Jon Allott’s 1:44.908 and Dmitry Uglov’s 1:44.919. Bihan was the Season 1 Time Trial runner-up to Repussard, who took both titles last season.

Rodrigues (#4) and Tino Buchheim (#1) both had their moments during the week, including Rodrigues’ third place in the overall standings.

Week 2 of the series heads to the tight and twisty Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, where the passing opportunities are sure to be scarce and the action intense.

Some of the most respected names in the auto racing world are lending their support to help drivers around the globe at SAFEisFAST.com, a free online resource offering video tutorials on safety, fitness, mental skills, race craft, career development, sponsorship, marketing and more. In addition, the site’s ground-breaking Online Instructor initiative offers one-on-one advice from accomplished drivers and mentors in the sport to assist the careers of drivers in all forms of racing. Since its launch, visitors to the website have represented 115 countries.

GRAND-AM Rolex Series and Continental Tire Series ace Andy Lally is currently in the instructor seat. One of the most versatile, successful and popular racers of his generation, Lally has made his mark in Grand-Am history, winning races in nine consecutive seasons, including three GT championships and four victories in the prestigious Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, and is currently chasing his record-setting 100th career podium.
Aspiring drivers of the future were invited last week to ask advice from Lally by visiting SAFEisFAST.com. This week, Lally’s answers to those questions are being posted on the site. The top-three questions, as chosen by Lally, will receive free 3-month subscriptions to iRacing.com, the world’s foremost online motorsports simulation service.

Gil de Ferran, dubbed “The Professor” for his technical ability and engineering background, will take over the reins from Lally on May 14. De Ferran’s accomplishments in all facets of motorsports are remarkable. A multiple open-wheel champion, Indianapolis 500 victor and winning team owner, the Brazilian’s diverse career also includes roles as the Sporting Director for the former BAR-Honda Formula One team and, most recently, as a member of the ICONIC advisory committee for the new 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Dallara DW12. He also holds the closed-course speed world record for his qualifying lap of 241.426 mph at Auto Club Speedway in 2000.

SAFEisFast.com will switch gears on May 28 when PitFit Training Founder and President Jim Leo takes over as the Online Fitness Instructor. Leo, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), has grown PitFit into the industry leader in the development and implementation of motorsports-specific human performance with a clientele that represents a virtual Who’s Who in auto racing. A speaker at each of the SAFEisFAST workshops before the program moved online, Leo’s current video on Driver Fitness is one of the most viewed on the website with additional videos debuting soon.

The July line-up will include hugely popular Mexican driver Adrian Fernandez. Currently competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and select American Le Mans Series (ALMS) races as an official works driver for Aston Martin Racing, Fernandez has been racing for over three decades and is the only professional athlete from Mexico to have a career that spans over 20 consecutive years outside of his homeland at the top levels. Successful as a driver and team owner, Fernandez has secured numerous wins in various series including the ALMS, INDYCAR, Champ Car (CART) and Grand-Am.

“I couldn’t be more excited about our lineup of Online Instructors,” said Bobby Rahal, President of the Road Racing Drivers Club which, in conjunction with the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety and Sustainability, launched SAFEisFAST.com. “When you see names like de Ferran, Fernandez, Lally and Leo, you know you are offering a tremendous and unparalleled resource of the best of the best for drivers around the world. Coupled with our new selection of video tutorials, I am extremely proud of what we are accomplishing.”

Upcoming Online Driving Instructors also include previously announced drivers JR Hildebrand, James Hinchcliffe, Johnny O’Connell and Scott Pruett. Upcoming video features will include Working with the Media Part II, Basic Driver Workout, Nutrition: Fueling the Driver, Recovering from Injuries, Marketing Yourself and Maximizing Physical Preparation. IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Josef Newgarden and Dario Franchitti served as the first two Online Driving Instructors.

###

About SAFEisFAST.com/RRDC:

The SAFEisFAST.com website is supported by a grant from the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety and Sustainability, a not-for-profit organization that develops and improves motorsport safety worldwide. The site was created by the Road Racing Drivers Club, a U.S. organization made up of many of the world’s most successful racing drivers. Members are elected by their peers and include Formula One World Champions, Indianapolis 500 winners, champion sports car drivers, and top American amateur road racers. The club was founded in 1952 by a group of prominent American road racers as a way to give champion drivers a say in their sport – particularly in the area of safety. At the time, racing was enjoying a post-war boom with new circuits springing up throughout the country, but the predominance of haybale-lined tracks proved to be quite dangerous.

Now celebrating its 60th Anniversary, the RRDC continues to lead the way in motorsport safety and young driver development.

Ruokola stood proud at the head of the table after a hectic week of racing at The Glen.

Watkins Glen, the spiritual home of the United States Grand Prix, greeted the drivers for the first round of the Classic Teams Championship. The opening week turned out to be a very busy one with 68 of the 80 registered drivers competing in 19 ‘official’ races over four days of online racing. Saturday racing also proved itself an instant success with five races going official in this, its first week on the schedule. With all drivers eager to make a great start in the championship there was lots of talk about Watkins’ notorious Turn One, but in the end the quality of the drivers outshone the concerns. In fact the entire week saw very few accidents and proved that this series is truly a great place to race.

The top three were never far apart, Ruokola’s Williams taking most of the points though.

With the exception of pole position, qualifying was (as usual) extremely close. Nixon (Lotus) streeted the field with a blistering 1:29.579 lap making him the only sim racer to post a sub 1:30 lap. This was just shy of half a second clear of second fastest runner and championship favourite Ruokola (Williams) on a 1:30.051 who had Valentiejus (Ligier) just .04 behind him. In the second Ligier and 4th fastest was Herfjord who had found some form and narrowly led StAmans (Alfa Romeo), StAmans giving the new team a superb debut in the series. Also right with this pair and 6th fastest was Schwecke (ATS) just ahead of his compatriot Roberts (Interscope) in 8th, the pair split by Ventura in the fastest of the Renaults. An impressive 9th quickest was Schmidt (Theodore) on a 1:30.494 and last man in the top ten was Nicol in the second of the Interscope entries with a 1:30.550.

Schwecke was on form, qualifying 6th quickest and having the race of the week with Herfjord’s Ligier.

First round honours went to Ruokola (Williams) with a 164 point week. Nixon (Lotus) may have proved himself the faster, but in the end compromised his points haul in favour of just going racing and ended the round in fifth place. Autodelta Alfa Romeo had an amazing debut to the series with StAmans and Garese finishing the week second and fourth respectively. The pair split by Valentiejus’ Ligier just one point shy of StAmans. Right behind Nixon (Lotus) in sixth was Papenbrock (McLaren) making a superb start for his new team. Seventh was Maguire (Fittipaldi) one point ahead of Roberts (Interscope) in eighth.

Ninth, another to compromise his points, was Dobie (Tyrrell) while last man in the top ten at the end of week one was De Rooij (Shadow), making an impressive CTC debut in the beautiful Samson Shadow. Notably failing to make the grid at the first round were the Ferrari’s of Fritsche & Robonek, Jaques & Pelzer for Williams, Curina & Clarkson for Lotus, as well as Gawol’s Samson Shadow. Hopefully they’ll all be there at Road America.

Nye played a great support role for Interscope, and should improve in the coming rounds.

First win of the championship went to Dobie (Tyrrell). Other quick to post wins on Wednesday were Nixon (Lotus) and Maguire (Fittipaldi). Friday saw Nixon take another and series debutante Morgan (Surtees) post a win in his first ever CTC start. Nicol (Interscope) got his season off with a win as did De Rooij (Shadow). It should be interesting to watch the battle of the Shadows throughout the season. Finishing off fridays list of winners were Dobie (Tyrrell) taking a second win, and Baley (Kauhsen) giving newcomers Kauhsen a win in their first ever round.

Saturday saw Herfjord (Ligier) take possibly the toughest win of the week and Konieczny post his first ever series win and another for Samson Shadow. Incledon (Fittipaldi) and Ruokola (Williams) grabbed the top step on the podium on Sunday. Busiest man of the week was Hachez (Kauhsen) making 8 starts for a total of 185 laps of racing in just the first week! At that rate we hope Kauhsen have enough engines for the rest of the season.

At Samson Shadow De Rooij performed well and fought hard for his points.

Of the recruited third drivers, notable performances came from De Rooij (Shadow)123 points, Taylor (Renault) 108 points, Incledon (Fittipaldi) 100 points and Jeppesen (Ensign) 98 points. These guys will have made their teams very happy with their selection. It may be early in the season, but some of these guys are already looking like team leaders. As the drivers sort themselves out over the next few rounds it will be interesting to see what cream will rise from the ranks of the Aurora teams as well. For round one it was Schmidt (Theodore) who led the pack from series returnee Strang (Rizla). Morgan (Surtees) impressed with his win and Patriksson was the fastest of the Swedish Ram Tit-Bits team. Smith (Madom) and Anikin (Ultramar) also made excellent series debuts.

New cars and drivers where everywhere, here Pelzer settles into his new Brabham.

In the Constructors Championship it was the brand new Autodelta Alfa Romeo team that came out fighting. 6 points clear of their opposition they could not have dreamed of a better start to their season. Renault lead the rest on 32 points, due to great efforts by all three drivers, just two clear of Fittipaldi and Ligier on 30 points a piece. Just a point back in fifth was Interscope, again good driving by all three drivers putting them at the pointier end of the table in fifth. Sixth was Rebaque just ahead of Ensign with Arrows and Penthouse Rizla, the first of the Aurora teams, tied for 8th on 25 points. Series favourites Ferrari currently sit one spot off the bottom of the table with 6 points. And if it wasn’t for the stirling lone effort of third driver Winemiller they would be dead last.

Burns will be looking for a better week at Road America, here he assaults the barrier exiting Turn 5.

Combatants will face off at Road America next week, a high speed circuit famed for it’s slipstreaming battles. Can Gernot and Robenek pull out something special? Will Alfa Romeo build upon their amazing debut? Can Williams pull together a challenge for the Constructors Championship? In just seven days time we’ll know all the answers.

Jeppesen’s Ensign leads Maguire’s Fittipaldi. The racing was this close right through the fields.

Lap Records
Fastest Race Lap: Erik Nixon, Martini Lotus 1:30.941
Fastest Qualifier: Erik Nixon, Martini Lotus 1:29.579

Top Scorers:
Div 1: Ruokola/Williams (164)  Div 2: StAmans/Alfa Romeo (156)  Div 3: Maguire/Fittipaldi (131) Div 4: Incledon/Fittipaldi (100), Div 5: S.Schmidt/Kauhsen (89), Div 6&7: Cullen/Rebaque (74)

Race Winners:
Nixon/Lotus(2), Dobie/Tyrrell(2), Incledon/Fittipaldi(1), Koneiczny/Shadow(1), Nicol/Interscope(1), Herfjord/Ligier (1), De Rooij/Shadow (1), Maguire/Fittipaldi (1), Morgan/Surtees (1), Ruokola/Williams (1), Baley/ Kauhsen (1)

Alfa Romeo made a stunning debut, walking away from the Glen with the lead of the Constructors Championship.

Driver of the Week:
StAmans/Alfa Romeo Second in the championship and leading his all French team to the top of the constructors Championship on it’s debut sees Pat recieve this weeks “Driver of the Week” award. Well done.

So when Dallara Automobili decided to invite a select number of iRacing.com’s Club Italia members for a guided tour of its factory last year, it made perfect sense for that “select number” to be 33.   But how to select those lucky 33 sim racers?

Rather than the four lap qualifying runs that determine the starting field for The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, Club Italia opted to stage a sprint race in iRacing’s IndyCar Dallara at (where else?) the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  The top 33 finishers would earn invites to the factory tour hosted by Andrea Toso, Dallara’s Head of Development and Technology.

Club Italia convenes at Dallara Automobili.

One other point:  If there’s a number with even more magic in IndyCar Racing than 33 it’s the number one . . . as in pole position, first place, race winner and series champion.  In the case of the Club Italia Dallara factory tour, first place in the qualifying race would earn the winner a chance of a lifetime – the opportunity to run some laps in Dallara’s state-of-the-art simulator, complete with iRacing’s digital version of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The 50 lap online race was held in early March, with Niccolò Cedrati from Osimo (a small town in Italy’s Marche region) coming home the winner by a few tenths of a second over Andrea Disarò and Andrea Baraldi.

A few weeks later, the happiest 33 sim racers in Italy arrived at the Dallara Automobili factory near Parma where they were greeted by fellow iRacer (and Dallara software engineer) Matteo Marini.  After welcoming Club Italia, Marini led them on a guided tour of Dallara’s composite facility and assembly area where they found themselves knee deep (figuratively speaking, of course) in thousands of new carbon fiber parts and scores of new chassis from F3 and GP2, to GRAND-AM and IndyCar.

Club Italia gets a close look at the Dallara Daytona Prototype.

While all 33 of the visiting iRacers enjoyed the tour, only one — Cedrati — would have the opportunity to take his motorsports simulation experiences to “the next level.”

The 34 iRacers (including Marini) dutifully filed into the simulator building (you read that right, Dallara has an entire building dedicated to its sim).  While the sim employs proprietary Dallara software for the cars themselves, the race tracks are the same millimeter-precise, laser-scanned circuits Cedrati (and 35,000 other iRacers around the world) use to compete in more than 1200 races a week.

Club Italia meets the Dallara simulator.

After Marini took a few laps to make sure all systems were “go,” it was Niccolo’s turn.

“I slid into the seat in the car body (a real Dallara anchored to the sim base),” he says, “and Matteo explained to me the main controls to activate the sim and how to speak via radio with the engineer in the control room upstairs.

“They gave me about ten laps in static mode just to familiarize myself with the cockpit, the sound system and the viewing screens.  Then I ran another 15 laps with full motion simulation activated.  I can sum up everything with just one word: fantastic!!

“Everything is awesome, the huge 180° screen gives perfect proportions, the 3500W sound system screams like a real IndyCar engine – believe me, the sound is deafening without a helmet — and the motion system feels insane. Thanks to the laser-scanned track surface, you can feel every little bump and imperfection of the 2.5 mile oval and up to 2G forces on the banked turns.”

Niccolò Cedrati (r) prepares for his big moments at the wheel of the Dallara sim.

Rather than a distraction, Cedrati says the extra-sensory input from the motion simulation was beneficial.

“The motion simulation itself was so great and satisfying that I immediately felt good during the very first lap.  The driving is affected, but in a positive way, as you can feel all the little bumps going through the corners.”

What’s more, the motion simulator gave him a new appreciation for the physicality of driving a race car at 200+ mph.

“The following day my right arm and shoulder were still aching because of the simulator,” he says.  “Also, I can imagine how hard it would be to drive the IndyCar on a road course, as the brake and the steering inputs needed are the same as the real race car.”

“Everything is awesome, the huge 180° screen gives perfect proportions, the 3500W sound system screams like a real IndyCar engine  — and the motion system feels insane.” — Niccolò Cedrati

As for his performance, Niccolò reports his laps on the Dallara simulator were about two seconds off his personal best at home.

“Unfortunately, the day before our event a Formula 3 team had run some tests on the simulator,” he explains, “and the same Formula 3 chassis was still installed into the simulator.  So I had to drive the IndyCar simulation in a F3 chassis!

“That made for an interesting challenge, as it was difficult to judge the correct distance of the right side wheels from the walls exiting the turns because the proportion between the chassis and the on-screen tires.”

That hardly diminished Niccolo’s his enthusiasm for the Dallara simulator.  In fact the only negative aspect of the experience stemmed from the fact that his radio communications with the control booth worked a little too well . . .

“The worst part has obviously been when I heard the engineer’s voice over the radio ‘OK, one more lap and I’ll stop the sim,’” he laughs.  “Seriously, it was a wonderful experience, and I can’t thank Dallara and iRacing enough for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“The worst part has obviously been when I heard the engineer's voice over the radio ‘OK, one more lap and I’ll stop the sim.’”

Although he only got about two dozen laps at the wheel, Niccolò Cedrati is one of a lucky few who will ever experience driving the Dallara Automobili simulator.  Thanks to the strong technical partnership between iRacing.com and Dallara, however, more than 35,000 sim racers around the world currently have the opportunity to drive a virtual Dallara IndyCar from the comfort of their homes.  And as that partnership evolves — and the iRacing membership continues growing – still more people will be able to drive a digital version of the new Dallara DW12 when it becomes available next year.

Bryan J Miller practices what he preaches, both when he says his favorite quote by a TV character come from Park and Recreation‘s  Ron Swanson who says,“I learned a lesson. Never half-ass two things . . . whole-ass one thing” and when he says his own motto in iRacing is “I make the ‘SLOWstice’ go ‘FASTstice’!

One look at the Season 1 inRacingNews Challenge results will attest to the validity of both those statements.   One would certainly say Miller “whole-assed one thing” when he started 180 iRNC races in a single season.  And the fact he won 160 of those starts pretty well confirms his claim that he makes the “‘SLOWstice’ go ‘FASTstice.’”

It would be equally true to say that, at age 26, Miller has already lived an interesting life.  The Sacramento resident worked in retail management for seven years while his wife Aubrey finished her degree and their son, Si, outgrew the diaper phase of life.  Last year he went back to community college to pursue his passion – theoretical physics –and plans to transfer to UC Davis this fall with the ultimate goal of attaining his PhD.

All that on his plate and  Bryan still found time to run 180 races and finish third in the iRNC last season?  What will he do for an encore?  Well, he’s already off to a good start in the iRNC in Season 2 (standing P3 after the first week).  What’s more he’s leading the Solstice class of the Grand Touring Cup.  Could Miller whole-ass two things in Season 2?  Stay tuned . . .

Q: How long have you been sim racing?
A: I have been seriously sim racing for just over a year. Before I found iRacing I was a huge fan of the Gran Turismo titles. I have played racing games pretty much exclusively since I was in grade school, but I had no idea there were racing simulators like iRacing.

Miller hustles the "Faststist" through the chicane at Lime Rock.

Q: What attracted you to iRacing?
A: My uncle introduced me to iRacing. Since then I haven’t looked back.
With iRacing you get a level of realism that’s unmatched by other games and sims. Plus the iRacing community is the best around, the skill and professionalism of my fellow iracers produces the best racing experience possible.

Q: What are your favorite iRacing cars/tracks?
A: I am a huge fan of the Pontiac Solstice. In the iRNC series I really enjoy all four of the Summit Point variations. Outside of the iRNC, I love taking the Williams FW31 for a spin around Spa-Francorchamps.

Q: What do you like most about iRacing?
A: The competition. All the guys and gals I race with every week are awesome, and they have helped me become a much better sim racer. Without them iRacing wouldn’t exist.

Q: What would you change about iRacing?
A: I would keep the same number of official races, but limit the amount of point paying races so that racers going for the championship are forced to race together. I did 180 races last season and only raced the overall winner of the championship once.

Q: How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A: A little more than I should . . . . On slow homework weeks and can easily put in more than 16 hours.

Q: Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s).
A: I’m currently not running anything special. I try and change up my colors every season or so. If I ever make a PRO license I’ll spend some time creating a custom paint scheme.

Q: What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A: None. Since I’ve found iRacing I haven’t felt the need to ‘play’ anything else. In fact, everything else feels unrealistic.

Q: What are your favorite video games?
A: I spend all my free time on iRacing and homework so I don’t currently have any favorite video games.

Q: What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A: The first time I legitimately beat Chris Hughson in the Solstice. It was at Summit Point (Short) in Season 4 of 2011. I was hounding him for a couple of laps and finally pulled off a beautiful ‘over-under’ pass in the Carousel. I was so nervous for the rest of the race, but I managed to pull a small gap and win. It was epic, even more rewarding than my 20th to first race I had in an MX5.

Q: What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A: I don’t really have any. Sure, at the time of each incident I really wished it turned out differently, but stuff happens. It’s best to just let it go and take the opportunity to learn from it for the next time.

Getting together with iRacing pals Chris Hughson and Andrew Trimbach at Charlotte.

Q: What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A: I really want a decent AWD car. I don’t really care what it is, a AWD version of the RUF being worked on would be cool, but even something like a Subaru Impreza WRX would be fun. As for tracks, I would love to see the Monaco Grand Prix street circuit added to the service, and I am eagerly awaiting the Long Beach street circuit.

Q: What person, living or dead do you most admire?
A: My Bride. It’s amazing how talented she is and how hard she works. She’s an amazing mother and she’s my best friend.

Q: What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A: Formula 1! ‘The Iceman,’ Kimi Raikkonen is my favorite driver.

“Never half-ass two things . . . whole-ass one thing.”

Q: Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion. The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein, edited with commentary by Stephen Hawking.

Q: Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
It’s between The Big Bang Theory and Parks and Recreation. Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec is my favorite TV character of all time. “I learned a lesson. Never half-ass two things . . . whole-ass one thing” (Ron Swanson).

Q: How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A: Unfortunately, just one personal friend, my uncle Shawn McFadden who introduced me to iRacing. However, I race with Chris Hughson, Andrew Cox, Scott Wilson, Eric Laval, and Allen Collins nearly everyday, and I would call them and many other iRacers good friends.

Q: Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A: Well it sure has put into perspective the ‘smallness’ of our world. I don’t understand why we can’t stand more united and work together to solve major global problems.

Week Five of the iRacing.com saw the Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series visit historic Watkins Glen, NY for half a dozen races on the 3.4 mile, 11 turn “Boot” version of the circuit.  Despite seeing his undefeated streak broken at Road Atlanta two weeks ago, Christian Aranha arrived at The Glen in complete control of the overall standings   . . . and eyeing the grand prize of the series:  a 3 day racing school courtesy of Skip Barber. On the other hand, 92 sim racers had their eyes set on Aranha in Week Five.  Suffice to say, with his performance at Watkins Glen he was able to re-claim his nickname, the “Flawless Floridian”.

The morning race (10:00 GMT) was an eye opener for the field, as Aranha marked his turf early by being the fastest qualifier of the week to grab the pole position. Aranha then won in his regular fashion, leading all 25 laps en route to a 132 point payday. Jan Niesiolowski started second and may have had something for Aranha, but we’ll never know as he spun out on the first lap while battling for the lead. Marco Corti took advantage of Niesiolowski’s misfortune to secure  second place roughly 38 seconds back of Aranha, and Ian Bevan finished third just over a minute behind in the 2096 Strength of Field (SoF) race.

The afternoon races (20:00 GMT) saw three exciting splits, with Aranha dominating the first (2177 SoF).  Aranha won in similar fashion to his earlier victory (leading all 25 laps while starting from the pole position) but this time Niesiolowski kept it on the road and finished second, just over 11 seconds back.  Battling to the finish line for third, Wade Hayward edged Ermanno Palumbo2 by a little more than half a second to take the final podium spot. Aranha’s victory in this higher SoF race earned him 136 points on the week, as he dropped the 132 points he collected from his morning win, while Niesiolowski and Hayward earned 127 and 119 points, respectively, for their efforts.

Aranha (1) and Niesiolowski (2) battle at the Glen. (Image courtesy of Christian Aranha)

The second split of the afternoon races was the Stuart Adcock Show, as he stamped his mark on the field and showed he is still a contender at the top of the overall standings. The Englishman led all 25 laps of his 2239 SoF race to earn 140 points – four more than Aranha took from his highest win earlier in the day.  Corti (second) and Luca Zanetti (third) added 130 and 121 points to their totals, respectively.

The third split of the afternoon arguably produced the closest racing yet seen in the series. In contrast to the run of flag-to-flag wins, the 2245 SoF split feature a bevy of lead changes – six to be exact – throughout 25 lap race. Championship contenders Kurt Krumm and Xavier Busoms both swapped the lead, taking the point for 15 and 10 laps respectively. Krumm seemed in control during the first ten laps, as he only surrendered the lead to Busoms on Lap Two.   Lap 11 saw Busoms make his climb to the top of the totem pole, and he was able to outrace Krumm until regained the lead on Lap 24.

“We were side-by-side entering yet again, but I was able to hold him off . . .” — Kurt Krumm

“On the penultimate lap, I got a good run out of Turn One and made my move down the inside coming into the chicane,” said Krumm.  “We entered side by side, and I just barely squeaked by. Now the pressure was on! I finished that lap well, but Xavier closed quickly in the Esses on the final lap. I defended by sticking right all the way from the Esses to the chicane. We were side-by-side entering yet again, but I was able to hold him off and avoid any mistakes to finish out in first.”

Krumm earned 140 points for his victory while Busoms was rewarded with 130 points for a strong and patient drive that left him .2s adrift of the winner. Twelve seconds back came the final podium finisher, Jeroen Ganzeveld who earned 121 points for his run.

The first of the two night race (2:00 GMT) splits went to another polesitter, Duncan Coppedge, who lead all 25 laps en route to his victory over podium finishers Mike McCormick and Joseph Peak. Coppedge unfortunately won in the lowest SoF race of the week (1987) and only earned 125 points for his win, while McCormick and Peak collected 118 and 111 points respectively for their podium efforts.

Peak takes evasive action as Flavien Vidal loops it. (Image courtesy of Joseph Peak)

The second split, which featured a SoF of 2003 was one of the most interesting contests of the week. Polesitter Curtis Fung took off from the starting grid and never looked back, leading all 25 laps for a 126 point payday.  Perhaps even more impressive was championship contender Jim Shedlick’s march to second from the back of the pack, as he started 15^th after failing to qualify for the race.

Shedlick put his head down and motored through the field, jumping to ninth on the opening lap, sixth on Lap Two and moving into second spot by the fifth tour.  Despite his rapid progress, Shedlick quickly realized he had two chances of catching Fung: slim and none.

“At the start I was pretty aggressive and had some luck and managed to make it from 15th to second in five laps,” he said. “At that point Curtis had a 10 second lead and great pace, so I just cruised.”

Andrea Ventura rounded-out the podium positions, finishing just over 27 seconds back of Fung.

In two weeks the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series will make its mark during Week 6 at Brands Hatch.   Aranha still has complete control over first place in the standings, leading Adcock and Krumm by 41 points with Marco Corti 55 points back in fourth after a consistent string of podium finishes at Watkins Glen. Race winner Coppedge sits in fifth, 93 points off of Aranha’s pace. So as the series heads “across the pond” for the first time, all eyes are focused on Christian Aranha, the Flawless Floridian, to see if he can continue his winning ways.

Season One of the 2012 inRacingNews Challenge is in the books, and for the first time in its history, three champions have been crowned. After five seasons of multi-class competition between the SpecRacer Fords and Pontiac Solstices, the series added the Mazda MX-5 Roadster for 2012, and the online racing competition has been just as intense.

SRF and Solstice sim racers alike welcomed Mazda to the inRacingNews Challenge in Season 1.

This year’s three overall champions were Marius Golombeck in Solstice, Mitch Weatherly in SRF, and Dylan Sharman in Mazda. Golombeck’s 13 wins in 13 starts were good for 1531 points, giving him a 254-point advantage on second-place Chris Hughson and 257 points on third-place Bryan J Miller. Weatherly’s battle was much closer, as he only beat second-place Roope Turkkila by 90 points, and eight drivers came within 250 points of the crown. But the Mazda battle was closest of all, as Sharman only beat Ralf Janiak by 66 points, 1167-1101.

Golombeck won his first week of the season at Lime Rock Park in Week Four, when a 275-point performance topped second-place Hughson by a whopping 94 points. That snapped a three-race winning streak for Janiak, who eventually placed fourth in the championship. He also scored the most points in five other weeks, including a 187-point performance in the final round at Okayama.

Weatherly opened the season by winning Week One at Summit Point, but wouldn’t top the charts again until Week Nine on Lime Rock’s chicane layout, and not again after that. Instead, Weatherly’s championship performance was built on consistent top-10s on a week to week basis, even as Turkkila, third-place finisher Tim Bone, and other top 10 drivers like Niccolo Cedrati, Mogar DG Filho, and Ramon Sprecher took weekly victories. In the end, Weatherly’s 16 wins in 23 starts were good enough, even though many of the drivers behind him posted better winning percentages.

There was still plenty of mixed-class action between old favorites SRF and Solstice.

Janiak won the first two weeks of the season as the field began to settle itself, but Sharman established himself as a force in the second half of the schedule. He led the field in six of the last seven weeks, and in the lone exception – Week Seven on the Jefferson Reverse layout at Summit Point – he placed second. In the end, his 26 wins in 28 starts were good enough to top Janiak’s 17 victories in 18 starts.

But they won’t have long to rest on those laurels. The iRNC takes Week 13 off, but returns to the track immediately for Season Two with another run at Okayama International’s short course. The new schedule will see a handful of changes, including the addition of a second Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca round to finish the season in Week 12.

Okayama is one of the most popular stops on the inRacingNews Challenge schedule.

This season’s iRNC champions by class and division were:
(Mazda MX-5 Roadster, Pontiac Solstice, Spec Racer Ford)

Division One: Dylan Sharman, Marius Golombeck, Mitch Weatherly
Division Two: Ralf Janiak, Ralf Janiak, Niccolo Cedrati
Division Three: Simon Palmer, Eric Laval, Phil Mulligan
Division Four: David Grunill, Andrew Reeves, Wolfgang Rachbauer
Division Five: Robert Witte, Horacio Hoyos, Marcante Cristiano
Division Six: Juan Carlos Perez Santiago, Gary Anderson, Luke Harris
Division Seven: Renzo Venturi, Craig Trethewey, Ruben Dominguez Prieto
Division Eight: Mark Roddy, Andrew Hazzard, Steven E Smith
Division Nine: Clinton Harris, Greg Bird, Greg Bird
Division 10: Timothy Barker, Christopher Sykes, Walter Few
Rookie Division: Petr Dolezal, Lorenzo Kupstaitis, Omar Soto

Sheehan burns his remaining virtual rubber celebrating his Richmond win.

Sheehan first took the lead on Lap 144 of 200, but it was the decision not to pit with the rest of the field on Lap 168 that put him in position to win. Alex Warren, Joshua Laughton and Florian Godard tried the same strategy, but were unable to defend their positions from Gorlinsky, Ottinger, Berry and others on fresh rubber.

Sheehan had the luxury of being the leader, which meant he dictated the pace on several restarts, allowing him to build a cushion over the drivers with new tires.

“The longer we went, the closer our tires got, and the more competitive my car got.” — Steve Sheehan

“I think three others stayed out so I needed them to pile-up . . . or I needed more yellows,” said Sheehan. “We got a quick yellow but John (Gorlinsky) was right there. We got a couple more short dashes as per usual, and it took all I had to hold on.  But the longer we went, the closer our tires got, and the more competitive my car got.”

The series of quick cautions which helped Sheehan’s old tires cool down, also took out many of the top contenders. Points leader and defending series champion Ray Alfalla was one such victim. Alfalla was running fifth trying to pass the slower cars on old tires when Godard had to get out of the gas a bit coming out of Turn Four.  In the resulting stack-up, Alfalla made hard contact with the outside wall that left him in 30th spot, 14 laps behind, at the finish.

Alfalla's points lead took a hit as the result of his late race crash.

Ottinger was another strong contender all night. He claimed his fourth pole position of the season and ran in the top five most of the race but just did not have the long run speed of Sheehan, Alfalla and Gorlinsky, who were clearly the class of the field.  Although Ottinger led the late chase of Sheehan, Gorlinsky got the better of him with ten laps remaining to claim the runner-up spot.  Likewise, Berry grabbed third spot from Tyler Hudson with just ten laps remaining and finished less than a second behind the victorious Sheehan.

Alfalla remains the championship leader despite his poor finish.  However, his lead has been trimmed to only two points over Michael Conti, who also had a disappointing result, coming home twenty-fourth. Brian Schoenburg had an up-and-down night before coming home thirteenth and remains third in the standings, now eight points out of the lead. Farther back in fourth and fifth stand Hudson and Ottinger.

Ottinger (05) started on pole and led 16 laps en route to a third place finish.

Next week, the series visits the track that most would consider the toughest out there: Darlington Raceway. “The Track Too Tough to Tame” has claimed its fair share of virtual race cars over the past two seasons of the NiSWC, and this year’s race promises more of the same. Veterans such as Sheehan, Alfalla and Brad Davies are drivers to watch, though last year rookie driver Brad Wright held-off Davies for a surprise win.

Alfalla needs a rebound at Darlington to keep the points lead, but his momentum might be stalled after a tough result at Richmond. If anyone has anything for the defending champ, next week is the time to let it all hang out.

Luis grabbed the lead at the start and never looked back en route to his second win of the season and the iGPWCS lead.

Team Redline’s Huttu arrived at Okayama looking to continue a rich run of form that saw him win three of the first four races of the season.  Although he took pole position with a time of 1:05.739, the 2010 World Champion faced problems from the moment the green flag dropped. Dealing with a handful of wheel-spin, the Finn could only watch as he was swamped by the surrounding cars from the get-go and dropped to fourth spot behind Luis, Atze Kerkhof and Luke McLean by the time the field reached Turn One. From here, things only got worse for Huttu, as he struggled to find a way past McLean.  Running just a few car-lengths from his teammate’s rear wing, Huttu had nowhere to go when the Australian devoured too muc kerb exiting the final turn on Lap 11.  McLean’s car snapped loose one way, then the other and the resulting collision was more than enough to send the pair tumbling to retirement.

Code Red: Team Redline's McLean and Huttu head towards their early exits at Okayama.

Whilst all this was happening, Luis was looking to make a break-away at the front even as Redline’s tenacious Kerkhof remained a fixture in his mirrors for the opening quarter of the race. However, Kerkhof saw his hopes of an inaugural iWCGPS victory start to evaporate when he made his first of three total trips to pit-lane on Lap 21 and it became apparent that a two-stopper was the strategy of choice.

“Before the race I was in a big dilemma. I mostly tested three stops, but starting to realize more and more that this could be an issue,” Kerkhof confessed post race. “Soon it appeared that Hugo was on a two-stopper, but due to the dirty air I couldn’t get within 0.7 seconds. His pace was strong and consistent and any attempt of overtaking would’ve been impossible/foolish.”

Handcuffed by a three stop strategy, Kerkhof didn't try anything impossible or foolish in his pursuit of Luis.

Once Kerkhof had taken fuel and tyres on his digital Williams-Toyota FW31, the Dutchman was faced with a fleet of cars which who had still to take service. It wasn’t until Lap 30 that the championship rookie was able to start making in-roads on Luis’ lead, which was up to three-seconds once he’d exited the pits. Although Kerkhof did find himself in the lead as he made further visits to pit-lane out of ‘sequence,’ his final stop inevitably handed the lead and a clear run to the chequered flag to Luis, who took victory with 17 seconds in his pocket.

“Greger didn’t have a good start, handing me the lead and falling to fourth,” Luis said. “When Atze did his first pit-stop, I noticed he was on a three-stopper and that showed I had a big chance to win the race. I tried to do my best to avoid any mistakes and try to play it safe, especially when behind back-markers. After then I could relax a bit and bring the car home since Atze would still have to do an extra pit-stop. Everything worked quite well!”

“I had a big chance to win the race. I tried to do my best to avoid any mistakes and try to play it safe . . .” — Hugo Luis

Securing his first podium finish of the season, Ben Cornett charged his way from ninth on the grid, to a third place finish ahead of Martin Kronke. The Australian trailed in the wake of Radical Racing’s Jeremy Bouteloup for the opening third of the race, but leap-frogged past the Frenchman during the first round of pit-stops. A few laps later, Cornett was into third, when an unforced error sent Kronke into a slide at Turn Eight, allowing the Team Redline sim-racer to make up two-seconds and poach the position.

“In the second stint I had a little moment without grip on the rear exiting the first hairpin of split four which caused me to half spin the car handing third position to Ben,” Kronke told inRacingNews. “I couldn’t really do anything after that.   Passing Ben wasn’t really an option as I could barely close the gap, even though I think I might have been slightly quicker if I had some clean air.”

Despite Kronke occupying his mirrors for the next 50 laps, Cornett was able to manage the gap of around one second to the iGPManager entry until the finish line to score his best result of the season so far.

Cornett came out on top of this race-long battle with Kronke.

After losing ground in the early stages, Bouteloup mounted a late charge to trail the Cornett and Kronke by less than two-seconds at the finish, and earn his first top-five placing of the 2012 season.

“Even though I had less fuel in the last stint, I couldn’t close the gap enough and challenge Martin,” Bouteloup explained.  “It wasn’t a big deal because of my top-five which makes me really happy. Hard training with the Radicals team paid-off and I’m also pleased to see that I was not the only one to do a good race.”

Although Jake Stergios battled with Cornett and Bouteloup for the opening stints, the American sim-racer was another finisher to be bitten by a three-stop pit strategy. Each time Stergios left pit-road, he found himself amongst a swarming pack of cars, slowing his progress to the flag which he eventually took ahead of My3id’s David Williams. Williams’ 83 laps of Okayama were relatively serene, although the Englishman did have a scare when he slid wide on the exit of Turn 8 on Lap 32. This allowed Radicals’ Pablo Lopez to latch-on to the tail of the My3id entry, but Williams soon regained his composure and powered away from the Spaniard once again. However, whilst Williams did secured seventh position, his earlier mistake cost him a chance to challenge Stergios, who struggled with his three-stop plan.

Collecting the chequered flag behind the eighth place Lopez for his his second top-ten of the season was Blake Townend, who charged his way through field from eighteenth on the grid. In fact the Englishman had dropped to twentieth by the end of the opening lap, but with some tidy overtaking and just two visits to pit-lane, the Radicals racer was able to finish in the slipstream of his team-mate, Lopez.

Townend carved his way from 20th to eighth, finishing in Lopez' slipstream.

Just when it looked like Matthias Egger would finish eleventh, the Italian sneaked past My3id’s Andre Boettcher for his second top-ten finish of the year. With just four-laps to go, Boettcher held the advantage.  But as the German slowed to let Kerkhof lap him approaching Turn Two, Egger saw his chance, and used the momentum to steal the tenth spot before the My3id car got back up to speed.

Luis’ victory, coupled with Huttu’s early exit, leaves the iRacing.com World Championship Grand Prix Series title fight wide open. What had seemed like a healthy advantage for Huttu, has become a six-point deficit, as the recent change to no dropped results in a season starts to bite. Despite his retirement, McLean holds onto third in the standings table, just five ahead of Roland Ehnström (13th at Okayama) who finds himself just one in front of Stergios on 109 points.

And in this, his first full IZOD IndyCar Series season, Pagenaud looks anything but a novice: witness his storming second place at Long Beach to compliment fifth and sixth places in the Schmidt Hamilton/HP Dallara Honda at St Petersburg and Barber Motorsports Park.

For all he’s already accomplished, Pagenaud’s resume contains a blank spot under the heading oval races:  He has yet to take the green flag on an oval . . . at least a “real” oval.

A long-time iRacer, Pagenaud has plenty of online racing experience on the ovals, both in the 16th Street Racing League and in a variety of official iRacing series ranging from Legends and Late Models to IndyCars.  So when Schmidt Hamilton/HP scheduled a test at Texas Motor Speedway last month to get some speedway miles under Pagenaud’s belt prior to the month of May at Indianapolis, he knew how to prepare.

“I was testing on the iRacing simulator because I knew I was going to go testing at Texas, so it was a good reference point,” he says.   “It was good just to get used to the visual aspect of the race track – how the driving is and the banking . . . As a result, it wasn’t a full learning process when I got there.  It was like ‘I’ve already been here before!’ I was really impressed with how realistic it was on the iRacing.”

If there was a sense of déjà vu to his TMS indoctrination, there’s a reason.  This was not Pagenaud’s rookie experience using iRacing as a training tool.  When he began racing in the ALMS, he often turned to iRacing to familiarize himself with new circuits.  Although it would have been ideal had the HPD ARX01c been available, that was not the case.  So he used the next best thing: the Williams-Toyota FW31.

“The race tracks on iRacing are really spot on . . . It’s definitely the best simulation out there.” — Simon Pagenaud

“Formula One is so much aero predominant and the LMP cars are the same, so the driving styles are very similar,” he says.  “So I did many laps at Mosport, Mid-Ohio and Lime Rock in the F1 car.”

iRacing does not yet have the Dallara DW12 available, so Pagenaud reverts to the “old” Dallara IndyCar for his online testing program.

“I would say the old iRacing Dallara IndyCar is still the closest to the new IndyCar,” he says, “but you can do a lot more of everything.  You can attack more, there’s more grip.  The engines behave differently.  You can be aggressive differently with the pedals and the steering.  I would say the level of aggressiveness its getting . . . it’s almost similar to the way I was in the sports car.  There was so much downforce on the sports car, you could be really, really aggressive.  The IndyCar slides a bit more which makes for better racing, so you can’t attack as much.”

Speaking of better racing, Pagenaud’s online preparation for ovals did not end with a few testing laps at Texas.

“I also used iRacing for racing — to get used to racing in the pack,” he explains.  “It’s a good tool.   I don’t have much experience on the ovals so ‘What can I do to get ready?’   Train as much as I can; try to get in that mode of how you should race in the pack; how you should hold your line on an oval and how to behave around people.

Four races into the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series, Pagenaud stands fifth place in the points. Not bad for a "rookie."

“And the game is really good for that.  It represents how you race against, I would say, amateur drivers in the virtual world and professional drivers in the virtual world – there are guys who have spent hours and hours on the game, and some of them are REALLY good.  So it’s good because iRacing teaches you how to behave with different behavior: pit-in, pit-out, restarts, yellow flags, saving fuel – you can learn that in the game. Everything with it is just the same as the real track.  Everything that’s different on an oval, you can learn it on the game first.”

Long before the IZOD IndyCar Series’ date with Texas Motor Speedway on June 9 comes a little shindig called the Indianapolis 500.  So it’s no surprise that Pagenaud will be lapping the virtual Brickyard in preparation for the month of May.

“The race tracks on iRacing are really spot on, so it’s been the case with most of the tracks on iRacing including Indianapolis,” he says.  “It’s definitely the best simulation out there.”

That isn’t to say that the first season with the NTM was a disaster; indeed the Radical managed to post one of its best attendance figures, but after the dizzy heights of the previous season the feeling was that the wheel at fallen off somewhat.

The fun is back! The 2012 S2 Radical Racing Challenge kicks-off at Watkins Glen.

This was despite the community growing stronger and adapting quickly to the NTM. Setups were made readily available on the forums and in practice sessions, a Driving School was started (inspired by the similar school run by the Lotus community’s Erik Nixon) and constant dialogue was exchanged between the community and iRacing.

So why is a car which doesn’t appear to be updated suddenly appear to have new life breathed into it?

Well most telling was probably a line in the patch notes that read “- Fixed an issue where a very lightly-loaded tire would lose stiffness, resulting in a ‘floaty’ feeling in the lightly loaded tire.”.

The biggest issue that drivers experienced was in medium to high speed corners near the limits of traction where the previously predictable SR8 felt unstable and would sometimes spin without warning – especially on the default setups.

This is exactly the type of corner where the inside rear tyre on a racing car will become very lightly loaded (indeed it’s not uncommon to see touring cars ‘hang’ a wheel in such situations) – exactly the point at which you don’t want a tyre to feel ‘floaty’ and unpredictable.

Drivers are now reporting they are again able to experiment with setups much more, such as choosing between wing setups as no-longer does a driver need to add more rear wing to ‘add weight’ to the unloaded tyre.

A second undocumented change ought to also make things easier for drivers coming into the series as Club England drivers Steve Peace and Stephen Grier (both respected Radical setup makers) each contributed setups which are now the only two ‘iRacing provided’ setups — meaning any newcomer to the series can choose a setup which is predictable and raceable out of the box.

With these changes it would appear the chances of the Radical having another record breaking season have improved dramatically. The season opens with the now traditional start at the famous Watkins Glen racing circuit for a 45 minute race, before moving to Lime Rock Park for a 30 minute sprint the week after.

The Radical Driving School is run as an open hosted session run on Tuesdays starting at 6.00 UK time and unpassworded. The session for the most part is like a fairly typical practice session but has setups available and twice a session (6:30, 7:30) we clear the track and one of the experienced/fast drivers talks through how they drive the track:  braking points, apexes etc. It’s also an open Q&A session so people are more than welcome to ask questions.  All Radical eligible drivers are welcome ( D4.0 and higher) and setups and advice are both freely available.

It will be a new look field in the Classic Teams Championship this time around.

Season 2 2012 of the Lotus 79 based Classic Teams Championship (CTC) is just around the corner, and for the first time it will be based upon the 1979 F1 championship season. Team Surtees and Team Hesketh may have disappeared but their places have been taken by Autodelta Alfa Romeo and Team Kauhsen. Back in 1979 Ferrari claimed the manufacturers title (after being pushed all the way by Williams and Ligier) as well as the drivers title with Jody Scheckter. Will history repeat itself? Can five time champion Gernot Fritsche, supported by series returnee Bronislav Robonek and series rookie Sam Winemiller, take Ferrari to both titles?

Williams should be right in the hunt courtesy of Ruokola, Jaques and Pelzer.

Six to Watch

Kalle Ruokola has moved from Brabham to Williams, he is more than capable of unseating Fritsche. He only finished 30 points behind after 12 rounds last season, a deficit of less than 3 points per round. His new team mate Ligier refugee David Jaques is another who could well surprise. He won his last outing at Suzuka in S1 when Fritsche tripped over a tail ender. The find of the series last time round, Valentiejus is fast, forceful and another that could well find himself at the top of the table in twelve weeks time. Nixon (Martini Lotus) is almost unbeatable on his day. If he can commit himself for the whole series who knows what he could achieve. Maybe not quite as fast but a picture of consistency Garese, now with Alfa Romeo, could be the tortoise to Gernot’s hare. And finally, if the new schedule allows him to run in the high SOF races, Schwecke (ATS) has the pace to rattle a few cages up the front as well.

With over 70 registered entries so far, competition should be intense.

New Ideas.  New Teams.  New Circuits.

One of the biggest changes for S2 comes in the form of 3 car teams. The top 38 finishers from S1 are automatically seeded into 2 of the available seats in each Championship team. The 3rd seat has then been filled via a draft were each team selects a development driver from a group consisting of previous season competitors who finished outside the top 38 positions, and previous season competitors returning to the series.  All ‘Rookie’ competitors are allocated to the Aurora AFX Series teams on a first come basis.

The ‘Fast Four’ from S1: Fritsche, Salminen, Valentiejus and Ruokola.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Also new this season is Saturday racing. This will now give competitors 4 days of online racing at each venue. One of those venues, Twin Ring Motegi in Japan, is also fresh to the series. Fast and open it should provide plenty of passing opportunities and hopefully some great racing in Round 5. In addition Road America, Road Atlanta and Barber Motorsports Park will also return to the schedule. The tight and twisty confines of Barber could prove to be quite a handful with the new low downforce configuration.

Some teams may be gone, but the show just keeps getting better.

Drives Still Available

All series rookies and some returnees are restricted to Non-Championship Aurora AFX series based teams. Again with 3 drivers in each these positions are filled on a first come basis. One of the strongest of these teams should be Penthouse Rizla Racing with series returnees Strang and Arnall joined by a rookie in name only Mat Menzies. These guys should push this privateer team to upset a number of their more fancied rivals.  In a similar situation is Theodore Wolf with Michael Schmidt and Franz Josef Stumm joined by GrandAm Sportscar refugee Jonathon Brothwell. Seats are still available, and drivers are able to join the Championship at any point. If you’re interested Check out the Classic Teams Championship Thread in the Lotus 79 section of the iRacing Forums. Keep an eye open for the weekly reports here on inRacing News.

Side by side racing in the NASCAR iRacing Class C Series is a common occurance.

The season long battle between Justin Brooks and Heath Hindman for the NASCAR iRacing Class C Series (NiCCS) crown came down the final two weeks of the season. Hundreds of sim racers came out to test their skills at the Darlington Raceway and Kentucky Speedway in the final two rounds, but when the final laps were ran and the checkered flag fell on 2012 Season One, it was Brooks who would ultimately edge out Hindman for the prestigious title.

Week Eleven of the series took the Trucks to the Darlington Raceway where Phil Juhring took the top spot over 400 others who took a green flag at the track “Too Tough to Tame.” Juhring’s big win of the week came during a 2801 sof race on April 10th in which he led all but two laps in the race en route to the win over Michael Simons II, Sam Edwards, Eric Purcell2 and Greg McKinney. Juhring started the 90-lap race from the pole and had to outlast four cautions to punch his ticket to victory lane. The top two in this race were awarded with the top two spots of the week with Juhring and Simons II taking 175 and 163 points away from the race, respectively.

Also on the podium for the week at Darlington was Canadian Jordan Westfall. Westfall would wind up in victory lane on April 11th during a 2582 sof race in which he led 36 laps, including the most important one, ahead of Craig Jernigan, Shelvin Johnson, Wes Weidman and Gary Fridinger. Johnson started from the pole and led 54 laps before surrendering the lead to Westfall, who started third on the grid. For the victory, Westfall was credited with 159 points.

Patrick Smart made the most starts of the week at Darlington, taking 11 green flags over the seven day span. David Krikorian and Chad Pruitt each won four times on the week, the most of any others who were in the search for the checkers at “the Lady in Black.” Jukka Savolainen was the quickest in qualifying, putting in a time of 28.246 seconds around Darlington. Krikorian, Eric Hoggarth, Brooks and Jason Karlavige completed the top five in single truck qualifying. The top Time Trial honor went to Dustin Bartee on Week Eleven, over Manuel Bubbers, Matthew Shanks, Roger Stanley Jr and Earl Landry.

The final round of the season took the NiCCS drivers to the Kentucky Speedway. Pruitt continued his winning ways from Darlington and followed it up with a big win at Kentucky to capture the weekly victory during Week Twelve. His win, which tipped the scales at 3138 sof, saw Pruitt lead exactly half of the 90 laps in the race after starting from the inside of Row Three. In fact, five of the 18 drivers who started the race led at least one lap in the event. Finishing second in the race was McKinney, followed by Fridinger, Tony Monge and Dominic Krischke. Michael Tasillo, who started on the pole and led a dozen laps of the 90 completed would finish 12th. Pruitt was awarded with 197 points for his win.

Casey Malone was second for the week at Kentucky after a win on April 22nd in a 3094 sof race. Malone started tenth and led ten laps en route to the win over Gene Miller2, Edward Burch Jr, Joey Israelson and Billy Weeks. Marko Viitanen led over half (48) of the laps but would cross the line in seventh, faring better than pole sitter Patrick Davis, who finished 15th in the event. Three cautions slowed the event while the lead was exchanged eight times amongst seven drivers. Malone pocketed 194 points for the win.

Rounding out the podium at Kentucky was NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver Pat Baldwin. The 3120 sof affair on April 21st which saw Baldwin pull into victory lane featured two cautions and saw the winner lead 50 laps after starting in the 11th spot. Following Baldwin to the line was Aaron Lovell, followed by Chris E Pence, Edward Szigeti and Sean Hall. Davis once again found himself on the pole but would up coming home ninth in the race. Baldwin captured 194 points in his victory at Kentucky.

Maxx Harris closed off the season by making 26 starts in the final week of 2012 Season One while Rob Miles put 13 wins up on the board, the only driver to hit a double digit win total at Kentucky. Savolainen once again flexed his muscle in qualifying as his 31.020 second lap was quicker than that of Tasillo, Ray Schoder, Michael McLain and Robert Lee. Victor Vollrath was the top driver in the final week of the Time Trial competition as his run at Kentucky was better than that of Tasillo, Kirschke, Christopher DiBenedetto and Bubbers. Bill Brown was crowned the NiCCS Time Trial champion for 2012 Season One with 785 points. Stephen Riggs, JD Bartone, Chris Allex and Bartee completed the top five of 843 who attempted a Time Trial run in the first quarter of ’12.

After the final laps were ran and the points tallied, Brooks will go down as the 2012 Season One champion of the NiCCS with 1576 points, 37 points more than Hindman’s total of 1539. Division Two titlist Jernigan rallied to finish third overall this season with 1385 points, four more than Trey Jarrell’s 1381. Savolainen completed the top five with 1362 points, just five more markers than Pruitt’s 1357 total. Divisional champions from Division Three to Ten include Tom Moustakas, Michael Atkins Jr., Rock Harris, Michael Valentin, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Robert Cori, Sean Cummings2 and Robert Mason2.

The NASCAR iRacing Class C Series fires up again for 2012 Season Two action at the start of May.

The action was fast and furious during Week Eleven action at Bristol.

After 12 weeks of action and thousands of laps in the 2012 Season One iRacing Late Model Tour (iLMT) season, it was Mark Lambert who came out on top of over 3,100 drivers to become champion of the series. While he was relatively quiet in the last two weeks of his championship season, many others took the chance to make some noise in the final two rounds of the popular short track series.

The final two weeks of the season took the series to the Bristol and Stafford Motor Speedways. When the series went to the Bristol high banks for Round 11, it was Tanner Stoops who took the checkered flag in the race to the top of the weekly standings. Stoops won three of the four races he ran during the week, including a 3033 sof race on April 16th in which he led wire-to-wire in the 50 lap race from the outside pole. Charlie Foster was second, seven tenths of a second behind Stoops at the finish. Steven Landry was third, followed by Mike Costrello and Todd Laribee within the top five. Pole sitter Heath Smith went on to finish eighth in the race. At the completion of seven days of competition, Stoops ended his run at Bristol with 175 points.

Ian Blanchard was second for the week after he took command of a 2807 sof race on April 16th. Blanchard led the final 35 laps of the race after taking the point from pole sitter Dylan Cecce. Cecce finished a car length behind the winner in second place and was followed to the stripe at Lap 50 by Donald Hagan, Miles Crabbe and Brian Babb. Blanchard, who started fourth in the race, captured 174 points for the week at Bristol with that victory.

Meanwhile, Cecce went on to set weekly highs in most categories, making a whopping 44 starts, turning those into 36 victories. He completed 2160 laps and led 1948 of them, or 90% of the laps he ran over the seven day span. At the completion of the week, he came home with 154 points and the third place position overall in the weekly standings. Cecce also started on the pole for the week, blasting around Bristol in a time of 14.471 seconds. Just a shade behind (at a 14.472 second lap) was Jeff Ford, with Johnny Housley, Smith and Crabbe completing the top five. Smith was the top in the Time Trial competition for the week, followed by David Deschenes, Satoru Ohno, Anita Frederiksen and Jeremy Ahlum.

Gareth Gonder left the Stafford Motor Speedway on Week Twelve as the top driver from the last seven days of the season point wise after a second place finish in the highest rated race of the week. The highest sof race, rated at 2963, saw Virginia’s Daniel Williamson lead all 65 laps of the event en route to the win from the first starting position. Gonder finished in second, nearly three seconds back with Gregg Johncock, Clay Jones and Kenneth Lang completing the top five in the race. Gonder put up 166 points in this race to lock up first place for the week.

What about Williamson you might ask? Well, the Virginia native went on to make 18 starts over the seven day span at Stafford, winning in ten of those starts which tied Shawn Stitt atop the win count for the week. Stitt was perfect for the week, winning in all ten appearances he made in Connecticut for the week. When it came to the point picture for the two most successful drivers for the week, it was Stitt edging out Williamson by a single point, 162 to 161.

Tying Stitt for second on the week was Brandon “The Boss” Atkinson. Atkinson topped a 2662 sof race on April 18th in which he led all 65 laps and defeated Christian Pedersen by nine seconds at the finish. Scott Blackburn was third in the race, followed by Thomas Fleming2 and Johncock. Atkinson took home 162 points for the victory.

Stitt was the top driver in qualifying at Stafford with a lap of 19.513 seconds. Smith was second, followed by Jeremy Davis, Williamson and Eric Purcell2. Smith closed in on the Time Trial championship with a win at Stafford over Bill Brown, Davis, Ty Majeski and Stitt. It wasn’t enough to steal away the title from Lambert though as his perfect 800 point total was just three points better than Smith’s. Ahlum, Ohno and Ford rounded out the Top Five overall in the Time Trial standings for the season.

Lambert will go down as the 2012 Season One champion of the iLMT with 1364 points, 79 more points than Smith and his 1285 point total, which was good enough to top Division Two. Housley won Division Three with 1229 points, just seven points (1222) better than Division One’s Jeff Conover. Maxime Paquette edged out fellow Canadian Blanchard by 20 points to take the fifth place overall in the series amongst 3,109 entries. Divisional champions from Four to Ten include Scott Blackburn, Jade Williams, Jeremy Poole2, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Darrell Phillips, Cale Thompson2 and Petie Madrid.

Next up for the iRacing Late Model Tour is the season opener for 2012 Season Two, which will take place during the first week of May.

Paulo Valente is not perfect.  In 48 starts at the wheel of his virtual Mustang FR500S in 2012 Season 1 he only earned 47 top five finishes . . .   That glaring exception aside, the resident of Aveiro, Portugal was plenty good enough to take a pair of titles last season, namely the Mustang Class in the iRacing.com GRAND-AM Sports Car Series (where he won a dozen times and finished all of his 15 starts in the top five) to edge Matthew Davis and Division One of the iRacing.com Mustang Challenge where a must-win victory in the final round of the season at Spa enabled him to come out on top of Mikey Grems.

A sim-racer who definitely prefers a roof over his head and his wheels encased by fenders, Valente is already off to a good start with iRacing’s latest virtual rocket of a sedan, having piloted his brand-spanking-new Cadillac to a win at Okayama on Tuesday in the 24 Heures Du Fun.  Is it too soon to pick Valente as a favorite to take the inaugural Cadillac Challenge?  Perhaps.  But one thing is for sure:  win, lose or disconnect, Valente is a sure-fire winner every time he cozzies-up with his daughter Gabriela to watch their favorite television shows.

Q: How long have you been sim-racing?
A: Since Sega OutRun happered in the arcade machines

Q: What attracted you to iRacing?
A: The laser-scanned cars/tracks, the scoring system, races to suit all tastes and all the time…

Valente piloted his ABRacing Mustang FR500S to a pair of 2012 Season 1 titles.

Q: What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?
A: I really enjoy the Ford Mustang and the GT cars; I’m not a big fan of formula cars.  VIR, Daytona (road) at night is beautiful; Zandvoort is also fun, Road America and the list goes on…

Q: What do you like most about iRacing?
A: The driving feedback is the closest to reality that I ever tried!  Being able to race with the best and try to improve my lap times!

Q: What would you change about iRacing?
A: I think the management should give some more info about the progress and participate more in the forums!

Q: How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A: More than I should lol

Valente and his ABRacing teammates enjoy some mixed class online racing.

Q: Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s).
A:My helmet is a Kevin Schwantz replica, my favorite rider from the 500cc championship era!

Q: What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, rFractor, etc.) do you do?
A: I used to do some league races in rFactor, but now I only race in iRacing!

Q: What are your favorite video games?
A: iRacing, Battlefield 3, Company of Heroes, il-2 Sturmovik 1946

Q: What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A: Winning the 2012 S1 Division 1  Mustang Challenge in the last race of the season against Mikey Rems! Had to win that race against Mikey and i DID!

Q: What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A: I think I don’t have any!

“Instead of going fast on public roads, I could be going fast in cars that I most likely will never drive, on tracks that I’ve always dreamed about . . . without the risk of hurting myself or hurting others!”

Q: What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A: Some Group A Touring Car like the E30 BMW M3 Evo III or the Mercedes 190 E Evo II would be nice! A.I.A (aka Portimão) SHOULD be in the iRacing track list! Lots of elevation changes, fast corners…

Q: What person, living or dead do you most admire?
A: Ayrton Senna.

Q: What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A: MotoGP.

Q: Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A: The iRacing Sporting Code lolol.

Paulo and Gabriela take a moment away from "Bob the Builder" to pose for a photo.

Q: Name of your favorite movie/TV show? show?
A:  Don’t have any favorites, but I’m starting to like Jarmies and Bob the Builder because my one year old baby girl LOVES to watch these!  Have to see them over and over and over…

Q: How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A: I consider all my ABRacing Teammates as friends, but I think I made a few more iRacing.

Q: Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A: Hummm… I think that over the years I’ve learned that instead of going fast in the public roads, I could be going fast in cars that I most likely will never drive, on tracks that I’ve always dreamed about, using sim-racing games like iRacing, without the risk of hurting myself or hurting others!

Barone led both Prototype championships heading into the final weeks of the season.

Silverstone would be the final week with the 70 minute open setup race length, Phillip Island’s 45 minute duration also the last time it would be used this season.  The Thursday and Friday 2000 GMT “hot split” concept for GT drivers continued, however with European daylight savings many drivers also took part in the earlier online race as well.

Iivonen ahead of Essa and Kreunen in this lead battle at Silverstone.

After moving back on top of the HPD fixed series standings two weeks earlier, Rocco Barone returned to the front of the open series by taking a win at each track.  The Italian top scored at Silverstone and came second at Phillip Island by comfortably winning both of his races, ironically in the Thursday “hot split” originally started by the GT drivers.  Title rival Roderic Kreunen trailed Barone by 20 points each week, but with two dropped scores now being taken into account hiis previous championship advantage turned into a 79 point deficit.  Frenchman Johann Posel top scored down under, while Paul Ilbrink rounds out the top three in the overall standings.

Barone has a similar lead in the fixed series, the chasing pack this time lead by Zaahir Essa and Teemu Iivonen, with Pierre Urbizu, Raymond Mooney and Kreunen completing the top six.  Wins for Barone, Essa and Iivonen saw them at the top of the Silverstone points table, likewise Urbizu and Mooney at Phillip Island, as all drivers look to drop poorer scores from earlier in the season in a bid catch Barone.

Hagner battles with Kaschube and Wiemers at Phillip Island.

While there may still be two weeks to go, the Corvette open and fixed setup championships have been all but wrapped-up by Kay Kaschube and Ief Vangenechten respectively.  Kaschube underlined his dominance as he continued his run of “hot split” victories at Silverstone and Phillip Island to make it ten from twelve “hot splits” wins.  His lead over Marc de Loose – who once again was unable to get into the top split at Silverstone – increased to 440 points.  Taking advantage at Silverstone was Fernando Bento, closing the gap in the battle with de Loose for the runner-up spot to just 39 points.

Meanwhile in the fixed series, Vangenechten continued to service his large lead by claiming the Silverstone “hot split” win, making sure he took home solid points at both tracks – although David Jensen did edge slightly closer by completing his full quota of eight point scoring weeks.  While the title looks settled barring a massive haul of points for Jensen in the final two weeks, the fight for third intensified as Bento jumped Michael Booth for third and now has a three point advantage.

Versteege moved ahead of Suominen in the Ford GT open series.

The Ford GT open series is the closest of all six championship battles, the season long fight featuring Kimmo Suominen and Niek Versteege has now swung in favour of the Dutchman by just 17 points.  Versteege took advantage of Suominen retiring early on to record a high scoring win at Phillip Island, in addition to finishing second at Silverstone.  It was however the only race the Finnish driver did not win from his six starts, which included both “hot splits” victories to keep him right in the hunt.

Suominen has no such problems in the fixed series, his 300 point lead meaning it would take over 250 points each week from Versteege to unseat his rival – a feat that has yet to be achieved this season.  Glacier Racing team mate Joni Hagner was joint top scorer at Silverstone, but Suominen was the clear leader at Phillip Island ahead of “hot split” winner Timothy Stoll. The battle for thirrd is closer though, Australia’s Anthony Vranic was absent from his home track which allowed Poland’s Wiktor Bubniak to close the gap to just 10 points.

Weeks 11 and 12 take the series back to a pair of North American tracks which return after a season’s absence, visiting Mosport, the only Canadian track in iRacing, and finally to Road Atlanta in Georgia, home of Petit Le Mans.

Round 5 of the iRacing.com Grand Prix World Championship Series will be broadcast iRacing Live on Saturday, April 28 starting at 7 pm EDT (22:00 GMT).  On tap are 83 laps of the 11 turn, 2.314 mile Okayama International Circuit.

After last season’s up and down defense of his 2010 championship, Greger Huttu has returned to dominant form this year with three wins in four outings for a score of 185 points.  With a win of his own and two runner-up finishes returning champion Hugo Luis (143) is doing his best to keep Huttu honest, while Luke McLean (113) and Jaroslav Honzik (102) are the only other sim racers to have breached the century mark so far.

Can Huttu make it four of five?  Can Luis win again and cut into Huttu’s lead?  Or will someone else stand atop the podium at Okayama?

Tune-in to iRacing Live on Saturday at 7 pm EDT (22:00) for the answers!

Huttu, Luis, McLean and the iGPWCS: coming at you live on Saturday!

Kevin King was king of the hill in Kentucky, collecting 344 points for Sunday's win.

One of the best championship battles in recent memory, if not ever, took place between Jared Crawford and the up and coming Jason Karlavige. It ended with Crawford on top by a slim 58 points. Along with the championship, Crawford earns the equally important number one seed into the 2012 NiPS taking place at years end. Despite a solid effort, that would have crushed the competition in any past season, Karlavige will have to settle for second on the season.

The top ten overall Class A licensed sim races at season’s end earn a promotion up the ranks to the Pro license level. This is the first of three seasons that the ladder system will be in effect, where the 3o promoted Class A drivers will join the bottom 25 in this season’s NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship (NiSWC) season, thus making the 55 driver NiPS field. From there, the top 25 drivers will be promoted to a NiSWC license, giving them a chance to take part in the highest series in online racing, which pays in  excess of $10,000 to the champion.

The following drivers have all put in an outstanding effort, making the top twelve in one of the highest rated season long battles to date.

Jared Crawford 2716
Jason Karlavige 2658
Adam Gilliland 2339
Casey Malone 2252
Philipp Geiss 2161
Richard Dusett 2125
Dylan Duval 2108
Brandon Schmidt 2107
Kyle Gottula 2049
Kenneth O’Keefe 2039

The iRacing.com system places drivers in divisions based on ratings entering the season. Your division does not hinder you from racing in top races throughout the season as the lower rated drivers begin to improve, but it provides a more level playing field, allowing drivers to run for a championship with other drivers with the same skill set. There are ten divisions, which means ten very happy champions at season’s end.

As 2012 Season 1 disappears up the road, it's time to prepare for Season 2 of the NiCAS.

Former NiPS driver Robert Frieary III locked down the Division Two Championship handily over second place Derek Crone, with Mike Avison rounding-out the podium. The Division Three crown went to Malik Ray over Ian Hann, while Daniel Hake won a nail-biter over Bill Ross Jr. in Division Four. Edward Burch Jr. of New York won the Division Five title walking away, while Jay Kluk of Ohio edged-out Jeff Paris by only 16 points in Division Six. Another nail-biter in Division Seven; this time it is Lewis King edging fellow Mid-South driver James Boyett by a mere seven points. Not to be outdone, California’s James Falcon Pratt beat out the Pennsylvanian Andrew Cornelius by just three points to earn the Division Eight title. Two drivers looking to move up in rankings next season are John Schilling and Dustin Bryson, the Division Nine and Ten Champions.

Of the 2,516 competitors to take part in the widely successful 2012 opening NiCAS season, a few drivers stood-out for different reasons. The most impressive was current NiSWC driver Patrick Baldwin going big with 19 wins in his 37 starts, earning him the most wins of anyone. 14 drivers scored ten or more victories on the season. The dedication award has to go to Howard Bell, who competed it 150 races over the twelve week season, earning the most starts. Bell was one of seven drivers who raced over 100 times on the season.

With all that being said, you can put a bow on 2012 Season One, and look ahead to future racing. For some it means trying to steak out their ground at the next level of racing, while others are focused on more modest goals. Whatever your goals may be, good luck, and congratulations to all our champions from everyone here at inRacingNews.

iRacing.com Grand Prix Series (iGPS) returned to the "Home of British Motor Racing" - Silverstone Circuit for the final race of the season.

The iRacing.com Grand Prix Series (iGPS) returned to the “Home of British Motor Racing” – Silverstone Circuit for the final race of the 12 week long iGPS Season 1. A historical track which hosted its first Britsh Grand Prix in 1948, Silverstone has been staged on the F1 calendar every year since 1987 and the pedigree hasn’t changed – still a blend of reputable high speed corners that put great stress on the drivers and make overtaking difficult.

Italian Max Dell’Orco led the way again in qualifying, taking his 4th pole in 5 races, closely ahead of Simon Cattell with Wolfgang Reip in third. Pierre Urbizu followed the trio in fourth and fellow Frenchman Laurent Beteille took the fifth fastest qualifying time of the week after some extremely tight lap times between the drivers. This week would also decide who out of Xavier Busoms, Marcus Caton and Pierre Urbizu would be the victor in the fight for the final Pro license, with 12 weeks of work coming down to this.

Uusi-Jaakkola and Cattell had a race-long battle, despite being on different fuel-strategies.

The first race would see Dell’Orco absent from running, promoting Cattell to his first pole of the season with new team-mate Wolfgang Reip alongside him on the front row. With the competitors and spectators unsure about the chosen strategies and mystery looming in the air, the lights turned to green. Cattell got off the line steadily and held his lead into T1 but Urbizu closed up fast to take 2nd by the first corner. This wouldn’t last long however as the hard-charging Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola starting from 5th found himself in 2nd place by the end of the opening lap.

Very rapidly Uusi-Jaakkola’s FW31 was all over the back of Cattell, it soon became inevitable he would find a way through, eventually taking the lead on Lap 3 into Stowe corner raising suspicions of a 1 stop strategy compared to Cattell’s 0-stopper. Riku Alatalo started way down in 6th but was soon all over the back of 3rd placed Reip – however the two made heavy contact on Lap 2 which forced Reip out of the race to his dismay whilst Alatalo continued unscathed now in pursuit of Cattell’s 2nd place. On lap 8 Alatalo mirrored his fellow Finn Uusi-Jaakkola’s pass to take 2nd position, he too seemingly on a 1 stop strategy.

Urbizu fell to fifth from third due to a last lap incident, after holding off the chasing duo for the entire race.

An early retirement made the last race a thriller as Caton positioned himself in a good spot to steal the last Pro-License.

The following race saw this weeks pole-sitter Dell’Orco make his customary appearence. He was joined on the front row by Wolfgang Reip with Pierre Urbizu starting behind them trying to consolidate his strong chance of getting the all important 10th place in the standings. However, his Silverstone bad luck would continue as he became an innocent bystander to a lag crash involving Mogar DG Filho and Teemu Iivonen at the first corner, which ended the Frenchman’s race on the spot. His despair was reduced just moments later however as a Lap 2 crash in Vale corner took Xavier Busoms out of the race.

Now only one of the three contenders – Marcus Caton remained in the race. One-stopping Dell’Orco took off at the start and left the rest of the field to fight for the scrapes. Uusi-Jaakkola got around Reip during the opening laps, only to lose connection to the server on Lap 4 which promoted all cars behind up a place and crucially influencing the battle for 10th place. Richie Stanaway continued his charge from his seventh place on the starting grid as he found his way around Reip on lap 6 for third, albeit with the former on a 1 stop fuel load. Alatalo followed the trio not far behind in fourth.

The drivers put on a great show in this last race of the season, Uusi-Jaakkola and Reip seen here going side-by-side in Turn 1.

The race turned on its head in the pit stop phase however as leader Dell’Orco mysteriously began to slow and short-shift. After many fuel errors this season, Dell’Orco’s embarrassment was compounded here with another fuel miscalculation forcing the Italian to drive a whole lap at half pace. Through this, he could only watch as Reip took the lead away as Dell’Orco coasted around the lap on fumes. Alatalo joined this race with a different strategy compared to the previous race and he too got around Dell’Orco’s fuel-stricken FW31.

This enabled 0 stopping Alatalo to finish the race in a strong second position, putting him in contention to leapfrog Dell’Orco in the standings. Dell’Orco’s embarrassment wasn’t over yet though, as he once again found himself being short of fuel towards the end of his final stint which in the end saw him lose out on a podium spot to Richie Stanaway. DWC entrant Aleksi Elomaa started the race way down in 13th place but looked set for a consolation 4th place until Dell’Orco just crept over the finish line two tenths ahead, already with the engine cutting out.

Stanaway looking to advance a position thanks to DellOrcos fuel problems.

Without a doubt though, all eyes were on the slog for 10th place in the series standings. With Busoms and Urbizu out, the omen rested on Marcus Caton. Despite being understandably passive in his racecraft, he drove a fairly lonely 0-stop race. However with Uusi-Jaakkola’s disconnection and many retirements around him – including his main rivals – Caton held a solid 6th place after the pit stop phase. Despite being put under increasing pressure from lap 1 casualty Iivonen in the closing laps, it became clear Caton would need a 5th place to score enough points to claim 10th in the standings.

The atmosphere became even more tense as the race wore on. It started to look increasingly more of an uphill battle for Caton – still sitting in 6th place with only a few laps to go, until the fuel problems for Dell’Orco brought a possible light at the end of the tunnel. However, with the Italian holding on to the end, Caton had to settle for 6th place and finishing just four points away from a Pro license – in the end it was Frenchman Pierre Urbizu who claimed this 10th position and the long-awaited Pro license.

Unable to pass the coasting DellOrco at the ending stages of the race, Caton had to settle for 6th place and finishing just four points away from a Pro license.

With the 2012 Season 1 in the books, Jake Stergios claimed his second consecutive iRacing.com Grand Prix Series championship win, averaging an impressive 276 points a week – despite absences from the final two weeks of the season. Riku Alatalo takes the bragging rights for being the highest ranked A-Class driver, as Dell’Orco’s double fuel troubles saw the Finn take enough points from the final race to claim 2nd in the overall standings. With the season over, ten new drivers will be wearing black stripes for the remainder of 2012, they are: Riku Alatalo, Max Dell’Orco, Wolfgang Reip, Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola, Laurent Beteille, Ryan Terpstra, Simon Cattell, Davy Decorps, Teemu Iivonen and Pierre Urbizu. Congratulations go to all for achieving this as they set their sights on the 2012 Road Pro Series at the end of the year.

Karlavige starting from the pole at Richmond.

The last SoF race of the season took place at the usual time and had an SoF of 4374. The race had 25 drivers and paid 279 points to win. Jason Karlavige (Pennsylvania) once again dominated the race. Karlavige started on pole and lead 106 laps on his way to a 1 second victory over Brad Mahar (New England).

“The last two weeks have been outstanding for Gale Force Racing in the B series.” – Jason Karlavige

When asked how his last two weeks have been, Karlavige said “The last two weeks have been outstanding for Gale Force Racing in the B series. To go out and lead the whole race in Texas was special; I wasn’t expecting to do that with guys like Tyler Hudson and Devan Hall in the field. We were able to carry our momentum over to Richmond, where our setup was just straight up fast. Between the Cup car and the Nationwide, this has been a season that we all could be proud of. The Nationwide car is my favorite car to run on iRacing, and I really do enjoy being able to run these high SoF races on Thursday nights. I would not be able to get it done without my teammates, especially Joe Holt and Jared Crawford, who put a TON of time into our B cars this season. We’ve been strong not only in race trim, but in qualifying too. It’s a good feeling as a driver to start out front, and stay away from any trouble that may come behind. Congrats to Phil Juhring on wrapping up a championship season and we’re looking forward to a lot of great racing in this series next season!”

Mahar, who was second in points, needed every point he could get to try and win the championship. For his second place finish, Mahar received 267 points. Joe Holt (Mid-South) finished in the third position and received 255 points. David Cater (Carolina) and Devan Hall (Georgia) rounded out the Top Five.  Cater and Hall received 244 and 232 points respectively.

Watch the broadcast here.

At the end of the week, Karlavige was at the top of the weekly standings. Karlavige ran two races, finishing first and second and finished the week with 279 points. Mahar finished the week in the second place after finishing runner up to Jason in the SoF race. Mahar had 267 points. Brandon Buie (Atlantic), coming off a sixth place finish in the SoF race, finished the week in third with 220 points. NiSWC driver Tyler D Hudson (Mid-South) finished the week in the fourth place after winning all four of his races. Hudson left Richmond with 207 points. Fellow NiSWC driver Vinnie Sansone rounded out the Top Five after winning his only race of the week and netting 200 points.

Champion Phil Juhring at Richmond.

As the season came to an, Phil Juhring was able to maintain his points lead after a disappointing final week at Richmond. Juhring finished the season with eight wins in 17 races and 1739 points.

“I had a really good season. We were strong week in and week out. I was fortunate enough to work with a great bunch of guys.” – Phil Juhring

Juhring had this to say about his championship season, “I had a really good season. We were strong week in and week out. I was fortunate enough to work with a great bunch of guys. We put a ton of time in each week first finding speed, and then doing 20 to 25 lap race runs. I especially have to thank Dustin Montgomery for all his help this season. This championship may not have been possible and certainly would have been much more difficult without him. My strategy this season was to start up front each week and have a good long run setup. I didn’t want to press the issue early on in these races and in each run. Just survive, be around at the end and then make the most of what I had. I was able to accomplish that most weeks. I’d also like to congratulate the rest of the top 10 in B car points as well as each division winner. The racing at the front of the fields was solid week in and week out. Thanks to ETV for broadcasting the race each week and bringing these SoF fields together.”

Brad Mahar finished the season in the second position.  After fighting for a second place finish at Richmond and netting 267 in the final week, Mahar came up 71 points short. Mahar ran 26 races on the season with five wins and 17 Top Fives with 1668 points. Buie finished the season in the third position with one win and five Top Five’s in 15 starts. Buie finished with 1508 points. John Bunton (Carolina) finished fourth while Jeffrey Parker rounded out the Top Five. Bunton had one win and 6 Top Five’s in 20 races while Parker had three wins and 16 Top Five’s in 35 races. Bunton finished with 1466 points while Parker finished with 1430 points.

Division Champions

Division 1 – Phil Juhring

Division 2 – Alex Scribner

Division 3 – Matthew Spangler

Division 4 – Bruno Noronha2

Division 5 – Edward Burch Jr.

Division 6 – Matthew Burroughs

Division 7 – Fausto Bessa Gomes

Division 8 – Jim Alexander

Division 9 – Kevin Smith5

Division 10 – Shawn Gayton

Rookie – Justin Flores

Pastrana199 Racing will debut its iRacing.com Toyota Camry in the hands of Travis Pastrana in Thursday’s NASCAR K&N East Series race at Richmond International Raceway, a race which will be broadcast live on SpeedTV beginning at 7 pm EDT.   The world’s foremost online racing service, iRacing.com will also serve as the primary sponsor of Pastrana’s car in K&N East races at Langley Speedway, Iowa Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS), as well as an associate sponsor of his Nationwide Series entry at NHMS in July.

“iRacing.com is proud to be associated with Travis Pastrana and Pastrana199 Racing,” says Steve Myers, iRacing.com executive vice president and executive producer. “Travis is one of the most dynamic and popular personalities on the American motorsports scene, and we believe the experienced professionals at Pastrana199 Racing will give him an opportunity to achieve great success in the K&N East and Nationwide Series this season.”

“We’re excited to be partnering with iRacing.com at selected K&N East and Nationwide Series races,” says Ty Norris, Michael Waltrip Racing executive vice president of business development and general manager. “The fact that iRacing.com and NASCAR jointly sanction a number of online racing series speaks volumes for the quality of their service, as does the fact that a lot of us at Michael Waltrip Racing – including Travis – are active iRacers.”

Indeed, while Richmond is the first K&N East race for the iRacing.com Toyota, Pastrana is already quite familiar with the red, white and blue of iRacing.com.  That’s because he prepares for upcoming races by practicing – and racing – on the online motorsport simulation service.

“iRacing is a blast to drive, but it’s also great preparation,” says Pastrana.  “As a rookie in the K&N and Nationwide Series, I’m seeing a lot of tracks for the first time. But after doing hundreds of laps on them on iRacing, I feel right at home right from the start of practice. iRacing really short-cuts the learning curve.”

Pastrana not only practices on iRacing, he races on iRacing. Last week he hosted his own K&N race under the virtual lights of iRacing’s precise replica of Richmond International Raceway. The race attracted more than two dozen iRacers, none of whom cut the “ringer” any slack.

“We had a great time,” says Pastrana. “I managed to qualify in the top ten and then had some good battles in the race with a couple of guys. First of all, it was fun and I think the other iRacers enjoyed it. But I also learned a few things that I intend to put to good use on Thursday.”

Pastrana hopes to host races at all of the iRacing tracks on his schedule this season. And with tracks like Darlington, Charlotte, Chicagoland, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Iowa and NHMS on the K&N East and Nationwide calendar, expect Pastrana to be putting a lot of what he learns on iRacing to good use this season.

Richard Hamstead clinched the V8 championship with a perfect drive at Oulton Park. Here he shows Simon Madden and Stuart Wood how it's done.

McLeod got the better of Richard Hamstead in Race One when going through Turn Four, Hamstead blew his motor which gave McLeod a big chance to win the title taking a 14 point lead into the final online race!

As no one went quicker in the final qualifying session the grid stayed the same with Broekman on pole with a 1:26.680 just ahead of Hamstead by .002s and McLeod just behind in position three, while ANZ Motorsport drivers George Maris and Justin Ruggier rounded-out the top five.

With qualifying all done and dusted it was time for the sim racers to hit the grid and as the lights went green it was Hamstead once again beating Broekman into Turn One and leading the way. With Broekman now occupying second place and McLeod keeping his position in third it was Ruggier getting the jump on his team mate as they head into Turn Three for the first time while Vern jumped the gun and had to serve a black flag, ending any chance for a good finish.

Hamstead gets the drop on Broekmans at the green light.

Unfortunately for Christopher Osborne, his race ended as quickly as it started when Osborne turned-in a bit too early in Turn Three, not knowing Jason Brunton was on his inside.  Contact resulted and — unfortunately for Clayton Brooks — as Osborne tried to save it, he spun straight into the right front of Brooks’ car ending both their races and sending Osborne’s car across the track into the path of Marty Atkins.

Christopher Osborne spinning in front of Simon Black, Clayton Brooks and Ben Rothberg through Turn Three.

With all the Lap One carnage over, Broekman had to avoid a lagging Hamstead and into the last turn as the championship leader’s car lagged out and then back in.  As a result, Broekman ran wide enabling  McLeod and Brunton to go through, pushing him from first to fourth after one lap.

On Lap Three McLeod had a run on Hamstead into Turn Five.  Hamstead blocked and McLeod went high, give Ruggier the chance to go underneath Mitchell for second place.  With Ruggier in P2, Hamstead now had some breathing space.

Having announced this would be his last race with Tatts.com, Scott U’Ren would have wanted to put on a show.  Unfortunately it was far from that.  On Lap Five he tried to make a move and then by the time he backed out it was too late and making big contact ending Thomas Guerrini’s race into Turn 10.

Broekman began falling back into the path of Maris.   Maris finally got the move done into Turn 1 on Lap 13, and now had the chance to chase down McLeod, leaving Broekman to wondering what had happened after dropping from pole to fifth.

After his strong finish in Race One,  the main race wasn’t going the way Josh Muggleton would have liked.  On Lap 16 a dive on Peter Read into Turn 10 saw contact between the cars, and on Lap 18 Muggleton caught a bump which sent him sideways onto the back straight, costing him four positions.

Maris has been catching McLeod at a few tenths a lap.   Heading into the last corner on Lap 22 Maris made his move to put ANZ Motorsport second and third on the road, with Hamstead now only three laps away from the championship.

Hamstead took control at the start and was never headed en route to a championship-clinching victory.

With one lap to go Ruggier had closed the gap on Hamstead and heading into the last corner he was right within a tenth of the lead.  As Hamstead blocked and covered the inside line into the last corner, Ruggier tried to cut under for the exit.   Holding the inside line, however, Hamstead crossed the finish line first to take his maiden iRacing.com V8 Supercars Series presented by BigPond title!

While a fantastic showing from ANZ drivers Ruggier and Maris finished off the podium, it would be McLeod making it three straight second place finishes in the series, and rounding out the top five would be Broekman.

Once again Congratulations to Direct Clutch Services driver Richard Hamstead on the series win and well done to everyone on making it a fantastic series!

You can watch all the race replays on www.v8sonline.com.au and race recaps on YouTube under v8sonlineaustralia.

We would like to thank Jay Kennedy, Daniel Briant, John Emerson and Vern Norrgard who did broadcasting, race recaps and articles!

Next event on the V8 Schedule is the special event run by V8sOnline called V8 SuperChaos, pitting the high performance Ford V8 Supercar against the legendary Lime Rock Park Chicane.

You can catch all the action live from 7:30 AEST April 30th, and you can watch it all from www.v8sonline.com.au.

Poleske was the one who put the most points up on the board in Week Eleven and Twelve competition at the New Hampshire Motor and Thompson International Speedway’s, respectively. The big race on the “Magic Mile” of New Hampshire Motor Speedway took place on April 12th in which Poleske led 11 of the 75 laps en route to the win over Paul Wisniewski, Brandon Salvatore, David Markham and Rick Webster. Salvatore started from the pole and led 63 laps in the race, the most of any driver in the event. Poleske took a whopping 240 points from the 3868 sof race which saw just three cautions while Salvatore’s 205 point performance was good enough to seal up third for the week.

Thompson International Speedway hosted the finale of 2012 Season NiTMS.

Wisniewski would go on to make three additional starts on the week to compliment his runner up spot in the highest rated race of the week. While he won one race, his second highest point total which went towards his fourth best 197 on the week took place during a 3555 sof race on April 12th in which he finished third to Brett Osborn. Osborn led 12 laps after starting fourth in his adventure to the checkered silk over TJ Graves, Wisniewski, Markham and Larry Pyrtle. Salvatore led the most laps in this race as well (50) but finished in ninth place. For his win, Osborn was rewarded with 216 points while Graves and his 194 points placed him fifth overall for the week.

Gary Holbrook made the most appearances on the grid for the week with seven. He turned two of those starts into wins and shared the top win total with Samuel Dick. Other winners from the week at New Hampshire include Pyrtle, Mungin, Forest Schneiter3, Graves, Wisniewski, Osborn and Poleske. Salvatore topped the qualifying charts with a 28.486 second lap over Mungin, Dick, Jerold John and Herb Engelhart. Holbrook was the top driver in the Time Trial competition over Osborn, Pyrtle, Bruce Hilton and Michael Morrison2.

“This is our fourth straight title in the series and it comes with Giovanni . . . He is an amazing individual and a great driving talent.” — Herb Engelhart, owner, Wide Open Racing

The story was slightly different for Poleske en route to the top of the weekly point standings in the Finale for 2012 Season One for the Tour Modifieds. Poleske gained 190 points by finishing third in the top race of the week, which tipped the scales at 3646 sof. The event at Thompson was won by Troy Talman, as he led 91 of the 125 laps in his victory on the Connecticut high banks. Two cautions slowed the event that saw Dick, Poleske, Ray Farlow and Mitch Miller finish off the top five. Osborn led 33 laps in the event before fading back to the 13th place spot at the finish. Poleske and Farlow’s finishes in this race rewarded them with the top spots in the standings for the week after Talman and Dick went on to make additional starts on the week with Mike Daniel, who finished sixth in this race, taking fifth overall for the week with 138 points.

In fact, Talman (159 points) and Dick (156 points) each went on to make a handful of starts with Talman getting the advantage on Dick  in the win column, edging his 3 to 2. Dick’s biggest win was in a 2463 sof race on April 21st when he took the checkers first ahead of John, Derrick Cormier2, Holbrook and Carl Sundberg. Dick dominated the race, leading 111 laps from the pole.
Four drivers made five starts on the week at Thompson. In addition to Talman and Dick filling their hands, David Chmura and Miller each took five green flags in Week Twelve. Talman and Dick were the only two sim racers to take away multiple wins on the week while Miller, Wisniewski, Osborn, Joe Gauthier and Dillon Raffurty each took a trip to Thompson victory lane. Nathan McGee put his Tour Modified on the pole for the week with a lap of 18.340 seconds over Osborn, Richard Smith5, Dick and Talman. The final week of Time Trials went to Talman over Dick, Osborn, Trent Hullum and Pyrtle. The overall title for 2012 Season One went to Osborn, defeating Hullum by 39 points. Completing the top five for the season included Holbrook, Tim Gould and Hilton.

Mungin may have shown a clean pair of heels to the competition in the NiTMS standings, but the racing action was still plenty fierce..

Mungin’s margin of victory in the standings will officially go down as 187 points to last season’s champ Salvatore with a tally of 1817 to 1630. Taylor Meyn (1491) edged out Engelhart (1473) for third in the standings with Dick completing the overall top five (1402). Poleske’s strong finish to the season vaulted him to the top of the Division Two standings with Chmura taking Division Three by 15 points over Zach Brewer. William Kabela locked up Division Four while David Schamp fell 14 points short of his goal in defeating David Ross in Division Five. Timothy Finnegan took a triple digit victory in Division Six as did Division Seven and Eight champs Sebastian Taylor and James Falcon Pratt. Curtis Berleue (32 points) and Nicholas Maxwell (38 points) collected divisional titles in Divisions Nine and Ten for the season, respectively.

Engelhart, owner of Wide Open Racing, was ecstatic with the way his team and champion driver Mungin performed this season. “This is our fourth straight title in the series and it comes with Giovanni, who makes it three different drivers from our team to win the championship,” said Engelhart after the final event of the season. “He is an amazing individual and a great driving talent. He was a real treat to work with this season. He put in massive amounts of time and effort this season into the series from Day One and it showed quickly.”

The 2012 Season Two season for the NASCAR iRacing Tour Modified season begins in May.

Until next time, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

This partnership aims to raise awareness of iGP Manager in Brazil, and encompasses all aspects of the iRacing Brasil live broadcasts, social media, and iRacing Brasil website.

“We’re very happy with this partnership. Having iGP Manager as a partner this season will, without a doubt, help grow our visibility outside of Brazil. We will also be doing our best to ensure iGP Manager has good exposure within Brazil.” says Rafael Sanque, iRacing Brasil’s CEO.

Sign-ups for our seasons are already open, so if you are interested in racing with us, you can visit our website at www.iracingbrasil.com.br

The following championships will be happening in our season 2:

AUT/iGP Manager GT Brasil Cup
Car: Cadillac CTS-V
Slots: 34
Rounds: 5 (no drop-weeks)
Fixed setup
More information at: www.iracingbrasil.com.br

AUT/iGP Manager NASCAR Brasil Cup
Car: Impala B
Slots: 43
Rounds: 10 (2 drop-weeks)
iRating: 2000+
Fixed setup
More information at: www.iracingbrasil.com.br

AUT/iGP Manager Formula Brasil Cup
Car: Dallara Indycar
Slots: 34
Rounds: 10 (2 drop-weeks)
iRating: 2000+
Fixed setup
More information at: www.iracingbrasil.com.br

All the championships promoted by iRacing Brasil counts with live-broadcasts, live race directors, archives about the races, prizes for the top-three drivers, prizes to the champion team, and a sortition between the drivers and much more.

Also, unfortunately we won’t have enough time to finish the English version of our website this season. However, the drivers that are interested in racing with us can email us – iracing@iracingbrasil.com.br, that we will be happy to reply and help you on whatever you need.

Don’t forget to visit our sponsor’s website!
iGP Manager
iRacing Brasil

The Cadillac CTS-V is the all-out racing version of America’s foremost high performance sedan, a car that has already won two of the first three rounds of the 2012 SCCA Pirelli World Challenge. With a V8 producing 460 bhp and a Pratt & Miller-developed chassis that sticks to asphalt like Velcro, the Caddy is one serious race car. Better yet, the CTS-V has automatically been added to everyone’s account, so every iRacer can take it out for an online test drive . . . now.

Other features of the new build include enhanced graphics at Twin Ring Motegi and New Smyrna Speedway, updated aerodynamics on virtually all the NASCAR series cars and a host of improvements to the camera, spotter, telemetry and sound features.

driving simulations

34 sim racers took to the field for Round 5 of the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series (CESCS) at the 3.62km Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on April 7th.  The mixed class online racing series features the Ford Mustang FR500S in the GS Class and the Mazda MX5 Cup in the ST Class.

Qualifying

The top three qualifiers from the previous race at Virginia International Speedway where back at the top again for Mid-Ohio with the #69 of Trace McRae topping the timesheets with a 1:35.246 and Oscar Sahlin in 2nd with a 1:35.767 followed by Russell Klaesson with a 1:35.845.

Aussie James Stevenson qualified 1st in the MX5 class yet again, with a 1:39.109.  But, he was followed closely by two newly recruited drivers in Flavien Vidal and Stefan Overgaard,  with times of 1:39.113 and 1:39.265 respectively.  Another new recruit Dylan Sharman could’ve had pole, posting the fastest time in final practice with a 1:38.702, but was unfortunately unable to match this time in qualifying.

Race Review

So, as we go green the Mustangs are off to a clean start again, and as has become common the early action occurred in the ST class with Wes Earick making contact with Ryan Worley at the Carousel, sending him around and to the rear of the field.  This happened as the leading MX5 driver James Stevenson and 4th placed driver Dylan Sharman pitted for their mandatory pit stop at the end of lap one.

Trace McRae leads the field round China Beach.

On lap 4 the first caution of the day came out for Hang Ho Tao and Chris Moran.  With Tao running wide into China Beach and Moran spinning while trying to avoid Tao as he rejoined the track.  At the end of lap 6 we saw McRae pit from the lead as well 16 other drivers, all deciding to take the opportunity to make their mandatory pit stop while the field was under caution.  Exiting pitlane we saw Steve Brown this time rejoining in front of Trace McRae.  Out in front, with those drivers not having stopped, Oscar Sahlin was now leading back to Russell Klaesson and Alexis Molina in 3rd.

Green conditions were short lived after the restart as we were back under caution again on lap 10 for a stationary David Whamond at the Carousel.  Sahlin took this opportunity to pit from the lead while under caution, handing the lead over to Klaesson.  And, on lap 14 we were back to green with Klaesson leading, Alex Molina second and Stephen McPherson in third.  But, right behind McPherson in 4th place we find Steve Brown leading the charge of those having already pitted, and in prime position to retake the lead once those in front pitted.  And, behind Brown we had the leading MX5′s of Dylan Sharman, Flavien Vidal and James Stevenson, all having already made their pitstops and sitting in positions 5th to 7th outright.

On lap 16 we were yet again under caution.  This time for Worley tapping the rear of Antti Tuominen’s MX5 sending them both into the gravel trap at turn 9.  And, with the pits closed while the pace car picked up the leader, Russell Klaesson found himself caught out having yet to make his mandatory pitstop.  He elected to pit while they are closed, incurring an end-of-line penalty for his actions, sending him to the back of the field.  Also, while under caution Dylan Sharman suffered mechanical gremlins while leading the ST class, as well as sitting in 3rd outright.  He was able to rejoin later, but, his race was over.

Antti Tuominen (#90) spins after a tap from Ryan Worley (#33).

As we begin lap 21 we go green again, and it’s Steve Brown under attack from McRae.  And, with the number of cautions so far, we find the MX5 drivers of Vidal, Stevenson and Jason Bryfogle not only occupying the top 3 positions in their class, but 3rd, 4th and 5th outright.  Turn 11, and McRae goes around the outside of Brown to get the inside line for the Carousel, and take the lead.

Over the following laps battle packs formed between the GS drivers of Edmund Hershberger, David Waters and Oscar Sahlin for 3rd place.  And Vidal, Stevenson and Giancarlo Lenzi for 1st in the ST class.  On lap 25 Waters misses a shift along the straight prior to the keyhole, allowing Sahlin to get by to take 4th place.

Lap 28 - James Stevenson (#11) takes the lead from Flavien Vidal into Turn One.

Lap 28, and Stevenson gets up beside Vidal into turn 1 to take 1st.  Vidal having to roll out of the throttle to slot back in behind, loses momentum, allowing Lenzi to get a run on Vidal and quickly sneak by as well.  But, Flavien was not going to be outdone, and with Lenzi leaving the door open into the keyhole, found Vidal back up the inside to take back a position. Soon after we had our 4th caution of the day.  Replays showing Matthew Reinoehl getting a tap by Jarrett Lawson exiting the Carousel.

On lap 32 the field goes green again…only to be under the 5th caution of the day moments later with Wes Earick, Chris Moran and Ryan Worley all making contact at the keyhole.

Wes Earick (#21), Chris Moran (#19) and Ryan Worley (#33) making contact at the Keyhole.

Lap 36 sees the green again (for the last time), and positions are McRae leading back to Brown and Sahlin in the GS class.  And, Stevenson, Vidal and Lenzi battling for the lead in the ST class.  Lenzi is able to get alongside and past Vidal into China Beach, but, as he turns left into turn 5, he gets a tap from Vidal and spins, with Lenzi losing several positions.

McRae (#69) spins after colliding with Tuominen (#90). Steve Brown in the background.

Lap 45 with a 4 second lead Trace McRae, closes in on Antti Tuominen and John Montoya who are fighting for position in their MX5′s.  Coming around turn 9, Tuominen loses control and spins into the path of McRae and the two make contact sending Trace into a 360 spin.  Trace would fall back to 3rd position.

The closing stages saw Oscar Sahlin challenging Steve Brown hard for the lead, but Brown was able to hold off Sahlin to take his first series win.  Sahlin finished the bridesmaid again, with Klaesson making a hard charging recovery to take the final spot on the podium in the GS class.  The wounded #69 of McRae coming home 4th.  James Stevenson won the ST class for the 4th time, with Lenzi fighting hard to recover in 2nd place and Vidal in 3rd.

So, the finishing positions after a caution-filled race are:-

GS Class Podium
1. Steve Brown (No.82 Buffalo Wild Wings Bar & Grill)
2. Oscar Sahlin (No. 84 The Black Rebels)
3. Russell Klaesson (No. 22 vApex Racing Group / Inside Sim Racing TV)

ST Class Podium
1. James Stevenson (No. 11)
2. Giancarlo Lenzi (No. 02 Team Northwest / Fanatec / NVidia)
3. Flavien Vidal (No. 09)

Race Statistics
Laps completed (by leader):  48 laps
Cars finishing on lead lap: 24
Overall lap leaders:  Trace McRae, Oscar Sahlin, Russell Klaesson, Steve Brown
Full-course Cautions: 5
DNF’s: 4
Fastest Lap (GS class): 1:35.306 – Trace McRae
Fastest Lap (ST Class): 1:39.054 – Arthur Chan
Race Marshal: Mike Perry

The 6th Round of the CESCS will be held at Road America on April 21st.
——————————————————————————–

The CESCS is an official iRacing league which mirrors the Grand-Am Continental Tires Series. It features the Mazda MX-5 Cup competing in Street Touring (ST) and the Ford Mustang FR500S competing in the Grand Sport (GS) class. It was established to provide a proper mixed-class racing experience for drivers of the MX5 and the Mustang beyond what is currently offered and especially to provide a true endurance series for drivers of both vehicles. The schedule aims to replicate the real-world series featuring timed endurance race distances run at the same tracks as the real series including Daytona, Mid-Ohio and, this season, Indianapolis!

You can follow our races streamed live over the internet through GlacierTV or via our Live Timing & Scoring app. Both links are located on our Schedule page.

For more information on the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series check out the official website.

Charlotte Motor Speedway hosts two rounds of the inRacingNews Challenge during 2012 Season 1: the fifth and the 11th. The latter, the penultimate round of the schedule, saw drivers in all three classes – Pontiac Solstice, SpecRacer Ford, and Mazda MX-5 Roadster – attempting to post a strong week in order to throw out a weaker showing from earlier in the season. With only a driver’s best eight of 12 rounds counting in the final standings, anyone with a strong finish at Charlotte could eliminate an off week and move-up the ranks.

Once again, Dylan Sharman paced the Mazda class with 180 points, 35 more than second-place Laurent Beteille. Meanwhile, rookie Omar Soto scored wins in both SRF starts to score an eight point victory on the week over Nicholas Vandal, 181-173. Finally, in Solstice, moonlighting V8 Supercars driver Madison Down made a single start count by scoring a 254-point victory against a strong field, 80 points more than second-place Bryan J Miller could muster.

James Panknin topped the Mazda class with 39 starts, more than twice the amount of any other sim racer, posting four wins and four poles to rank in the top 10 in each category. No driver broke double digits in wins, as Danny Conlon’s seven were best in class, but Conlon managed to score 10 poles to lead that category as well. Elmar Erlekotte returned to the top of the charts in time trials with an 81.975 second lap, but Sharon Sharman and Dylan Sharman posted the fastest qualifying laps at 81.165 and 81.462, respectively.

More than 200 SRF sim racers answered the unique challenges of the CMS "r-oval."

With 27 online races, Dan Babic led all SRF drivers in appearances, and scored a respectable eight wins and 14 poles to rank second in both categories. But it was Chris Hughson whose 21 wins and 26 poles in 26 starts would top both. Meanwhile, five other drivers would score at least five wins, and three would score a minimum of five poles. Mogar DG Filho’s 80.705-second time trial lap edged Frank Bloem by less than a tenth of a second to top that chart, and marginal improvement to 80.435 seconds kept Filho on top in qualifying as well.

John Duffy’s 23 starts led all Solstice drivers, as did his 21 poles, but his six wins only mustered fourth place among all drivers. Miller, who scored 10 wins in 13 starts, led the category, while Hughson and Ralf Janiak each scored eight wins in 10 starts to tie for second. Meanwhile, Miller continued to burn up the speed charts, posting an 81.699-second time trial lap that beat second-place Mihael Vucinic’s time by nearly a full second, and out-qualified top challengers Janiak and David Krikorian (who posted the same lap time) in that session, 81.144 to 81.695.

Only one round remains on the iRNC schedule: a return to the Okayama International Circuit and a week’s worth of racing on its full circuit. The series previously raced there in Week Six, where Mazda’s Dylan Sharman (142 points), SRF’s Tim Bone (180 points), and Solstice’s Sascha Thomaszik (181 points) posted the best performances in their respective classes.

Summit Point Raceway is the de facto home track of the inRacingNews Challenge, hosting four of the 12 rounds on the schedule on its various layouts. Week 10 marks the fourth and final appearance, as the Pontiac Solstices, SpecRacer Fords and Mazda MX-5 Roadsters of the series jostle for position in the final stages of the online racing championship.

Dylan Sharman capped-off yet another class-leading week in Mazda with a class-leading 153 points, scoring the win from the pole in all four of his starts. Tim Bone topped a hotly-contested week in SRF with 155 points, beating Roope Turkkila by a single point and Niccolo Cedrati by only six. Finally, in Solstice, Bryan J Miller’s 168-point performance beat Chris Hughson by 12 points, as each sim racer only failed to win one of their 16 and 10 starts, respectively.

Four drivers sampled the Mazda 20 or more times on the week, including James Panknin, who led the class with 25 starts. But in their 91 combined starts, they only totaled 12 wins and 13 poles, and seven of each were taken by one driver, Yury Vaskow (23 starts). Those numbers would be good for at least a share of second in both categories, but it was Sharon Sharman who posted the most of both, with 10 apiece in a dozen starts. David Mata posted the fastest time trial lap (65.878s), while Dylan Sharman’s 65.063s set the bar in qualifying.

Marko Nikolic led the SRF class with 26 starts, posting eight wins and nine poles, which would both rank him second on the week. Simon Ayton was the only other driver to break 20 starts, winning five times and scoring eight poles in those events. But it was Hughson, who ranked fourth in points on the week with 143, who led those categories: he scored 15 wins and 14 poles in his 15 starts. Frank Bloem edged Cedrati for the fastest time trial lap, 65.082 seconds to 65.114, but Turkkila, Mogar DG Filho, and Bone all blew those times away in qualifying with remarkably close lap times. They posted laps of 64.721, 64.752, and 64.754, respectively.

With 18 starts, Eric Laval led the Solstice class in participation, posting a respectable five wins and seven poles. But it was Miller and Caleb Paul (tied for second with 16 starts apiece) who posted the biggest statistical weeks: Miller led the field with 15 wins and 16 poles, while Paul tied for second (with Hughson) with nine wins and held it outright in poles with 12. Miller’s 66.402-second lap in time trials was nearly a second better than the second-best lap; Miller also posted the fastest qualifying lap with a 66.158, but top drivers like Michael Booth, Nenad Matijevic, and Hughson all caught up to within a second of him.

Weeks 11 and 12 of the season will take on a very familiar form, as the series will return to the same sites it visited in Weeks Five and Six: the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, and the full Okayama International layout. Charlotte will be the primary concern for these drivers as the penultimate round, and they’ll have to knock-off the defending race winners from Week Five: Daniel Schon (Mazda, 161 points), Filho (SRF, 176 points), and Marius Golombeck (Solstice, 206 points).

The field ready for the challenge ahead, or are they?

Picking up his third pole of the season with a 22.321s lap was Chris Cahoe.  Second spot went to Randy Crossno (22.334s), third was Tim Doyle (22.350s), with brothers Chris Manifold fourth (22.401s) and Scott Manifold fifth with a 22.429s.

From the drop of the green flag, third-starting Doyle wasted no time trying to get to the front of the field.  Going into turn one on the opening lap, Doyle went low, making the pass on Crossno for second and then attempted the same move on Cahoe in turns three and four.  While Cahoe would lead the first lap, Doyle would secure the top spot with a pass and near contact in turns three and four on the next lap and set sail.

Three wide early in the event out of turn two.

Before the race’s first yellow on lap nine for the spinning car of Albert Soler in turn two, Doyle had built a 1.087s lead over Cahoe.  The battle for second was tight between Cahoe, Crossno, Joe Branch, C. Manifold and Cary Bettenhausen, all running within a car length or two of each other.  The ensuing restart however resulted in many cars being involved and yet another DNF for driver Neffry Aawg who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In all, a total of seven cars suffered some form of contact or damage from the restart mishap.

Complete chaos on a lap nine restart!

When the race restarted on lap 18, the field was able to get some laps under green with Doyle once again pulling away from the second place car of Cahoe and the remainder of the field.  The second caution period was for the car of John Gilbert, making only his second ever IndyCar start.  Exiting turn four, Gilbert made contact with the outside wall before coming back across the track and making hard contact with the inside front stretch wall.

The race would continue on with various self spins bringing out a yellow every 10-15 laps.  Each time Doyle would pull away leaving the battle for second place.    A frustrating day for many of the drivers who enjoy running here.  In the end though Doyle would score a convincing win over Branch, who ran as low as eighth position at one point in the race.  Cahoe held onto third over an impressive fourth place run for Crossno.  Al Nagy picked up his first top 5 of the season, finishing in fifth.

Race ends behind the pace car yet again.

Race Stats-

Laps-  130
Pole-  Chris Cahoe
Lead changes-  7
Cautions-  10
Caution laps-  39
Lap leaders-  Cahoe 1; Doyle 2-34; S. Manifold 35-36; Doyle 37-57; Cahoe 58-68; Doyle 69-81; Todd Bettenhausen 82; Doyle 83-130.
Margin of victory-  -00.316
Hard charger-  Fabio Pierotti (13 spots)
Biggest loser-  Scott Manifold (14 spots)
Laps lead-  Doyle (115)
Fastest lap-  Doyle, 22.547 lap 116

Top 5-
1-  Tim Doyle
2-  Joe Branch
3-  Chris Cahoe
4-  Randy Crossno
5-  Al Nagy

Cars finishing-  11

DNF-  David Wright, Albert Soler, Guy Vandiver, Aawg, Gilbert, John Ahles, S. Manifold, David Ogden, Eric Vanek, David B Jackson, Sebastian Taylor, Michael Peters, C. Manifold, Robert Bohanek.

Adam Gilliland is in a hurry . . . on the virtual race tracks of iRacing.com where he can usually be found out front or battling for the lead, or in a sim racing career he is anxious to take to the next level.  How else to describe a driver who, at age 16, ranks his greatest disappointment in sim racing as falling just short of qualifying for the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series?

The young Texan has rebounded rather nicely from that set-back, and currently finds himself ensconced in fourth place in both the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series and the Class C Series (Fixed Setup).  Gilliland may not be totally happy with a pair of fourth places – they are, after all, three spots shy of his goal.  But when you consider he placed 15th in the 2011 Season 4 Class C (Fixed) standings (one better than a guy named Scott Speed) and P14 in the 2011 Season 3 Class A standings, you’ve got to like the way things are trending . . .

Q:     How long have you been sim racing?
A:     I have been Sim Racing since 2009. That’s when I first started doing what I consider sim racing; before that the only real thing I had tried with racing was EA Nascar Games.

Gilliland has piloted the GSRacing.net Impala to eight top fives and fourth place overall in the Season 1 Class A series.

Q:     What attracted you to iRacing?
A:     What originally attracted me to iRacing was the realism from the videos I had seen on youtube and from what friends had told me.

Q:     What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?
A:     My favorite car on iRacing is the Class A Chevrolet Impala; my second favorite car is the Chevrolet Silverado and my favorite track is Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Q:     What do you like most about iRacing?
A:     What I like most about iRacing is the competition and the drive to be competitive and be up front with the top guys.

Q:     What would you change about iRacing?
A:     iRacing really has a couple things I would like to see added, not really changed . . . except for maybe the tire. I would like to see a tire similar to real life where there is separation between the cars over a long run.

Gilliland (20) can typically be found at the front of the Class A action.

Q:     How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A:     I spend 2-3 hours practicing for Class A and probably total (with racing and practicing) 8 hours a week.

Q:     Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s).
A:     I am currently sponsored by GSRacing.net on the Cup Side for my journey to make pro. On my truck side I am not currently sponsored. I like to run Alpinestars as a primary sponsor as I use a lot of their products and I like the logo.

Q:     What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A:     I run NR2003 league races with friends occasionally.

Q:     What are your favorite video games?
A:     My favorite video game series is the GTA series and the Call of Duty series.

Q:     What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A:     My most memorable moment on iRacing was finishing third in the 2011 Pro Series final race at Kentucky as an A class driver.

“My desire to be competitive and have fun is not only something only I like to do, it’s the desire that thousands of sim racers have worldwide.”

Q:     What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A:     The iRacing memory I would most like to forget was finishing 13th in the 2011 Season 3 class A points, and missing Pro by 6 points.

Q:     What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A:    The car I would most like to see added would probably have to be a shifter kart and the track(s) I would like to see added would be Kansas and Rockingham.

Q:     What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A:     I admire Dale Earnhardt the most because if his willingness to win and his respect that most people in the garage gave him.

Gilliland celebrates one of his 22 wins (so far) in Season 1 Class C competition.

Q:     What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A:     My favorite series is NASCAR Sprint Cup Series second favorite would be the NASCAR Nationwide Series.

Q:     Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A:     The Blink of an Eye: Dale, Daytona, and the Day That Changed Everything.

Q:     Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
A:     Storage Wars, Inside NASCAR

Q:     How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A:     Four

Q:     Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A:     Yes very much so. It shows that my desire to be competitive and have fun is not only something only I like to do, it’s the desire that thousands of sim racers have worldwide.

Week Four of the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series kicked-off in the small town of Braselton, Georgia, home of Road Atlanta.  The 12 turn, 2.54 mile road course proved to be an exciting and challenging configuration for the 84 sim racers who competed this week as some new names and upsets filled the podium positions in the five official online races of the week.

The first race of the week during the 10:00 GMT timeslot produced the most exciting finish of the week.  The 21 drivers who elected to compete combined their iRating for the highest Strength of Field (SoF) race of the week at 2427. The Flawless Floridian (aka Christian Aranha) started on the pole and led the field to green. Two laps in, Aranha made his first real mistake of the season and went wide in a blind right hand corner and dropped all the way back to the 10th position. Aranha was able to recover though and salvaged a podium spot in third position.

With Aranha working his way through the field, the battle for the lead was up in the air between Teemu Vuolle and Janne Kyokka. Kyokka proved to be the most consistent however, leading 21 laps out of the 25 lap race after Vuolle went off the track at mid-race. Kyokka crossed the line first, bringing Aranha’s undefeated streak to an end. But don’t be fooled, just a tenth of a second back was Riku Alatalo who moved into second after Vuolle’s gaffe and applied pressure to Kyokka the remainder of the race. Aranha finished a mere .2s adrift of Kyokka in an attempt to save his undefeated streak. Kyokka earned 153 points for his victory, the most of any driver of the week. Aranha, your overall points leader, dropped this race in search of a higher points payout during one of the afternoon races.

Krumm (3), Coppedge (1) and Yamin (2) battle for the win at Road Atlanta.

The first split of the 20:00 GMT timeslot saw Aranha back in his element. He started on the pole, and lead all 25 laps en route to a victory over Kurt Krumm, who trailed just over 12 seconds back. Rounding out the podium was third-placed Jeroen Ganzeveld, just a tenth of second behind Krumm. The 2419 SoF enabled Aranha to earn 152 points for his victory, just one point off of the points payday earned by the lone driver who has (so far) defeated the Flawless Floridian this season — Kyokka. Krumm, another contender in the series, earned 143 points for his second place finish.

“Started from pole again and took advantage of some mistakes behind me,” Aranha said.  “This allowed me to get a two second gap which is just enough to start breaking free from the draft here. After I got rid of the draft I set down very fast laps and was able to break away.”

“After I got rid of the draft I set down very fast laps and was able to break away.” — Christian Aranha

The second split of the 20:00 GMT timeslot was also won in standard “Skip Barber” fashion.  Jan Niesiolowski, a driver too familiar with finishing on the podium, earned his first career win in the iRacing.com  Skip Barber Racing School Series by leading all 25 laps and beating the field by a whopping 27 seconds. Like Aranha, Niesiolowski earned 152 points for his victory over Marco Corti and Martin Ascher who rounded out the podium in the 2412 SoF race.  David Williams, who gave Aranha a run for his money in the early rounds of the season, finished fourth and effectively bowed-out of the championship running.

“With GT Academy coming up and the iRacing.com Grand Prix World Championship Series still ongoing, I think I’ve had enough of this series – regrettably,” said Williams.  “Good luck to Christian and the others. (It) was fun for a short while.”

Williams’ decision to drop out of the series was taken very well by his fellow competitors, as they respect the level of dedication and time for competing on the World Championship level of the road racing discipline.

The final two races of the week (2:00 GMT timeslot) had the two weakest SoF’s. The first split featured a three way battle between Krumm, Amjed Yamin and Duncan Coppedge who all exchanged blows vying for the top spot. Krumm however was able to outrace his two fellow competitors, leading 22 laps and crossing the stripe by nearly half a second over Yamin and just over six tenths on Coppedge. Despite the win, the weak SoF (2080) allowed Krumm to drop this race.

Split two had a slightly higher SoF compared to the first split of the hour — 2153 which was the second lowest out of the five official races of the week.  Nevertheless the battle for the lead was intense, as Curtis Fung and Jim Shedlick broke away and swapped the lead back and forth.   Fung ultimately gained the upper hand, leading 21 of the 25 laps en route to victory by nearly .8s over Shedlick. Gary Teall rounded out the podium in third, finishing roughly 25 seconds back. Fung earned 136 points for his victory and Shedlick was able to solidify 128 points for his strong second place run.

At the end of week four, Aranha still stands atop of the leaderboard with 583 points.  Stuart Adcock and Krumm share the second spot with 538 points (45 points back). Marco Corti (534) sits in fourth wit Shedlick (507) rounding-out the top five.

In two weeks, the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series will travel to historic Watkins Glen. The series overall is really taking shape, with Kyokka finally breaking Aranha’s undefeated streak two months into the competition. Meanwhile, series regulars and fans are dealing with the shock of Williams’ decision to withdraw from the series in order to focus on the iGPWCS.   Will Aranha be able to continue his reign at the top of the leader board? The answers will come when the series returns to action on May 2 at the Glen.

The NiSWC stars came out to play at TMS, with Alfalla (1) and Kevin King (2) each visiting Victory Lane.

Both Jared Crawford and Jason Karlavige took the week off, as the NiCAS Division One Championship is all but decided. With Crawford out it opened the door for NiSWC driver Robert Hall to sneak in and lead the way, with 330 points to put himself at the top. The 330 points was even more impressive after Hall started three races, so despite having to average his best two finishes, he finished at the point. Brandon Schmidt continued his solid season, both he and Casey Malone are looking ahead to the 2012 NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) as they finish the week in Texas second and third overall.

It was a blast from the past in the overall start leaders this week, with Al Rodriguez and Terry Garska leading the way. Rodriguez and Garska led the way just about every week last season, but have been quiet thus far in 2012 Season One. Rodriguez put it to good use, leading the way in top fives as well with twelve, and scoring one victory. Experience is big in Texas, and it was the former NiSWC driver tandem of Steven Gilbert and Greg Spears leading the way with four wins in a week where seventeen sim racers found victory lane more than once.

The NiCAS produced its fair share of mayhem in the Lone Star state.

With only one week to go in the season, the race to make the top twelve among Class A licensed drivers, thus locking yourself into the 2012 NiPS, has all but settled out. Cody Byus currently holds the final seat by 74 points over the DE-AT-CH club member Jorn Jens. Both Jens and Ashley Miller still have a realistic shot at making it it Byus slips, but that has not been the case as of lat as Byus tries to close out the season strong.

Next week will not only host an exciting night race at the tricky Kentucky Speedway, it will be the final week of 2012 Season One. For bubble drivers the season is far from over, as they head into the biggest week of their season. Although in only the first of three season to make it into the NiPS, it is important to get it done early because in racing, anything can happen.

Jason Karlavige leading the race.

The high Strength of Field race for Week 11 took place Thursday night. The race had 28 drivers and SoF of 4596, which pays 294 points to win. Jason Karlavige (Pennsylvania) dominated the race starting on the pole and leading all 100 laps while also setting the fasted lap of the race. NiSWC driver Tyler D Hudson (Mid-South) finished in the second position, less than one second off the lead. Hudson started the race 19^th, picking off 17 spots throughout the race. For his effort, Hudson received 283 points. Devan Hall (Georgia) finished in the third position, three seconds behind Karlavige. Hall received 272 points. Ander Shirley (Mid-South) and Juhring rounded out the Top Five. Shirley finished the race just over three seconds behind while Juhring was over six seconds behind. For their efforts, Shirley and Juhring received 261 and 250 points respectively. The race only had two cautions for eight laps.

Click here to watch the race.

Brad Mahar (12) battling Ian Hann (25).

At the end of the week, Phil Juhring was at the top of the weekly standings. Juhring only ran one race and netted 250 points. Hudson finished the week in the second position after attempting five races, winning two and finishing in the Top Five in all his races. Hudson finished the week with 231 points. Jason Karlavige finished third after dominating the SoF race. Karlavige attempted seven races, winning six and finishing the week with 225 points. Alex Scribner (Texas) finished the week in the fourth position after running three races. Scribner won one of his three races and had an average finish of seventh. Scribner finished the week with 210 points. Brad Mahar rounded out the Top Five after only attempting one race. Mahar finished ninth in his only race and finished the week with 206 points.

Phil Juhring maintained his championship point lead after Week 11. Juhring lost three points to Mahar after Texas but still maintains a healthy 195 point lead. John Bunton (Carolina) moved to the third position after Week 11, knocking Brandon Buie to fourth. Bunton has 1466 points while Buie has 1438 points. Jeffrey Parker rounds out the Top Five with 1430 points.

Jukka Savolainen (Finland) once again found himself on top of the qualifying charts with a 28.937 second lap. Karlavige finished the week in second with a 28.955 while Juhring finished in the third position with a 29.020. Jared Crawford (Michigan) finished the week in the fourth position with a 29.027 while Hall finished in the fifth position with a 29.045 second lap.

For the final week of the season, the NiCBS travels to Richmond, Virginia to race on the ¾ mile Richmond International Speedway. Phil Juhring has a lock on the championship while Brad Mahar has comfortable lead for second. The rest of the Top Five is up for grabs. Who will finish the season strong and cement the positions in the Top Five? Find out next week at InRacingNews!

Sebring's turn one is one of the most challenging corners at this historic racetrack.

With the Italian taking pole in the 17:15GMT race, he was joined by Davy Decorps on the front row with the Frenchman looking to fully secure his Pro license, meanwhile Finns Riku Alatalo and Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola slotted behind them on the second row. Dell’Orco’s start was good but Decorps’ was even better, enabling him to snatch the lead from the Italian on lap 4. However a quick loss of concentration as he was lapping a slower car saw Decorps miss his braking point for Turn 7 – despite a relatively low speed impact, the front end damage was considerable enough to force him out of the race.

This promoted Dell’Orco to the lead again with Alatalo following in close pursuit whilst his fellow Finn Uusi-Jaakkola was forced to retire due to an earlier spin. After the pitstops the top five would be Dell’Orco, Alatalo, Slocombe, Urbizu and Schulz. Not much would happen upfront until the chequered flag loomed large. As the ticker hit lap 33, the leader – Dell’Orco spun exiting Turn 5 hairpin collecting damage which saw him drop to second behind Alatalo who could take a surprise victory, with Slocombe slotting third followed by Pro license hunter Urbizu and Schulz in fourth and fifth respectively.

Decorps missed his braking point for Turn 7 - despite a relatively low speed impact, the front end damage was considerable enough to force him out of the race.

19:15GMT would be similar to the previous race as Dell’Orco and Decorps occupied the front-row with Alatalo and Uusi-Jaakola behind them again. This time Dell’Orco was past by both cars nearest behind him at the start. Uusi-Jaakkola’s day went from bad to worse however as he spun his tires on the launch unfortunately forcing him sideways into the path of DWC driver Slocombe who started fifth. The top 3 would break away from the rest of the field with this incident, promoting Richie Stanaway to fourth and Marcus Caton sitting in fifth, hunting for a high score after Urbizu’s strong result in the previous race.

This notoriously difficult track always produces retirements and it’s next victim was Alatalo, who put a tire on the grass in Turn 1 on lap 7, resulting in a spin and a violent impact with the armco, forcing the Finn into an early retirement. This promoted Xavier Busoms to fifth as he started chasing Marcus Caton for the crucial points needed to claim the last Pro license realistically on offer. After a race-long battle, Caton managed to hold Busoms off for fourth and take one crucial step to cementing his name in the 2012 Pro Series. As the lone duo of Decorps and Dell’Orco broke away from the rest of the pack following Alatalo’s retirement, Frenchman Decorps never gave Dell’Orco a chance to attempt a pass for the lead to claim his second SoF victory this season. Real life driver Richie Stanaway completed the podium picture.

Stanaway took the last podium position in the 19:15GMT race.

The last week of the Series moves to Silverstone Circuit as Week 11 absentee Jake Stergios is set for a back-to-back championship win followed by 1st placed A-Class driver Dell’Orco. The fight for the positions are very much alive behind him as Ryan Terpstra in 4th and Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola in 7th are separated by only 31 points heading into the final week. Meanwhile whilst nine drivers now look set for receiving their coveted Pro licenses at the end of the season, the battle for 10th and the final Pro-license between Xavier Busoms, Pierre Urbizu and Marcus Caton is reaching boiling point as we enter the final week of the season with all three fighting it out to wear the black stripe. Only one driver can be victorious so any slip-ups could be fatal as twelve weeks of work will be decided this Sunday.

Alfalla (2) managed to keep Berry (72) at bay over the final laps at Texas Motor Speedway,

“It was a very stressful end to the race, definitely lost a few years on that one,” Alfalla said after his win. “The race was very interesting the way it turned out, starting off with over 120 laps of green I think. It was fun seeing everyone’s strategy develop throughout the race, and being able to set myself in position to win at the end.”

While Nick Ottinger put his Chevy Impala on pole for the third time this season, it was Berry who dominated the first two-thirds of the online race. He took the lead on Lap Two and led a race-high 119 of 167 laps, finally losing the lead when he chose to pit under the first yellow flag.

Due to the long green run, and some drivers being able to stretch their fuel farther than others, multiple strategies started to evolve. Some drivers, such as Alfalla and Berry got good enough fuel mileage to go the distance on only two pit stops, while others needed three.

Berry (72) made short work of Nick Ottinger (05) and dominated the first part of the race.

When the first yellow flew, both Alfalla and Berry were within their two stop windows, but each decided to come to pit road, with Berry taking four tires while Alfalla opted to take two and gain track position. With the running order shuffled by the pit stop action, Alfalla (fourth) and Berry (sixth) re-started nose-to-tail and the race became a question of who could get through the traffic the fastest.

Although neither had much trouble passing the drivers on old tires on their march to the front, Berry looked to be the quicker of the two once both had a few laps on their tires. Unfortunately for Berry, seven caution flags over the last 47 laps derailed any hope he had of challenging for the lead.

In addition to putting Alfalla atop the seasonal win column, the victory also moved Alfalla to the top of the series standings. He currently sits six points ahead of Michael Conti, who had an up and down day in the Lone Star state, but recovered nicely to finish fourth. Brian Schoenburg is 23 points back of the lead in third after his ninth place finish, with Robert Hall another ten markers back in fourth. Carson McClelland occupies the fifth spot, but is over a full race’s worth of points behind Alfalla.   So although there are still twelve races remaining in the season, it appears the championship battle is a four man battle at this point. Anyone farther back will have to go on a mid-season tear to get t back in the mix.

Main (38) led briefly, but on worn tires he was no match for Alfalla and Berry.

After three straight 1.5 mile tracks, the NiSWC moves back to a short track for Week Six of the season, as the best names in oval sim racing pay their annual visit to Richmond International Raceway. The .75 mile track is often referred to as ‘the short track that drives like a speedway’ and features high speeds and close, door-to-door racing and plenty of contact. Alfalla won here last year in dominating fashion, and a repeat victory would widen his advantage over Conti and the rest of the field. Will anyone be able to slow Alfalla down, or will his momentum carry him to his third win of 2012? Tune into iRacing Live in two weeks’ time to watch all the action unfold from Richmond!

With the final checkered flags for 2012 Season One in sight, the drivers of the inRacingNews Challenge are looking to improve on past weeks and finish-out the season strong. But with plenty of online racing left on the schedule, none of the drivers in the Pontiac Solstice, SpecRacer Ford, or Mazda MX-5 Roadster classes will be looking to back-off for the rest of the season.

Week Nine saw the series take on Lime Rock Park for the second time this season, this time utilizing the chicane layout. In a low-points week for Mazda, Dylan Sharman’s 125 points led all sim racers, as he won in all three of his starts. In Solstice, Marius Golombeck’s two wins were good for a class-leading 174 points, beating Chris Hughson by 12. In SRF, Mitch Weatherly was the big winner on the week, beating a strong field in his lone race to score 201 points.

With 18 starts, Mark Roddy led all Mazda drivers in participation, but failed to score any wins or poles. The big scorer on the week was Fabio Enders, who led the class in both wins and poles with 12 starts apiece. But it was Sharon Sharman who posted the best winning percentage of the week, scoring six wins and five poles in six starts. Elmar Erlekotte posted the fastest time trial lap, a 1:01.009, but Daniel Schon (1:00.033) and Sharon (1:00.044) and Dylan (1:00.098) Sharman both beat Erlekotte’s 1:00.243 in qualifying.

Hughson and Bryan J Miller were the top two drivers in Solstice, with each posting their traditionally strong weeks. With 14 races run, Hughson started one more race than Miller, but they tied in wins with 10 apiece. Miller also posted more poles, topping Hughson by a 13 to seven advantage. Miller’s 1:01.030 edged Golombeck’s 1:01.115 for fastest time trial lap; they remained 1-2 in qualifying, with the lap times shaved to 1:00.416 and 1:00.488, respectively.

Hughson posted a similarly strong week in SRF. With 18 starts, 14 wins, and 14 poles, he led each major statistical category. Wolfgang Rachbauer ranked second in each category, posting seven wins and eight poles in his 14 starts. Frank Bloem’s 1:00.706 time trial lap beat Niccolo Cedrati, the only other driver to crack the 61-second barrier in that session, but Roope Turkkila posted the fastest qualifying lap with a 1:00.160.

Three races remain in the iRNC schedule. The first is a return to Summit Point Raceway for the fourth and final time this season, this time running on the short configuration. Last season, Michael Booth’s 140 points topped the Solstice class, while Kalle Ruokola’s 188 points led all SRF drivers. The final two races of the season, meanwhile, will be a repeat of Weeks Five and Six – Charlotte Motor Speedway’s road course, and Okayama International Circuit’s full course.

Huttu and Luis set-off on their epic battle at Sebring.

Starting from pole-position following a qualifying lap of 1:28.184, Huttu made a clean getaway as the lights went out, to lead My3id’s Hugo Luis through the bumpy Turn One, and maintain their one-two positions. Locked together by a gap that barely touched a second, the two champions played-out a nose to tail ballet, as they broke clear of third placed Luke McLean, and then headed to pit-road for the first time.  Whilst Luis pulled in for service on Lap 21, Huttu elected to stop one-circuit later, which was enough for the Finn to extend his lead to four-seconds by the time he’d taken fuel and tyres.

“My start was good this time and I held the lead on the first lap,” Huttu explained. “From there it was just about trying to break away from the guys behind. Hugo stayed within a second all throughout the stint but I got a bit of a gap by pitting one lap later than him. I was able to increase the lead to around four-seconds but then suffered more from traffic and lost a couple of seconds.”

“It’s great to get a win from what was a tough race!” — Greger Huttu

Undeterred by the seemingly daunting margin, Luis unleashed a string of qualifying-style laps, then took advantage of traffic to close the gap to Huttu by the time the pair entered pit lane together for their final scheduled stops on Lap 37.  Leaving pit-lane in the same style and positions they entered, ‘normal service’ was resumed as Luis searched for a way around Huttu for the remaining 15 laps. But despite staying within the leader’s wake until the chequered flag, the Brazilian was unable to find a way past or force an error, as the Team Redline principle scored his third win of the 2012 iGPSWC.

Luis filled Huttu's mirrors but could not find a way around the flying Finn.

“I was within a second from Greger for most part of the race, trying to do my best to decrease the gap to him and put some pressure on,” Luis summarised. “But it stayed like that for the whole race.  I could decrease the gap in the very last laps and was on his gearbox in the last lap but it would not be enough to attempt a pass. That was a great finish!”

Huttu, who could only muster a fifth place finish on the concrete of Sebring in 2011, was in agreement with his rival.

“It’s great to get a win from what was a tough race!” he said.  “Hugo was close behind all through it but I managed to drive a smooth race and avoid making mistakes.

“We made our second stops on the same lap so from there I just had to make sure not to make any mistakes because it’s almost impossible to overtake otherwise. Happy with the clean race I did to get the win and an awesome result for the team as well with four of us in the top-five!”

“That was a great finish!” — Hugo Luis

Indeed it was a good day for Team Redline.  Luke McLean’s second podium finish of the season was far from a comfortable run to third spot, the same position he gridded. For most of the 52 lap race, the Australian had his mirrors filled with the virtual Williams-Toyota FW31 of his Redline team-mate, Atze Kerkhof, with the only respite coming during his second stint. But even that proved to be short lived, as Kerkhof reeled-in the sister car by the time they both headed to the pits for the final time. Holding his nerve for the closing stages, McLean managed a two-second gap to the Dutchman, and secured his podium finish at the line.

McLean stayed with Huttu and Luis initially but, despite setting fastest lap of the race, finished 9.7s adrift of the top two fiinshers.

“I got a solid start and followed Hugo for the first few laps and was actually quite comfortable,” McLean said. “But like last season I had some big moments with the curbs which totally screwed my rhythm, and this happened sporadically throughout the race. Apart from that, during clean laps my pace was decent relative to Greger, Hugo and Atze [Kerkhof] so I am happy to come out alive with a podium.”

Although Ben Cornett struggled with a heavy fuel load in the early stages of the race, the Australian bounced back in the latter stages to convert his ninth on the grid to a top-five finish, ahead of Western Wolves Racing’s Jake Stergios. By the time Cornett had exited the pits on Lap 24, he had worked his Team Redline Williams-Toyota FW31 into eighth and was greeted with a relatively ‘traffic free’ Sebring International ahead of him. Using the clean air to his advantage, Cornett increased his margin over Stergios to two-seconds by the time they completed their second pit stops. Whilst Stergios brought the gap down in the closing stages, the American ran out of laps and Cornett secured fifth, with one-second in his pocket.

Cornett fended-off Stergios' advances to claim fifth spot.

Orion Racing’s Roland Ehnström may have dropped two-places from his top-five starting position, but it could have been worse as he survived a Lap 18 collision with Andre Boettcher and a rally-cross trip around Turn One.  After taking repairs a couple of laps later, the Swede worked his way from twelfth to eighth by the time he’d made a second scheduled visit to the pits.  As the race reached its closing stages, Ehnström caught up to Radical Racing’s Blake Townend and in a pass that ran from Turn 17 all the way to Turn One, secured the seventh spot with five laps remaining.

Ehnström (left) rebounded from this coming-together with Boettcher to take a top ten finish.

By hanging-on Ehnström’s coat-tails for most of the 52 lap race, My3id’s Martin Kronke transformed his ninth row start into a ninth place finish, four seconds ahead of Radical’s Samuel Libeert.

With four rounds of the iRacing.com Grand Prix World Championship Series complete, Huttu enjoys a commanding 42 point lead over My3id’s Hugo Luis, who has 143 to his name. With no ‘dropped’ results this season, it’s still all to play for, especially Luke McLean occupying third in the Championship on 113 points, 11 more than Jaroslav Honzik, who drops to fourth following his eleventh place finish at Sebring.

Round Five of the championship heads to iRacing’s digital rendition of Okayama International on April 29, with full coverage on iRacing Live.

The Magic Mile was a stroll for some NiCAS competitors, a hair-raising experience for others..

At this point in the season, it is no surprise to anyone to hear the words “Jared Crawford dominates…again.” That is the case once again as the Division One points leader tries to wrap-up the overall championship, along with the coveted number one seed into this year’s NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS). Crawford led 83 of the 110 laps in this week’s top scored race, all the while posting the fastest lap of the race over a tenth faster than anyone else. These 332 points will actually be on the low side in a season that Crawford has averaged a historic 339.5 points per week.

While Crawford tries to run and hide, Pennsylvania’s Jason Karlavige tries to hunt him down. Despite having a less than stellar week in New Hampshire, Karlavige still has an outside chance, being only 58 points out with two weeks remaining.

One sim racer just hoping to race his way into the top twelve, which would earn him a seat in the 2012 NiPS, is Richard Dusett. Being a bubble driver, Dusett needs a strong close to the season, and he came up big at the flat one mile. Leading sixteen laps and finishing second in the race won by Crawford, Dusett earned 320 huge points and now sits ninth among Class A licensed drivers in the standings. Defending series champion Kile Gottula, Casey Malone, and Dylan Duval are a few of the other NiPS hopefuls having solid weeks in the northeast.

When the NiCAS heads to the more difficult tracks, weekly statistics tend to slide with people afraid to attack the track. However not so bad this week, with lots of drivers embracing the challenge. A well known sim racer who is fast no matter what car he’s in or what track he’s at is Dwayne Vincent, and he led the way in starts, wins and top fives. Starting twelve races and earning a top five in ten of them, to go along with three wins, it’s a safe bet to say New Hampshire is high on the list of Vincent’s favorite tracks. Vincent was the only one of the seven drivers who raced ten or more times to score a win, despite most drivers scoring multiple top five finishes.

Next week it is back to the high speed and high banks, this time in the form of Texas Motor Speedway. TMS is always a favorite among competitors, with speeds topping 205 and the tight confines make it feel even faster. This trip bares even more importance as the season begins to come to a close, and the race for the top twelve heats up. Be sure to check back at inRacingNews.com next week for the full recap.

The highest strength of field (sof) race for Round Nine took place on March 29th. The 75-lap online race at the Milwaukee Mile was set at 4293 sof and was so strong that the top five in this race would end up in the top five on the weekly standings sheet. Mungin started from the pole and led 60 of the laps in the race, which saw three cautions and the lead exchanged thrice amongst three drivers. Reigning NiTM champ Brandon Salvatore led 13 laps before having to settle for second, ahead of Herb Engelhart, James Poleske and Shane Kline. Mungin’s prize for the win was 261, while Salvatore put 234 in the books for his efforts.

The historic Milwaukee Mile hosted Week 9 of the NiTMS.

Trent Hullum, Brett Osborn and Jeremy Williams each made four starts at the Milwaukee Mile, which set the bar for starts in Week Nine. Mungin and Osborn each took two trips to victory lane with Gary Holbrook, Samuel Dick, Engelhart, Zach Brewer and Bruce Hilton each recording one win at Milwaukee. Mungin’s quick time of 27.986 seconds in qualifying was tops over Salvatore, Engelhart, Dick and Derrick Cormier2. Kline was on top when it came to the Time Trial competition over Osborn, Holbrook, Hullum and Hilton.

While Mungin was the weekly point winner during Round Ten at USA International Speedway, it was Pennsylvania sim racer Samuel Dick who took the honors in the highest sof race of the week. Dick captured a 3674 sof race on April 7th, which featured one caution over the 100-laps of the event. Dick would lead wire-to-wire from the pole, coming home ahead of Cormier2, Osborn, Poleske and James Hearns. The margin of victory was just over two seconds. Dick would go on to make two additional starts on the week, which affected his point total and relegated him to fifth in the weekly standings with 173 points. Cormier2’s 204 points for second place placed him second overall for the week.

Mungin’s win would tip the sof scale at 3470. The race which saw him overtake the field for the weekly point win happened on April 5th and would feature four yellow flag periods. Mungin, who started from the pole, led all but one lap in the race en route to the win over Jamie Collier, Poleske, Ray Farlow and Richard Smith5. Mungin’s win was worth 217 points while the finishes of Poleske (189) and Farlow (176) placed them third and fourth in the standings respectively for the week. Collier would finish sixth on the weekly standings after winning twice in a total of four starts at USA.

14 of the 100+ Tour Mods to tackle USA International Speedway prepare for the green flag.

Chad Wills was the busiest driver of the week, punching the clock for eight races in the virtual Florida sun. Jerold John has a trio of wins, the most of any other driver of the week. He joined Dick, Collier, Williams, Rick Webster, Sebastian Taylor, Hearns, Darrell Pyrtle, Michael Morrison2, Steven Clagg, David Markham and Mungin as winners on Week Ten. Salvatore was the quick man in qualifying, posting a time of 19.637 seconds at USA. He was quicker in the qualifying sessions for the week over Mungin, Dick, Nathan McGee and Collier. Gary Holbrook took the top honors in Time Trials over Larry Pyrtle, Osborn, Morrison2 and Justin Chase.

Mungin has a huge advantage with two weeks to go over Salvatore as he leads the reigning champ by 284 points, 1817-1533. Taylor Meyn (1491) occupies third with Engelhart (1401) and Dick (1384) rounding out the top five. Divisional leaders from Divisions Two to Ten include David Markham, David Chmura, William Kabela, David Ross, Timothy Finnegan, David MacDougall, James Falcon Pratt, Curtis Berleue and Nicholas Maxwell. Two leaders only have single digit leads with Ross leading David Schamp by nine points in Division Five and MacDougall pacing Sebastian Taylor by eight points in Division Seven.

The series heads back to New England to close off the 2012 Season One schedule. The North East swing will begin with 75-lap events at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Who will take away the final few checkered flags of the season? Find out here at inRacingNews!

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

It figures that David Williams’  has become a fixture in the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series World Championship.  His favorite real world race series is Formula One, what he terms “the pinnacle” of motor sports.  Then there’s the fact that the iGPSWC is contested in a Williams-Toyota FW31, even if the convergence of names owes more to coincidence than any genetic linkage to Sir Frank Williams.  But despite the facts that a string of top tens in the 2011 series earned him ninth in the standings and that he held-down 14th spot in the 2012 standings heading into this weekend’s race at Sebring, the highlight of the Englishman’s sim racing career came in a (relatively) humble Star Mazda.  That would be the Star Mazda which he piloted to third place in the Intel GP Series finale before a live audience at the CeBIT exhibition in Germany in March of 2011, an experience he terms “awesome” — and not just because he pocketed $2,000 for his performance.

But as the Intel GP Series demonstrates, Williams’ sim racing exploits are not limited to virtual F1 machinery.  Lately he’s tried his hand in Legends Cup competition and he’s a front-runner in the Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series.  Indeed, Williams was tied for the series lead before an unfortunate coming-together with Jan Niesiolowski while disputing the lead at Infineon Raceway put-paid to his hopes for a third straight win and dropped him to 11th in the standings.  Williams was non-plussed by the set-back, noting that “there are two drop weeks” that have yet to come into play, “so it’s not over by a long shot yet.”

Indeed, while he has a mountain to climb to get back to the top of the Barber Premier heap, there is every reason to believe that Williams will figure prominently in the final reckoning for the coveted 3 day Skip Barber Racing School experience that will be awarded to the series’ winner.

Q:     How long have you been sim racing?
A:     I’ve been playing racing games for many years now, since I was a young kid. I started to take things more seriously about seven years ago when I discovered online hotlap charts, and a year or two later I ventured online for the first time with F1 Challenge, and after that Live for Speed, which I still race on occasionally and is the sim which provided me the opportunity to join My3id Gaming five years ago.

Q:     What attracted you to iRacing?
A:     The hype surrounding iRacing among the sim racing community originally attracted me to try it out just after it’s launch, and while I didn’t return for several months after my first month, the competition and laser scanned tracks drew me back in.

Q:     What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?
A:     I actually think all the road circuits on iRacing are fantastic, but my favourite track would have to be Spa. I guess it’s a very popular choice, but for good reason in my opinion. The history and reputation, the fast flowing nature and scale of many corners, the undulations, and one can’t ignore Eau Rouge.

Q:     What do you like most about iRacing?
A:     It would have to be the laser scanned tracks. They really set the sim apart from the competition.

Q:     What would you change about iRacing
A:     I don’t think I’d want to make any drastic changes, since I like the direction iRacing has taken in the sim community, what with the structured, organised racing and licensed content. I would say driver swaps and endurance racing needs to be introduced ASAP though, as well as making live races and leagues easier to follow for non-members who are fans of sim racing. At the moment non members are very much out of the loop.

Q:     How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A:     I probably dedicate around 5-10 hours a week to driving iRacing, depending on which leagues I’m racing at the time.

Q:     Do you do any “real world’ racing? If so, do you use iRacing to practice or prepare for your real world races? If so, how?
A:     Like I’m sure many involved in this hobby, I’d love to race for real. As good as any simulator is, nothing can comparing with real racing. I’m lucky enough to have had a passenger ride around Brands Hatch in a 370Z as part of the GT Academy UK finals last year, which was fantastic, but my own racing endeavours are limited to some two-stroke karting with my University, which was really good fun.

Q:     Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s)
A:     For most cars in the sim I run with our team livery – My3id Gaming. For this years iWCGPS, I’m running the iGPManager.com livery, to help promote what is in my view one of the best F1 manager games on the net.

Q:     What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Tourismo, etc.) do you do?
A:     I briefly mentioned GT Academy, which I entered last year on Gran Turismo 5. I actually borrowed a PS3 from a generous friend for a few months while the competition was held, and I’m glad I did! Of course the physics lack the outright fidelity of iRacing, but it’s the same for everyone, and so with the huge following GT5 has, the level of competition is mega tough!  I also dabble with other sims such as rFactor or netKar every once in a while, and I’ve got a soft spot for the sim which I cut my teeth on, Live for Speed (LFS). Within My3id Gaming I’ve enjoyed many team endurance races on LFS in fact, including a 24 hour race which we won earlier this year.

A key member of the powerful My3id, Williams is running the iGPManager.com livery in the 2012 iGPSWC.

Q:     What are your favorite video games?
A:     To be honest I’ve never really been much of a “gamer” as such. I’ve always chosen racing over FPS or other sports games for the most part. Within the team though we’ve normally got a game of some form on the go for a entertainment, such as Minecraft, Battlefield or a browser game like Playforia 9Ball which is always great fun.

Q:     What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A:     That’s an easy one. Securing third place in last years Intel GP series in Germany with a live audience. Of course I’d love to have finished higher, but the whole event was just awesome to be a part of!

Q:     What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A:     Unfortunately I have too many of these! I definitely had a few embarrassing moments in the iGPS last year, I think my worst blunder though was at Okayama. Not once, but twice I somehow managed to miss the “correct” pit entry on my two inlaps during the race. I remember an amusing picture in one of the inRacingNews articles after the race of myself completely out of shape, with locked wheels as I tried to tuck inside the pit entry line at the last minute. I think it cost me 30 seconds extra penalty time I had to serve in my stall. Not very clever!!

Q:     What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A:     Well, it’s a pretty obvious choice, but to see the Nordschleife in iRacing at the level of detail set by the other circuits would be awesome. It would probably create quite a stir among the community. Regarding cars, I’d love to see some form of V12 Italian hypercar like the Zonda. A Caterham would also be fantastic.

Q:     What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A:     Difficult, there are many people I admire, Isaac Newton, Carl Sagan, and George Carlin were all brilliant men to name some. In racing circles, I definitely admired Juan Pablo Montoya during his open wheel racing days, in particular his throw all caution to the wind attitude was always brilliant to watch, especially remembering some of the moves he pulled off against Schumacher.

Q:     What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A:     F1, the pinnacle.

There are many people I admire . . . Isaac Newton, Carl Sagan and George Carlin were all brilliant men.

Q:     Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A:     A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

Q:      Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
A:     Movie: The Matrix; TV Show: Lost

Q:     How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A:     I consider many of my team mates to be good friends, and most of them are members. Outside of the sim world though, I’ve not successfully convinced any friends to sign up. Many have given it a try on my rig and been thoroughly impressed though.

Q:     Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A:     Sim racing on the Internet as a whole has definitely had an impact in my life. I’ve made many like-minded friends around the world, and had a lot of fun sharing jokes and thought provoking conversations, as well as great racing battles. I love how easy it is to get up and go racing with the likes of my teammate Hugo Luis in Brazil while sitting at a PC thousands of miles away when he may as well be in the same room. Of course the chance to meet fellow sim racers in person at real world events such as CeBIT, Germany last year thanks to iRacing is fantastic!

The NiLMS points battle may be a two man race, but the on-track competition remains wide-open.

Week Nine of 12 on the series took the sim racers to Florida and the virtual USA International Speedway. Both Smith and Lambert made two starts on the week and each took home two wins but it was Smith who got the edge, winning a 2844 sof race on April 1st to take the weekly victory over his rivals. Smith started from the pole and led every one of the 50 lap contested on the night and wound up coming home over six seconds ahead of Jeff Conover. Stefan Marinak was third in the event, followed by Josh Bralley and Ian Blanchard. Smith took home 176 points for the win while Conover, who is contending for the championship this season, went on to make three additional starts, winning in one and finishing his week with 149 points.

Lambert’s win came later in the day on April 1st during a 2644 strength of field (sof) race. Much like Smith, Lambert led wire-to-wire in the 50 lap race and finished six seconds up on runner-up finisher Todd Laribee. Kevin Rutland was third, followed by Marinak and Scott Blackburn. Lambert’s win garnered him 164 points, a dozen less points than Smith got for his victory.

Dillon Raffurty finished his week at USA International Speedway on the podium after four starts resulted in two victories at the half mile track. His biggest win of the season came on March 29th when he started from the pole and led 50 laps en route to the win. Caleb Williams finished second, three seconds in the rear view of Raffurty with Mike McKinney, Cale Shonk and Kyle Wicka rounding out the top five. When the points were tallied up, Raffurty finished Round Nine with 156 points.

Honorable mentions go out Sean Stitt and Ian Blanchard for their win totals on the week. Stitt was perfect on the week, winning all ten races he entered while Blanchard batted .500 by winning seven of the 14 races he entered. Keith Mac made the most starts of the week with 26 and Stitt, Blanchard and Mac all hail from the Eastern Canadian club. Stitt took the pole for the week with a time of 20.988 seconds around USA International with Smith, Lambert, Ronnie Binkley and Johnny Housley completing the top five of 459 qualifiers. Lambert took the top honors in Time Trials over Smith, Housley, Stitt and Jeremy Davis.

While a championship battle roars on, Kenny Humpe was the one stealing the spotlight from the drivers running for points. Humpe took the lead for his first and final time in a 3007 sof race on April 9th with five laps remaining at Martinsville to take the win by eight tenths of a second over pole sitter Shawn Stitt. Finishing in third in the 50 lap race was Maxime Paquette, followed by Sam Edwards and Conover. Humpe, a former Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge champion, was the recipient of 185 points for his victory.

The top split race of the week at Martinsville saw the two championship contenders collide! The April 9th event featured a 3179 sof rating and it was Smith who got the upper hand on Lambert, leading all 50 laps from the pole to take the win by over a second on the point leader. Housley was third with Edwards and Rick Ricketts completing the top five. With this being Smith’s third start of the week though, it brought his next best finish into the mix when deciding his weekly point total, meaning Lambert would end the week with five more points than Smith, 181-176.

Mac and Stitt once again were statistical leaders for the second consecutive week. Mac made 27 starts over the seven days at Martinsville while Stitt’s 11 wins put him as the only driver in the double digits when it came to wins. Trenton Moriarity was the top driver in qualifying, pacing the field with a 19.843 second lap. Smith, Stitt, Lambert and Housley rounded out the top five. Moriarity also stuck it to his competition in the Time Trial competition, besting Smith, Stitt, Ty Majeski and Housley in that discipline of simulated Late Model racing.

When it comes to the standings, Division One’s Lambert leads Division Two leader Smith by 79 points, 1364-1285 with two weeks remaining in the season. Conover is third overall with 1218 points, followed by Tony Dugan (1133) and Jeremy Ahlum (1088). Ahlum is chased closely for fifth overall by Benjamin Harstle (1085), Division Three leader Housley (1084) and Paquette (1080). Divisional leaders from Divisions Four to Ten include Mark Meech, Jade Williams, Sean Odea, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Darrell Phillips, Cale Thompson2 and Petie Madrid. The closest battle for a Divisional Title is at Division Six where Odea’s lead is just five points over Jeremy Pool2 and only 19 over Mark Parker.

Next up for the iRacing Late Model Tour is the high banks of the Bristol Motor Speedway. Does Lambert have what it takes to lock up his title in “Thunder Valley?” Find out here, at inRacingNews!

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

Hindman took one step forward in his effort to lock down the title during Week Nine when he took the weekly win at the Martinsville Speedway. Hindman, an accomplished short track sim-racer obtained 209 championship points after a win at “The Paperclip” on March 27th. Hindman led 86 of the 120 laps in the race, which saw nine caution periods and a 3323 sof rating. Chad Pruitt, who started the race outside Hindman on the front row, finished second after leading 14 laps of the race. Matthew Spangler was third, followed to the line by Gary Kleinfelter and Frank Kimmel II. The race was also profitable for Spangler, as his 185 point total was good enough to take second overall for the week after Pruitt would go on to make six additional starts on the week, which resulted in two wins but a lower point total when the markers were tallied.

Be it Homestead or the points race, the NiCCS landscape is the same -- Class A drivers rule.

Cody Ware rallied from 16th place in a 2894 sof race on March 31st to take a checkered flag at Martinsville and third place overall for the week in points with 182 markers. Ware led 73 laps in the race, finishing ahead of early leaders Malik Ray (who started on the pole) and Michael McLain. Second row starters EJ ORourke and Andrew Perry rounded out the top five. Six cautions and eight lead changes set the tempo in the event.

Honorable mentions go out to former series champ Tyler Hudson and reigning NASCAR Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year Timmy Hill who duked it out in the second highest split race of the week on March 30th. The race was rated at 3103 and saw pole-sitter Hudson lead 106 of the 120 laps in the race. Hill was second, followed by Aaron Lovell, Alex Bisson and Patrick Smart. The race saw eight cautions and five lead changes. Hudson and Hill had pretty impressive weeks at Martinsville with Hill going 3 for 6 in the win column and coming home with fourth overall in the weekly point while Hudson won all but one of his five starts on the week en route to an 11th place finish for the week amongst 858 drivers.

Jake Goodwin made the most starts of the week, answering 23 calls to the green flag over the seven day period on the Virginia based oval. Bob Howard was the most successful for the week, winning six races and lead 718 laps, tops in both categories for the week at Martinsville. Kenny Humpe flexed his qualifying skills by posting a time of 19.618 seconds around the half mile oval. The effort was faster than that of Class A point leader Jared Crawford, Hindman, David Krikorian and Brooks. The top five were the only five of 301 qualifiers that dipped into the 19.6 second bracket. Ian Hann topped Time Trials for the week as his effort was better than that of Derrick Stone, Mark Robert Gray, Auz Grams and Shawn Haverly.

Kyle Larson was awarded with the top spot during Week Ten in the NiCCS after his win in a 3147 sof race on April 4th at the Homestead Miami Speedway. Larson grabbed 198 points en route to the win in the 80 lap event in which Larson led 61 circuits after starting 12th. Jason Fensler finished second with Spangler, Scoot Johnson and Alex Scribner also taking home top five finishes. Pole sitter Michael McLain led just five laps of the race and was credited with the 13th place spot in the race.
The second highest split of the week went to Randy Hockaday when he went to victory lane on April 3rd. The race was rated at 3250 sof and featured four yellow flags over the 80 lap duration. Hockaday started third and led 30 laps of the race before crossing the line first ahead of Darren Kikolski, Adam Racine, Phil Juhring and Jason Narug. The race saw four cautions and seven lead changes with Hockaday leading two more laps than pole sitter Juhring. Hockaday would go on to make two additional starts on the week and would wrap up his Florida adventure with 188 points, fourth best amongst 1086 drivers. Kikolski’s 192 points from this race placed him second for the week.

Completing the podium at Homestead was Dustin Montgomery. Montgomery finished second to Matthew Moose in the top split race of the week, which tipped the scales at 3261 sof on April 4th. Moose led 11 laps in the race. Montgomery shared the second row on the grid with Moose and led the most laps (46) in the race. Pole sitter Juhring led 21 laps before fading to third, ahead of Gary Kleinfelter and Bruno Le Doare at the finish. The race was run with just three yellow flag periods and saw nine lead changes. Moose would go on to make a total of seven starts of the week, winning in four of those and coming home ninth in the standings for the week. Montgomery’s 188 points from this race placed him third overall for the week.

Dominic Krischke started a round high 29 races while Krikorian set the pace when it came to victory lane, visiting the hallowed ground nine times over the seven day period. Finland’s Jukka Savolainen was the pole sitter for the week with a lap time of 31.740 seconds around Homestead. Krikorian, Brian Viola, Brandon Barke and Chris Jessee completed the top five in qualifying. Mark Russell took the top spot in Time Trials at Homestead over Jessee, Bill Brown, Thomas Faile and Earl Landry.
Brooks (1576) takes a 48 point lead over Hindman (1528) heading into the final two weeks of the season. Division Two leader Craig Jernigan has 1385 points, four more than that of Trey Jarrell’s 1381 points. Division Two’s Brandon Hauck (1328) completes the overall top five. Tom Moustakas is faced with holding off Spangler in Division Three with just five points between the leaders. Brock Garis, Rock Harris, Michael Valentin, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Robert Cori, Sean Cummings2 and Robert Mason2 hold divisional leads from Division Four to Ten with each of the leaders having double or triple digit point lead.

Next up for the NiCCS is “the Lady in Black.” Darlington Raceway plays host to the penultimate round for the series. Who will take the overall crown, Brooks or Hindman? Find out here, at inRacingNews!

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

Barone leads the Prototype and GT field at Sebring.

While Le Mans Prototypes have been a feature at Sebring for many years in the American Le Mans Series, they have never run at Daytona due to the 24 hour race being part of the Grand-Am series. Fortunately the virtual world allows us to put together this car and track combination, with the GT1 and GT2 cars also taking to the Speedway’s high banks under the lights for the first time.  Week 7’s 70 minute open setup races would prove useful to those driving taking part in the 120 minutes of Sebring World Tour event, with Daytona hosting the standard 60 minute length events.

iRacing’s points system sees drivers count only their best eight weeks from the 12 week season, allowing sim racers to drop their four worst results – allowing for missing a week’s racing, or scoring poorly.  So while some drivers may seemingly be out of contention at the season’s two-thirds mark, scoring good points in the last few weeks could bring them back into play.

The LMP2, GT1 and GT2 classes under the lights proved an unusual sight at Daytona.

Roderic Kreunen continues to lead the HPD ARX-01c class standings, managing to double his lead over Rocco Barone to 77 points after leaving Florida. It was an up and down two weeks for Barone; his only race at Sebring brought him a 9th place finish – due to damage suffered from glancing the barriers after a misjudged pass on a Corvette at Sunset Bend. However he made up for it under the lights at Daytona, securing a 208 point win, and will be looking to continue that form to erase a couple of low scores from his points total.  Opposite was Kreunen, top scoring at Sebring and only taking a best finish of 6th from Daytona, with Paul Ilbrink rounding out the top three.

The only class to see a change at the top of the standings was the HPD fixed setup series, Barone returning to the lead courtesy of top scoring each week – the only defeat from four races coming at the hands of Tomas Klopp at Daytona, by just 0.009s!  Previous leader Zaahir Essa was absent at Daytona, allowing Teemu Iivonen – just 18 points behind Barone – and Kreunen to move back into the top three.  Raymond Mooney will be looking for big points from the remaining weeks if he is to challenge the leaders, as he did not race at Sebring and ended his only race at Daytona in 13th after being rear-ended on the first lap.

João Cardoso chases Kay Kaschube through Daytona’s Bus Stop chicane.

Proving his defeat in the “hot split” at Laguna Seca was just a blip, Kay Kaschube bounced back to take a pair of open setup wins at Sebring and Daytona, bringing his total to six from the eight “hot split” races in the season so far.  New team mate Marc de Loose was his closest competitor at Sebring, keeping the German honest until the end of the 70 minutes. However, with a strong field entering the “hot split” at Daytona, de Loose’s iRating would relegate him to the second split, all but ending his title hopes as he now sits almost 400 points behind Kaschube.  Fernando Bento – 3rd in the championship – and his ABRacing team mate João Cardoso rounded-out the podium in the Daytona “hot split”.

Ief Vangenechten continued to stretch his lead in the fixed series as his rivals faltered, winning the Daytona “hot split” to take his lead to almost 350 points.  Michael Booth moved up to second, now ahead of James Blewitt, as some contenders such as David Jensen and Joni Hagner have not yet completed their full quota of eight point-scoring weeks.

Suominen leading Versteege is the story of both Ford GT championships.

In the Ford GT open series, Niek Versteege managed to bring the gap to Kimmo Suominen down to just 30 points, thanks to top scoring at Daytona.  Suominen took the spoils in the Sebring “hot split,” but was unable to match Versteege’s points haul in Week 8.  Daniel Kirsten followed up his third place at Sebring by taking the Daytona “hot split” win, while Jasper Groeneweg moved up to third in the standings.

Suominen’s lead is more comfortable in the fixed series, however Versteege was absent from Daytona and will be looking to reduce the margin once drop scores come into effect. Anthony Vranic rounds out the top three, with Yoeri Gijsen and Koen Geeraerts taking the “hot split” honours at Sebring and Daytona respectively.

Weeks 9 and 10 see the sim-racers pay their final visits to circuits outside of North America, first to the wide expanses of Silverstone’s Grand Prix layout, before making the only trip of the season Down Under to Phillip Island in Australia.

iGPS moved into its final quarter and the venue for this week was Suzuka.

With Indianapolis now in the books, the iGPS moved into it’s final quarter, with Round 10 of the 12-round season welcoming Suzuka International Circuit – one of the most celebrated Formula 1 events on the calendar, allied to it’s iconic high-speed sweeping ‘S’ bends and the profound history carried in its wheel tracks – ranging from the boiling point duos between Prost and Senna, to the title thrillers involving Schumacher and Häkkinen in their primes.

Not an uncommon sight this season is the predictable pole position time set by Max Dell’Orco, and this week he didn’t break that tradition, being the sole man to break the 1:28 barrier – closely pursued by Riku Alatalo – to put himself at the front of the grid for two of three Strength of Field (SoF) races, all held on Sunday evening GMT.

A hard charging Alatalo and Iivonen chasing the damaged Dell'Orco for second place - who had the strenght to hold off the Finnish duo.

On Sunday’s 6:15GMT race, Dell’Orco had another brief scare from fast-starting 3rd placed Jake Stergios, but held his ground continue his strong form in the iGPS. From now, Stergios could only follow the Italian’s wheel tracks – under pressure himself from Riku Alatalo who wouldn’t make life easier for Stergios early on. Teemu Iivonen got a great launch off the grid as he jumped from 7th to 4th at the start. This top 4 would begin to distance themselves from the pack behind. Meanwhile one of the closest contenders for the last Pro license – Pierre Urbizu got involved in a first lap crash ending his race,making his task even harder – whilst Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola who started from 5th dropped to 6th during the opening laps and was not able to rebound back to the top 5.

This instead saw Formula Renault 3.5 driver Richie Stanaway steal fifth and put his sights on the trio ahead consisting of Alatalo, Iivonen and Dell’Orco. The latter seemingly offpace due to a half spin in the tricky Turn 11 hairpin, which saw the Italian scrape the wall, damaging his car in the process. This not only let Stergios through to an unchallenged victory, but it gave a golden opportunity to Stanaway to catch up as the Finnish duo could not get past the Italian’s damaged FW31. The four cars were separated by only a couple of seconds as the white flag was waved, but nobody would dare risking their strong points finishes, meaning Dell’Orco took second, followed by Alatalo in third, Iivonen fourth and Stanaway fifth.

Stergios ran wide in the Casino Triangle which promoted Alatalo to second.

In the following SoF race, Dell’Orco again took to the first grid slot – fired up from his previous excursion – he again held his nerve before Turn 1 to hold onto a cherished start to finish lead and take home 256 points. However, a big incident involving Pro license-elect Laurent Beteille and Stanaway at the end of lap 1 would be a big talking point of the race. Stanaway made an attempted dive past Beteille, but the two made contact on the corner exit causing a multiple car pile-up which claimed 6 cars. At the front, Stergios again would be the man to keep Dell’Orco company in the opening laps, until an off-track saw him fall behind strong performer Alatalo and slot ahead of Simon Cattell. These three kept within relatively close contact all race, along with Iivonen for the first 7 laps, until a moment from Cattell saw him slide off in reaction entering Degnar 1, forcing a premature pit stop. This promoted Urbizu to a crucial 5th position, who held a big gap to the cars behind. As Dell’Orco continued to pull away, Alatalo also edged himself away from DWC driver Stergios and looked comfortable for a 2nd place.

Close behind Cattell had little answer for the top 3 pace but kept Stergios in sight, whilst Urbizu remained 5th, it became abundantly clear the hard-charging Stanaway looked threatening in 6th, the two emerged from their pit stops in close company. On lap 29, Stanaway forced his way through past the Frenchman who settled for a comfortable 6th position. However, this would become 5th as firstly Cattell got around Stergios, only for the latter to crash on the following lap whilst chasing the fastest lap, promoting Stanaway and Urbizu. Stergios took the chequered flag in 6th place with a tortured car, amusing the spectators in the process. Meanwhile Dell’Orco cruised home to win ahead of Alatalo.

Filho can only watch as Stanaway takes the lead after the Brazilian had a quick off entering Degner 2.

20:15GMT turned into a 17-car SoF race with Stanaway taking the pole position. Directly behind him, Mogar DG Filho made the rest of the field look stationery, bagging an early lead from Stanaway. The two would fight nose to tail for the remainder of the first stint until the Australian started to put enough pressure on Filho who put a tire on the gravel at the end of the first stint going in to Degner 2, promoting Stanaway to the lead and his first SoF win. The fight for Pro licenses would embroil in this race with Busoms and Caton both running in the top 5. However Busoms appeared to have the edge – lapping faster than his rival and even overtaking Filho in the pit stop phase.

But onto lap 26 and after being overtaken by Filho, Busoms made a misjudgement in the “draft” entering Dunlop corner – he spun into the path of Cardoso taking both cars out on the spot. By this time, Stanaway continued to pull away after running longer in the first stint, whilst Filho sat 2nd with Caton assuming 3rd from the crash ahead. The order would stay like this until the finish, adding fuel to the fire for the Race for Pro. Paul Ilbrink slotted in 4th and Tuomas Kekkonen secured 5th and staying out of trouble after Isaac Price crashed in the infamous Degnar 1 corner just ahead.

Jake Stergios enters the penultimate round with a 226 point lead over Dell’Orco and looks set to claim back-to-back iGPS championships. Alatalo is in third, 318 points back. Terpstra sits in fourth with Beteille in fifth. With another two drivers looking secure for Pro – taking the total to nine – Xavier Busoms now holds the tenth and final spot for obtaining a Pro-license this season. But the Spaniard is closely pursued by Marcus Caton, emerging as his main threat and setting up a rivalry that will surely be resolved only at the final round in Silverstone.

The Red Sox Racing League wrapped up its first season of multi-class competition under the lights of the Daytona International Speedway’s road course when eighteen drivers raced in the “Gentleman Jim’s 24 Laps of Daytona” season finale.  In a fitting end to the season, Les Turner and Tommy Rhyne not only earned victories in the final race at Daytona, but finished as the overall season champions in their respective divisions.

Turner earned his forth pole of the season with a qualifying lap time of 1:36.582 in the TeamDraft HPD ARX-01c Batmobile.  He was the only driver to post sub-1:37 laps in the practice and qualifying sessions.  Andrew Gantman, Terry Daul, Kevin Kyle, William Kabela, Andrew Feldman, Divina Galica, and Bill Pawluckie completed the Class A grid.

Rhyne earned his second pole of the season with a lap time of 1:40.508 to lead the Corvette field.  Reed Rundell, John Koscielniak, Scott Husted, Bill Hadden, James Prostell Jr., Larry Krupp, Jeff Thomas, and Ed Sutcliff completed the Class B grid.

The field took the green flag under perfect weather conditions and raced towards the narrow entrance to Turn One with the knowledge that the slightest mistake at that section of the track could doom their chances to secure a podium finish.  Racing action was fierce but clean in the early going.  Gantman gave up 2nd place to Daul on Lap Three when he drove too deep into Turn Three and went off track.  By the time he got back underway, he had lost 3 positions.  Koscielniak was the first Corvette driver to lose focus when he spun off the track transitioning from the infield section to the superspeedway section, in Turn Seven of Lap Six.  The mistake dropped him out of 3rd place in the C6R class, but the incident did not involve any other drivers.

Gantman maintained 4th place in the HPD class despite spinning out again in Turn Five on Lap Eleven.  He wasn’t as lucky after losing focus in the bright lights of the infield Ferris wheel when he spun on the exit of Turn Three on Lap Fourteen.  The third mistake cost him another 3 positions and very nearly resulted in a collision with Pawluckie who had to take the grass to avoid Gantman returning to the track.  Scott Husted made a similar mistake in Turn Three on Lap Fourteen.  His error meant a drop of four positions on the track.  The only event of the evening that league officials had to review post race was a pass on the apron exiting Turn Six on Lap Ten.  It was reviewed closely and determined that the 28 car had gone to the apron to avoid a collision with the 99 who was off pace exiting the corner after clipping the grass and receiving a black flag slow down penalty for cutting the corner.

Terry Daul’s race went sour when he pit for fuel from 2nd place on Lap Fifteen.  Terry had actually got the car down to pit lane speed before crossing the entry cones, but a pit limiter failure ended his chances for a podium finish as he was held for 15 seconds for speeding in the pits.  The race was otherwise uneventful as drivers collected only thirty-seven incident points during 400 laps of racing.  The 0.092 incident per lap average meant the Daytona night race was the cleanest race of the season.  Turner, Daul, Feldman, Kabela, and Sutcliff all received bonus points for completing the event without any incident points.

The clean racing at Daytona was representative of the entire twelve race season.  Twenty-seven drivers collected 1,023 incident points in 4,246 laps of racing, producing an impressive incident per lap season average of 0.240.   Turner led the way in the Class A division with a CPI of 230.9 after collecting only 14 incident points in twelve events.  Proving that track position is the key to success, Turner’s 1.8 average grid position allowed him to complete eight races without a single incident.  Sutcliff led the Class B division with a CPI of 117.7 after collecting 25 incident points and completing five incident free races.

Class A results:

Turner led all 24 laps on his way to his sixth victory of the season, but nearly had his chances for a win derailed when he pitted on Lap Sixteen.  Waving to adoring fans as he drove down pit road, Turner collided with Hadden’s Corvette rocketing out of his pit stall.  Turner breathed a deep sigh of relief after returning to the track with only minor cosmetic damage and cruised to a 24 second margin of victory.  “My thoughts and prayers are with Jim Albertson tonight”, said Turner after the awards ceremony.  “This win was for the Redhead Racing MIA/POW team.  We missed you on the track tonight bro!”

“I also want to say congratulations to Tommy Rhyne on taking the Class B championship, and TeamDraft team mate Jeff Thomas for securing 4th place in the C6R class.  The overall championship is dedicated to my Dad and his ongoing battles. He has been a true inspiration throughout the season, not to mention his understanding of why I don’t visit him on Thursday nights!”

Kyle surprised everyone, including himself, when he held off Daul to earn 2nd place.  “I was just hoping for a good race because I thought we’d used up all of our luck during qualifying.  We had our best start of the season.  Jim Albertson must have been riding with me tonight.  I was thinking about him during the whole race.”  Kyle echoed the sentiments of all the RSR drivers when he continued.  “Get well soon Jim!”  He described his race as a series of surprises, beginning with the qualifying effort.  “I settled in and ran some consistent laps in the early going.  We were in 3rd place when I pitted, but came out in 2nd, so I just held on and tried to keep Terry behind me.  Congrats to Les and Tommy on their wins and championships.  I’d like to thank all of the drivers who make this such a great league to race in!”

Daul fell short in his effort to catch Kyle after his penalty and had to settle for third place.  It was his 9th top-5 finish of the season.  Feldman finished in 4th place, while Kabela crossed the line in 5th.  Gantman, Pawluckie, and Galica rounded out the HPD scoring.

2012 RSR Season 1 HPD Class A Final Standings

1. Les Turner – 319
2. Andrew Gantman – 297
3. Terry Daul – 294
4. Jim Albertson – 289
5. William Kabela – 275
6. Andrew Feldman – 271
7. Bill Pawluckie – 257
8. Divina Galica – 242
9. Gary Jorgensen – 236
10. Kevin Kyle – 231
11. Chad Peterson – 168
12. Wilbur Gildersleeve Jr. – 146
13. Justin Kirby – 58

Turner ended Season One as the overall points champion in the HPD class.  Consistency was the key to his dominance as the Canadian secured four poles and six wins taking twelve top-10 and eleven top-5 finishes.  Turner’s average start/finish positions were an incredible 1.8.  He finished the season twenty-two points ahead of Gantman.  Andrew also had an impressive season, scoring two poles and two wins to go with nine top-5 finishes.

Chad Peterson had the pace early in the season to contend for the ARX championship.  Turner and Peterson had some epic battles throughout the season and produced some of the closest finishes in RSR history.  If Chad had raced the entire schedule, things might have been different.  Daul overtook Albertson to finish third in the final standings.  He was the only other driver to secure nine top-5 finishes.

Jim Albertson used seven top-5 finishes to secure 4th overall in the HPD class. He had one win and one pole, but failed to start the final race of the season at Daytona to secure the final spot on the podium.  Kabela (5th) edged out Feldman (6th), while Pawluckie (7th), Galica (8th), Gary Jorgensen (9th), Kyle (10th), Chad Peterson (11th), Wilbur Gildersleeve Jr. (12th), and Justin Kirby (13th), rounded out the final standings in the HPD class.

Class B results:

Rhyne ignored early race pressure from Rundell to secure his second win of the season.  Rhyne was the only Corvette driver to finish on the lead lap with Turner and the HPDs.  Rundell had to settle for 2nd place, but was gracious in defeat.  “I gave it everything I had tonight, but didn’t have enough to keep up with Tommy. Congratulations to Les and Tommy on their wins tonight.”

Hadden recovered from his pit road scare to earn the final podium spot.  Koscielniak crossed the line in 4th place, followed by Husted (5th), Thomas (6th), Krupp (7th), Prostell (8th), and Sutcliff (9th).

2012 RSR Season 1 C6R Class B Final Standings

1. Tommy Rhyne – 303
2. Dustin McGrew – 298
3. Dean Moll – 287
4. Jeff Thomas – 276
5. James Prostell Jr. – 270
6. Ed Sutcliff – 268
7. Scott Husted – 261
8. Larry Krupp – 260
9. Reed Rundell – 243
10. John Koscielniak – 240
11. Bill Hadden – 232
12. Bruce Snelson – 159
13. Corey A. Wolf – 66
14. Eric Porterfield – 24

Rhyne won the overall championship by five points, thanks in large part to an incredibly consistent season which saw him finish in the top-5 in eleven of the twelve races he entered.  No one else in the Corvette field had more than eight top-5 finishes.
 
Dustin McGrew finished the season in 2nd place after winning eight poles and seven races.  His failure to compete in the entire season cost him the Class B Championship.  All he needed to secure the top spot was to start the final race at Daytona.

Dean Moll sat out the final race of the season, but still managed to hold onto third position in the final standings.  Thomas and Prostell rounded out the top 5 spots.  Sutcliff (6th), Husted (7th), Krupp (8th), Rundell (9th), Koscielniak (10th), Hadden (11th), Bruce Snelson (12th), Corey A. Wolf (13th), and Eric Porterfield (14th) rounded out the final standings.

Next Season:

RSR take a well deserved break before resuming competition in Season Two.  The first race of that schedule will have league members returning to Daytona for the “RUF Automobile Presents 24 Laps of Daytona Road Course” on May 10, 2012.

Race Results:
https://ileaguerace.com/champ/show_event_result/Red-Sox-Racing-League/1099

League Standings (2012 – Season One):
https://ileaguerace.com/champ/show_champ/Red-Sox-Racing-League/227

League Video Site:
http://www.youtube.com/user/draftin11

Starting grid for Thursday's SoF race.

Week Ten’s Strength of Field race took place at the usual time on Thursday night. This week’s SoF was 4421, which paid the victor 282 points. Brett Nesbitt (Plains) started the race on the pole and led 35 laps before being involved in an incident that knocked him out of the race. Dustin Montgomery (Mid-South) would eventually come home with the win after making a late race pass on Devan Hall (Georgia). Montgomery finished the race with 14 laps led while Hall, who finished second, lead 32 laps. For his finish, Hall received 270 points. Peter Bennett (Connecticut) finished in the third position while David Cater (Carolina) finished in the fourth position. Bennett and Cater netted 259 and 248 points respectively. Paul E. Cline (Carolina) rounded out the Top Five after starting 19^th and received 236 points. The 100 lap race was slowed five times for 20 laps.

Montgomery crossing the line for the win.

At the end of the week, Montgomery was on top of the weekly points standings. Montgomery won his only race of the week and finished the week with 282 points. John Bunton (Carolina) finished the week in the second position after finishing sixth in the SoF race and received 225 points. Bennett finished the week in the third position with 212 points after attempting 15 races during the week. Tanner Stoops (Plains) and Nascar Nationwide Series driver Timmy Hill (Atlantic) rounded out the Top Five. Stoops finished second in his only race of the week and netted 210 points while Hill won six of his ten starts and finished the week with 208 points.

Juhring was able to add 26 points to his points lead after netting 203 points at Charlotte and bringing his total to 1663 points. Brad Mahar (New England) jumped up to the second spot over Brandon Buie (Atlantic) after gaining 191 points during Week 10 and bringing his season total to 1465 points. Buie dropped down to the third position after struggling during Week Ten and only netting 165 points. Buie now has 1437 points, 226 points behind Juhring. Bunton and Jeffrey Parker (Florida) held their spots in the Top Five after ten weeks. Bunton had a solid week at Charlotte and brought his points total to 1418 points while Parker managed to increase his total to 1390 points.

When it was all said and done at Charlotte, Brett Nesbitt’s name was at the top of the qualifying charts. Nesbitt turned a 28.231 second lap. Andrew Shirley (Mid-South) was second on the qualifying charts with a 28.248 while Armando Vargas (California) was third with a 28.255. Zach A Hudson (Eastern Canada) was fourth on the charts with a 28.309 while Mark Mullineux (England) rounded out the Top Five in qualifying with a 28.335 second lap.

Week 11 of the season will see the NiCBS travel to Texas Motor Speedway, a 1.5 mile track very similar to Charlotte. With ten weeks in the books, it is clear that Phil Juhring is the man to beat. If any of his competitors plan on knocking him off the top, they will have to have great showing in Thursday’s SoF race. Will anyone give him a run for his money? Find out next week at InRacingNews!

Eight of 12 race weekends an official season makes, and the inRacingNews Challenge celebrated Week Eight of 2012 Season One at famed Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. It was a fitting location to celebrate the first official season of the Mazda MX-5 Roadster in the iRNC, which joined the SpecRacer Fords and Pontiac Solstices in what is now the series’ sixth season.

Marius Golombeck’s 198 points led the Solstice class, after he won his lone start against a strong field. In SRF, Roope Turkkila edged Jerry Burkacki in points, 184-179, on the strength of two wins in three races. Meanwhile, Dylan Sharman paced all Mazda drivers with 154 points after winning both of his starts.

It was MX5 v SRF at Laguna Seca in Week 8 of the iRNC.

The most prolific Solstice drivers on the week were Joni Tormala, who tallied a class-leading 18 starts and 14 wins, and John Duffy, who ranked second in starts with 17 and tied Tormala with 10 poles to lead all drivers. Bryan J Miller ranked second in both victories and poles, scoring eight of the former and nine of the latter in his nine starts. Miller also posted a fast lap of 1:41.667 in time trials, over a second faster than second place Adrian Leites (1:42.999), and improved to 1:41.567 to also top the class in qualifying.

In SRF, Chris Hughson and Jordan Kamen led all competitors with 24 starts apiece, but with drastically different results: Hughson led the class in both wins (18) and poles (13), while Kamen only scored four apiece. Wolfgang Rachbauer ranked second in both wins and poles, with eight and nine in 16 starts, respectively. Frank Bloem’s 1:39.123 lap in time trials beat runner-up Niccolo Cedrati by just over a tenth of a second, but Mogar DG Filho took top honors in qualifying with a blistering lap of 1:38.792.

Not to be outdone by the MX5s and SRFs, nearly 150 Solstices answered the call of Laguna Seca in Week 8 of the iRNC.

Mazda driver Mark Roddy led all drivers in race starts with 19, but only managed one win and one pole. Danny Conlon, who ranked second in starts with 18, led all drivers with eight wins, and tied fellow British sim racer Chris Taylor for the class lead in poles with 10. Elmar Erlekotte posted a fast lap of 1:41.330 in time trials, exactly a tenth of a second better than second-place David Mata, but they fell to fifth and third, respectively, in qualifying; there, Jan Coomans posted a 1:40.517 second lap to top Sharman’s 1:40.774.

There are still four races to go on the iRNC schedule, the next coming on the Lime Rock Park chicane layout. However, as only a driver’s top eight count towards the championship, drivers will have to top one of their past eight race weeks in order to improve in the standings. Ralf Janiak’s title in Mazda is all but assured, as an 1101-835 lead over second-place Pedro Najera seems safe. But intense late-season championship battles are shaping up in both SRF and Solstice: four drivers are within 43 points of Filho in SRF, while Michael Booth leads Solstice by just 10 points over Janiak and 13 over Miller.

But there is one car that stands alone in Bruno Junqueira’s personal catalogue of race cars, a car he is “addicted to.”

That car is the iRacing HPD-ARX01c Junqueira has been using to practice for his 2012 entry in the American Le Mans Series’ LMPC category.   On the real tracks of North America, Junqueira is teaming with former Trans-Am champion Tony Drissi to drive the RSR Racing Oreca FLM 09 LMPC.   At his home in Miami, however, Junqueira drives the virtual HPD- ARX01c to short-cut his learning curve both with the sports prototype category and with some unfamiliar tracks.  It’s a modus operandi he found very helpful last year as an ALMS “rookie” driving RSR Racing’s Jaguar XKR.

“Last year when I started to race American Le Mans, I didn’t know four or five tracks,” he says.  “I didn’t know Mosport, Road Atlanta, Lime Rock and one or two other tracks so I bought a seat, a steering wheel and a subscription to iRacing.  I bought the Corvette C6.R because it was the closest thing, performance-wise to the Jaguar XKR.  It was good to learn the tracks with a powerful, front-engine, rear wheel drive, sports car.

“Now this year I bought the HPD ARX01c because it’s the closest thing to the Oreca.   Last year I didn’t have too much fun with the Corvette but the HPD?  I’m addicted!”

It may not have been love at first sight between Junqueira and the Corvette, but he found the experience very useful.

“Lime Rock and Road Atlanta, I just showed up there and first outing I was already fast,” he says.  “So iRacing helped me a lot.”

When he realized he’d be back for a second go with RSR in 2012, albeit with the Oreca rather than the Jaguar, Bruno added the HPD-ARX01c and some more tracks – including Sebring and Virginia International Raceway — to his inventory . . . with similar results.

With a little help from his HPD-ARX01c, Junqueira planted the RSR Racing Oreca on the LMPC pole at Sebring.

“After practicing at Sebring in the HPD, my first lap in the Oreca was 2:02 and the fastest lap of the whole session was 1:58,” he says. “And I ended-up qualifying on the pole.”

While it may be just a slight overstatement to say that Junqueira is addicted to iRacing, it’s downright misleading to say he drives the HPD-ARX01c at his home in Miami.  That’s because  Bruno does his sim racing in is office, rather than his home.

“I don’t race too much, but I drive every day – mainly testing,” Junqueira says. “I have two babies at home, so I keep the system in my office because if it was at home I would drive all the time and not spend any time with my family.  So it is good to keep it in my office. . .”

Years ago when I started sim-racing the idea of hooking a steering wheel to a computer and driving a car on the screen was a stretch of the imagination for many.  It was kind of like wearing your favorite cartoon character’s pajamas to bed:  it wasn’t discussed in public or at the family reunion your parents just hoped one day you’d grow out of it.  While most of us did grow out of our favorite cartoon pajamas and stop wearing them, sim-racing has become more main stream, more widely accepted, and even recognized as a sport by professional racing organizations.

When something becomes popular everyone starts thinking of ways to make money off of it, and sim-racing is no different.  In terms of the iRacing service, the more it grows the more the third party support grows for products to make racers more comfortable and to make the simulator feel more like a real life experience.  While I would love to personally use or endorse all products out there, it’s just not financially possible.  But I would like to discuss a few products that I have used or supported.

Let’s start with comfort.  Sitting in the kitchen table chair is for eating not racing, as your body will remind you after 50 laps.  Besides we all want that authentic “in the seat feel” right?  While many sim-racers out there have fabricated their own racing rigs, for those not as mechanically skilled a few options do exist.  The one I recommend is the Obutto Gaming Cockpit.  The United States distributor for the Obutto system is Main Performance PC, owned by sim-racing fanatic Michael Main.  For just under $400 dollars you can get the base model which comes with a fully adjustable racing seat, steering wheel and shifter mounts, single LCD monitor mount, swiveling keyboard and mouse tray, and pedal tray.  That’s enough to get the average sim-racer comfortable and on the track. Other accessories are available such as triple monitor mounts, lap desks, and flight stick mounts for those flight simulator fans out there.

The Obutto Gaming cockpit: "Enough to get the average sim-racer comfortable and on the track."

As a side note, Main Performance PC does offer custom built gaming PCs as well as the Logitech G27 steering wheel.  A sim-racer looking the complete package could visit Main Performance PC and for around $2000 walk away with an adequate setup to begin a sim-racing career.

Once you’re in the seat it’s about the extras right?  Kind of like a teenager picking out the accessories to their first car.  At this point we could go all directions with our discussion.  Folks, there are steering wheel and pedal sets out there for sim-racing that can easily chew up the average tax refund two times over.  Companies like ECCI come to mind with the 6000 and 7000 series Trackstar wheels.  For the average consumer those wouldn’t be considered affordable; but for the dedicated sim-racer who wants that real weekend warrior car feel on the computer, these may be your answer.

Many who like a more authentic feel for gas and brake turn to Todd Cannon and his CST pedals.  I have to be upfront with you and say that, being in a wheelchair I personally have never used his pedals, so I can’t offer personal feedback.  What I can say is Todd’s setups start at just under $500 dollars, and there’s even a DIY option for the mechanical minds out there who want to make their own.  I do know Todd stands behind his products and his pedals do produce the authentic feedback most sim-racers are looking for.

CST Pedals pedals "produce the authentic feedback most sim-racers are looking for."

What’s left?  Some pretty cool stuff, some high-end technology that just flat-out makes iRacing cool.  When iRacing released some API code for the simulator, programmers were all smiles and applications have emerged from all directions to improve the service.  I can’t name them all, but the few I rely on are iSpeed for telemetry and in-car stats.  iSpeed can be run on a separate screen or device as long as it has a web browser.   I also use iRaceDash which is an application for the iPhone or iPad.  This allows you to see up to the minute fuel levels, speed and lap times, and even enables you to change tires with just the touch of a screen.  Some of these applications are available for the Android platform as well and should be available under the five dollar mark.

Sim-racing is about what makes you as a driver comfortable and competitive; some people prefer more expensive cockpits, and some prefer button boxes. And some prefer just the mouse and keyboard.  It’s an open market, and your bank account and imagination are truly your only limits.  New products are being developed in garages everyday by some of sim-racing’s brightest minds.  We’ll do our best to keep the ones covered here on Allen’s Wrench that make it to production.

It didn’t take long for Oscar Sahlin to make an impact on iRacing.  The postman from Södertälje, Sweden joined the service in the middle of 2011 Season 1 and, by the time the final checkered flag of Season 3 had fallen, he had bested the likes of Ryan Field and Brian Strodtbeck to claim the iRacing.com Mustang Challenge title.  The Ford Mustang FR500S remains his metier, as Sahlin had driven his personal virtual (or is that virtual personal?) pony car to third place the past two seasons of the iRacing.com GRAND-AM Sports Car Series.  With the finish line coming into view for 2012 Season 1, he finds himself in a familiar spot — third — behind Paulo Valente and Matthew Davis in the GRAND-AM series with seven wins and ten top ten finishes to his name in in ten starts.

Sahlin is also branching-out from the Mustang of late, taking a half dozen Corvette class wins so far in the iRacing.com Prototype/GT Challenge even as he learns the oval ropes in Street Stocks.   Still, the call of the Mustang is strong.  As if he doesn’t get enough of the FR500S in official iRacing series, Sahlin is a fixture in the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series where a trio of podium finishes puts him in second place in the GS class behind the (so far) perfect Trace McRae…

Q: How long have you been sim racing?
A: I started slow, first offline with Nascar Racing 2003 Season, then a long break until GTR 2 came in 2006. Then I raced a couple of years with the RACE 07-series, until a friend there told me about iRacing. At first reluctant, I tried the three month deal and I got hooked right away.

Q: What attracted you to iRacing?
A: The laser-scanned tracks first of all. Second, the realism and the many series I felt tempted to try out.

Q: What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?.
A: Brands Hatch is my favorite track, but sadly after one year now in iRacing, I haven’t raced there yet.  Mustang and Corvette are my favorite road cars, Monte Carlo comes in third as a road course car, as oval car it’s my favorite, closely followed by Silverado.

Q: What do you like most about iRacing?
A: The spectator feature. It’s like watching motorsports on TV, only better. Picking camera views, rewinding to incidents you pick-up on voice chat, chatting with other spectators. Sometimes I just sit and wait for races to go official, then I pick a race to watch at random, sometimes I look in myRacers to see if teammates or other friends are racing at the time.

“The spectator feature.  It’s like watching motorsports on TV, only better.”

Q: What would you change about iRacing?
A: Add more cars to existing series and classes, instead of adding new series that will bring down participation in others.

Q: How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A: Too many! I’d guess it’s 20 hours or more..

Q: Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s) . . .
A: Paint on helmet is just basic iRacing flames scheme. Flames have been red, blue and now finally gray flames. My Mustang paint is pretty basic, blue stripes on dark gray base color. Then I’ve added to it from season to season, last update was to add the logo of the racing team I joined recently, The Black Rebels. The Corvette paint scheme I use was painted by David Garcia for the racing team.

Sahlin is moving up the Prototype/GT Challenge charts in his Black Rebels CR.6.

Q: What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A: I sometimes go back to RACE 07 and drive a few races in the BMW 320i E46 or BMW M3 E30.

Q: What are your favorite video games?
A: Right now, Battlefield 3. But I don’t have time for multiplayer, and singleplayer is getting boring.

Q: What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A: Hard to pick, there’s a memorable moment almost every week. But if I have to pick, my two races so far in Continental Endurance Sports Car Series have been some of the best and most fun races so far.

Q: What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A: Start of 120 minutes of Sebring event, got too close to the car in front and locked-up just enough to unsettle the car. From there I was a passenger as the car started sliding left into the wall, flipped over and took one other Corvette with me to the outside wall, damaged the front on one other car coming behind us. . .   I’m not the one to just rage quit. I viewed the incident a few times, wrote private message to the one I took with me to the wall. I stayed to watch for a while, wrote good luck private messages to a few drivers I know. In other accidents I’ve had, it was only single car incidents where I crashed myself. This was different, and was super embarrassing. I’d love to forget this moment.

“I was a passenger as the car started sliding left into the wall…”

Q: What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A: I’d love to see new GT cars Grand-AM series, particularly the BMW M3, Mazda RX-8 and Chevy Camaro. Nürburgring of course!

Q: What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A: Nothing comes to mind…sorry.

Sahlin (left) leads the chase of McRae at the start of the CESCS race at Homestead.

Q: What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A: STCC has been for a long time, but this year there’s a struggle between STCC and a new series called TTA. And I think TTA will win my interest, maybe a little because I’m a biased to Saab, which atleast one team I heard of will drive in that series.

Q: Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A: The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly

Q: Name of your favorite movie/TV show?

A: The Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie, and Southland is my favorite TV show.

Q: Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?

No.

The iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series invaded Sonoma, California for the third week of the season at Infineon Raceway. Christian Aranha and David Williams were the center(s) of attention as they went into the week’s online racing action tied for first place on the leader board.  Aranha continued his undefeated sweep this week, winning the two races he elected to start and led every lap en route to his twin triumphs. Unfortunately for Williams, a racing incident cost him a huge points payout during his sole race of the week, enabling Aranha to take complete control in the overall points. However, Infineon saw some new contenders prove they too are willing and (potentially) able to chase down the flawless Floridian.

Five races went official this week, starting with two splits during the 2:00 GMT timeslot. Split One had a 2080 Strength of Field (SoF) which was one of the lowest of the week. Jim Shedlick won in dominant fashion, starting from pole and leading all 25 laps to come home 1.5s ahead of Duncan Coppedge by nearly 1.5 seconds. Shedlick earned 131 points for his victory, and Coppedge collected 123 points for his solid runner-up effort place finish.  Rounding-out the podium over 31 seconds back was Amjed Yamin who received 116 points for his efforts.

Week 3 brought the Barber Premier Series to the challenging confines of Infineon Raceway.

“On the plus side, I got matched with Duncan who had very similar pace and we had a good battle,” Shedlick said. “The lapped cars were courteous as always and the traffic mostly evened out for us. I made one small mistake and had to defend at the hairpin, but that was about as consistent as I could be at this track.”

“That was about as consistent as I could be at this track.” — Jim Shedlick

The second split of the 2:00 GMT timeslot featured 18 sim racers vying for victory. Polesitter Curtis Fung grabbed the lead and set a consistent place, only to experience engine woes on Lap 7 that forced him to retire. Kurt Krumm took over the lead, and never looked back as he led Joel Harshbarger and Nicholas Vandal to the checkered flag.

The sole race in the 10:00 GMT timeslot turned-out to be another proving ground for points leader, Aranha who (once again) started on the pole and never looked back.  As he has proven week-in and week-out, Aranha was the class of the field, finishing over 31 seconds ahead of runner-up Italy’s Marco Corti (a man becoming very familiar with podium positions) with Wade Hayward a further seven seconds in arrears.

As the Barber Premier drivers proved, there's more than one way to attack Infineon's hairpin.

The first split of the 20:00 GMT time slot races was a battle between winners of races earlier on in the day. Aranha once again won in what has become his signature style, leading all 25 laps over Krumm. The 2373 SoF was the highest-rate race for either of the top duo at Infineon, enabling Aranha to capitalize on 149 points, as well as give a boost to Krumm’s overall score for the week with 140 points. Rounding- out the podium was Benelux’s Jeroen Ganzeveld who earned 132 points for his efforts.

The second split saw the highest SoF of the day — 2382. Jan Niesiolowski started out on the pole with Williams to his outside. Niesiolowski led the first 20 laps of the race with Williams applying pressure in second. Williams, hoping to capitalize on the higher SoF and preventing Aranha from having an equal share of the lead for a second consecutive week, did everything in his power to get around Niesiolowski.  However the two connected on Lap 21, dashing their of their hopes for victory. In fact, both Niesiolowski and Williams finished laps down as erstwhile third place driver and championship contender Stuart Adcock grabbed the for lead the final five laps of the race and crossed the stripe first.

“It’s not over by a long shot yet.” — David Williams

Adcock tallied 150 points for the win, but gained just a single point over Aranha for the week. David Faure and Robin Lie completed the podium, finishing 35 and 44 seconds back respectively, while Williams finished P12 for the day, earning a mere 58 points for the week.

“So as it stands now, Christian is running away with the champ,” Williams said. “But it’s early days, and there are two drop weeks, so it’s not over by a long shot yet.”

Aranha (431) has a 19 point cushion over Adcock as the series heads back to the East Coast in two weeks for the fourth installment of the iRacing.com Skip Barber Racing School Premier Series. Krumm (395) lies third, with Corti (391) and Coppedge (384) looming his mirrors, while Williams dropped from an equal share of the lead to 90 points back in 11th position. Williams — along with over 200 other sim racers — still has his eyes set on Aranha, hoping to reel him back in after what is arguably the most critical week in points to date. What will be in store for the flawless Floridian at Road Atlanta?

The second round of the 2012 Premier GRAND-AM iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series, the online championship for digital replicas of the Riley MkXX Daytona Prototype and Ford Mustang FR500S, headed to Barber Motorsports Park in pursuit of its 2012 sim-racing class champions. The GRAND-AM sanctioned series, closely mirrors its real-life counterpart, with visits to classic circuits such as Daytona International Speedway, Virginia International Raceway and Lime Rock Park, awarding each class champion $1,000 in prize money at the end of the season.

Daytona Prototypes
Making his first Daytona Prototype appearance in the 2012 season, Evan Maillard marked his return to the championship with an outright victory at the Barber Motorsports Park, one better than a second place finish in his first race of the day. The Frenchman, who claimed a weekend best of 248 points for his win, started from pole position.  Despite some early pressure from England’s Scott Michaels, Maillard was able to sail to the chequered flag with nearly a one-minute advantage over Brazil’s Eduardo Prado.  Even though he was unable to challenge for the win in the one-hour race, Prado did claim the second highest points tally at BMS – 227.  That would be 28 more than Rygh Galloway, who ended his 69 laps in third position on the track and fifth in points on the week.

Townend leads the field to his second win in as many tries this season.

Claiming his second win of the 2012 Premier GRAND-AM Series, Blake Townend made an untouchable charge from flag-to-flag to net 219 points, the third highest total of the week. The Englishman picked-up where he left off in the opening round at Daytona , besting New Yorker Christopher Roberts to the line in dominant fashion over 70 laps of online racing. Although Townend was the man to beat at Barber (at least on paper), Roberts finished the race a mere three-seconds back of the winner, and even led a couple of laps during the ‘pit-stop shuffle.’

Finishing in fourth in the same race behind Townend, Roberts and Maillard, Anthony Roselli scored 172 points, enough to place the American in sixth position at the end of the weekend. Top-five finishes for Kurt Krumm and Joao Pinho, place them seventh and eighth respectively for Round Two, whilst Jarno Viljanen secured ninth ahead of Renato Dornelles, despite the latter claiming an outright victory in his only race of the weekend. Similarly, although Mark Eggleston was one of four drivers to take a win in the Daytona Prototypes at Barber Motorsports Park, the Englishman was only placed in seventeenth position for Round Two, once the ‘strength of field’ was taken into consideration.

With two rounds complete, Townend heads the Daytona Prototype leader board on 461 points, 34 more than Roselli, who holds a nine mark advantage over the third-placed Roberts.

Ford Mustang FR500S
Continuing his own going battle with Scott Michaels, current Premier GRAND-AM iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series Ford Mustang Champion Dave Gelink took top marks at the digital-rendition of the Barber Motorsports Park. In a reversal of fortunes from Round One, Gelink started in second position but grabbed the lead mid-way through the race, when Englishman Michaels found himself embroiled in an on track incident. From there, Gelink never looked back, and held on to claim Ford Mustang class honours at the chequered flag, a result that earned him 244 points. For his efforts, Michaels took second second place and 209 marks, good enough for runner-up on the weekend.

Gelink was in top form at Barber Motorsports Park.

A third-place finish for Kevin Parrish secured the American 174 points, 35 more than Jernej Zorec, who claimed fourth position in his solitary race of the week, and fourth in the weekend standings for Round Two. A class victory for New York-based David Jacques, his first of the season so far, earned him a 135 point haul, ousting Loren Bateman from fifth in the weekend standings, and Alexandre Caetano, who also secured a virtual Ford Mustang class win. Podium finishes for Jonathan Butel, Darren W Jump and Edmund K Friedman, sees the trio occupy eighth, ninth and tenth respectively.

Despite besting Michaels at BMS, Gelink continues to trail the Englishman in the overall standings, albeit with a small margin of 94 points. As the Premier GRAND-AM iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series heads to Homestead-Miami Speedway for Round Three, Jacques occupies third position in the overall Championship standings, with Parrish and Maillard (who has made just one Ford Mustang appearance in the 2012 season), just a handful of points behind.

Images courtesy of Blake Townend

In qualifying, Yang Ou narrowly edged-out Chris Cahoe for pole position with a 24.731s lap — just .003s quicker than Cahoe’s best.  Close behind in third was Niles Anders (24.752s), Brian Stevens fourth (24.771s) and Michael Peters just behind him with a 24.772s lap.  The top ten in qualifying were separated by only 0.067s.

Ou and Cahoe head for the green flag.

The start of the race saw a lot of shuffling in the first few laps.  While Stevens dropped a couple positions to sixth, Tim Doyle was making his way forward from sixth at the start.  On lap two battling Anders for the third spot, the two made contact on entry to turn three, sending Anders hard into the wall and Doyle getting a tap from Peters who had nowhere to go.  Both were able to continue with only Peters having minor front wing damage.  Further back in the pack Matthew Lambertson’s Dallara also received front wing damage when trying to avoid the slowing car of Cary Bettenhausen.

Anders rides the Turn 3 wall as Peters gets into Doyle.

Over the next 20 laps of green there was great racing all over the track with positions swapping every lap.  Jonathan Goke worked his way to fourth place with Mitch McCracken moving into the top five on lap nine.  Doyle moved into second on the start dropping Cahoe to third.

On lap 22 while battling hard for 12th in a pack of seven cars, Lambertson wobbled a bit in turns 1 and 2 and drifted up into Terry Matthiensen.  Neffry Aawg who was directly behind the two had nowhere to go and clipped Lambertson’s front wing and crashed hard into the wall.  All three retired from the race.

With the race’s second yellow shown, this was an opportunity for the field to take tires and fuel.  Ou lead the field onto pit road as well as off with the top five of Ou, Doyle, Cahoe, Goke and Peters moving past McCracken for fifth.  Once back under way on lap 26, the duo of Ou and Doyle pulled away from the field leaving Cahoe and Goke to battle for third.  Misfortune struck for Cahoe though on lap 35 when he made contact with Goke sending Cahoe spinning off turn four.  Dave Judson, running in 10th position couldn’t avoid the spinning car of Cahoe and resulted in both of them ending their races.

With pit road open on lap 37, the entire field once again pitted for tires and fuel.  The top five for the restart was now Ou, Doyle, Goke, Peters and Chris Manifold.  Ou and Doyle set to build a gap on the restart and succeeded.  The pair slowly pulled away on the restart and built a lead of nearly four seconds by the time the race’s fourth yellow flew on lap 73.  This yellow was for an incident between the drivers of Stevens, Randy Freeman and David Sockrider.  Battling for the 13th spot, Freeman’s car got loose in turn 4 and shot up the track directly into the path of Stevens.  The contact sent Stevens car low into Sockrider and the two careened into the front stretch wall suffering heavy damage for the two.

Sockrider and Stevens en route to DNFs.

With fuel mileage roughly allowing 52 laps under green, this latest yellow ruined any chance of green flag pitting so now the race would need to be won off pit road during the yellow or on the track.  Ou, Doyle and Goke were able to maintain first through third, but fourth place now saw Robert Bohanek moving closing to the front with Peters back in fifth.  Fourth place quickly disappeared for Bohanek as McCracken got the jump and passed Bohanek and settling into fifth behind Peters.

The race remained green until lap 93 when Randy Crossno’s car got loose in turn 3 and sent him around into Freeman’s path.  Both would be forced to retire just 28 laps from the end.  None of the lead cars chose to pit on this yellow.  On the restart, Ou and Doyle again slowly pulled away from the field and the pair cruised to a 2.7 second win over third place finisher Goke.  Peters and McCracken rounded-out the top five.

Ou may have led every lap but, thanks to Doyle, he didn't an easy time of it at Homestead.

Race Stats

Laps: 120
Pole: Yang Ou
Lead changes: 0
Cautions: 5
Caution laps: 19
Lap leaders: Ou 1-120
Margin of victory: 0.062s
Hard charger: Anders (19spots)
Laps lead: Ou (120)
Fastest lap: Doyle 24.690 (Lap 85)

Top 5
1. Yang Ou
2.  Tim Doyle
3.  Jonathan Goke
4.  Michael Peters
5.  Mitch McCracken

Cars finishing: 14
DNF: Anders, Lambertson, Matthiensen, Aawg, Cahoe, Judson, Stevens, Randy Crossno, Freeman

Some 460 sim racers took-on the challenges of Martinsville in Week 9 of the NiCAS.

One man who is no stranger to the top is Jared Crawford, as he proved once again he can get the job done at any track, no matter the difficulty. Crawford absolutely man handled the 5535 Strength of Field race, leading all 130 laps en route to a victory and 352 point payout. While Crawford was out front setting the pace, his rival in the points standings Jason Karlavige was mired back in traffic having to settle for a third place finish. Among the top two Division One drivers was the surprise second place finisher, Richard Dussett.

A few other surprise drivers putting themselves among the top drivers this week were Casey Malone and Brandon Atkinson. Malone raced twice and while he wasn’t able to make his mark in victory lane, he did put together a solid run earning himself a huge 315 points. On the other hand, Atkinson was able to stear clear of his 10 incidents in his only start, to put himself seventh of the 460 drivers who took part in the week’s festivities.

Maybe it was the famous Martinsville hot dogs that kept a few drivers coming back for more, but there was definitely a handful of drivers that fell in love with something at the speedway. Once again Rick Savage led the way in starts with sixteen, edging-out New England’s William Lyman by three. James Boyett and Paul Beardmore were the only other drivers with ten or more starts on the week. The win totals were much lower numbers with Scott Heckert leading the charge with three. Five other drivers, including NASCAR iRacing.com World Series Championship (NiSWC) drivers Michael Conti and Tyler Hudson, were tied with two wins.

Many try, but few can master the art of sim racing at the track affectionately known as "Marty."

Jared Crawford continues to slowly creep away from Jason Karlavige in the race to be the number one seed into the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS). Crawford now leads by a still very narrow 37 points. The top two have set themselves apart from the field, with Karlavige holding a 369 point lead over third place Adam Gilliland. Philipp Geiss and the hard charging Casey Malone round out the top five Class A licensed drivers.

Next week for the NiCLAS is a bit longer of a track, but not much more banking to lean on as the series heads northeast to New Hampshire Motor Speedway. NHMS hosted a huge race two seasons ago, which was a turning point for many bubble drivers hoping to lock their seat in the NiPS. The tricky, relatively flat one mile oval always leaves drivers wanting more from their setups. However to win at this track drivers will have to put their setup woes behind them, and get up on the wheel and make it happen for themselves. It’s always fun to watch, but even more fun to strap in and compete in the series for yourself. As always check back at inRacingNews.com next week for a full recap.

Two dozen sim racers took to the field for Round 4 of the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series (CESCS) at 5.26km Virginia International Raceway on March 24th.  The mixed class online racing competition features the Ford Mustang FR500S in the GS Class and Mazda MX5 of the ST Class.

Qualifying

A brief rundown on qualifying showed the #69 of Trace McRae at the top again in the GS class with a 2:05.724.  Oscar Sahlin qualified 2nd with a 2:06.116 and Russell Klaesson 3rd fastest with 2:06.334.

The Aussie James Stevenson qualified 1st in the ST class with a stunning 2:12.933 to be almost a full second clear of 2nd placed Giancarlo Lenzi with a 2:13.880.  Jason Bryfogle was able to snag 3rd fastest on the grid with a 2:14.184 when both Antti Tuominen and Jarrett Lawson were unable to match their earlier practice times.

Race Review

Trace McRae got off to another great start, but it was in the ST class where the early action was to happen.  James Stevenson in the MX5 was able to keep his position into turn 1, but coming through turns 5A and 6 he found himself going quicker than the slower Mustang of Ricky Dalton, and tried to make a pass.  Unfortunately, there was minimal room for this, and he had to slot back in behind Ricky.  This allowed Giancarlo Lenzi in 2nd to get a better run, and they went side-by-side through turn 7 only to touch. This must have unsettled James’ car and he lost control at the subsequent corner running onto the grass, and falling back to 8th.  Lenzi then ran wide exiting turn 12 at Oak Tree giving the #90 of Antti Tuominen (who was behind) a relatively straight-forward pass into turn 14 of the Roller Coaster.  And, it was Tuominen who lead the MX5′s past the start-finish line to complete their first lap.

Turn 1 – Opening lap. The familiar site of Trace McRae at the front.

Trace McRae was having no such troubles in the Mustang to be leading the GS class during the opening stages of the race.  Over the course of the next few laps, we saw what has become the norm in the ST class, with many of the drivers coming in to satisfy their mandatory pitstop.  Antti would stay out and continue leading the MX5′s. But, Lenzi would lead the charge of those already pitted, and on lap 6 had caught the slower MX5 of John Montoya.  Coming ’round turn 10, Lenzi ran wide onto the grass allowing Jarrett Lawson, behind, to close in. Then, exiting Oak Tree Lenzi got stuck briefly behind Montoya and Lawson pounced. Fans were on their feet as the 3 MX5′s ran side-by-side down the Back Straight.  Lenzi trying to pass Montoya, and Lawson trying pass both!  As the Roller Coaster approached we were about to see who had the biggest cahoonas.

Three-wide approaching the Roller Coaster.

And, it was Lawson who entered turn 14 in the lead, with Lenzi deciding to slot in behind Lawson to get past Montoya.  Although, two laps later, Lenzi had the position back.

Back out in front, the leading Mustang of McRae had yet to pit, and was followed by the #84 of Oscar Sahlin and the #14 of Kevin Browne.  In the ST class Tuominen was still leading, followed by the #16 of Eric Biggs and the #57 of Stephane Morien (neither of the three having made their mandatory pitstop).

On lap 10 James Stevenson had managed to catch Jarrett Lawson in 5th, and drew up alongside Lawson on the Back Straight, after getting a better run out of Oak Tree.  And, it was Lawson this time who braked early, handing the position to Stevenson.  But, just ahead Lenzi was having his own moment, losing control on the Roller Coaster, and running off on the grassy infield.  This mistake moved Stevenson up yet another position to now be 4th in the ST class.

So, with the last of the ST class pitstops being made on lap 12, including the current leader Tuominen, it was going to be close as to whether he had created enough of a gap while out in front.  And, as he rejoined the track, he found himself right in the middle of the battle between Stevenson and Lawson (who were all now fighting for the lead in their respective class).  Once again, at the exit of Oak Tree, Tuominen got into Stevenson’s slipstream and was able to take the position back, only to run wide on the exit of Hog Pen.  This pushed Antti back to 3rd and finally moved Stevenson back into the lead.

In the GS class, Oscar Sahlin’s pit crew had (yet again) managed to get him out in front of McRae to be leading outright, with Jady Baumgardner back in 3rd.  But, McRae hadn’t given up, and on lap 16 as Sahlin closed in on the MX5 of Hang Ho Tao, found an opening as Sahlin overcooked it and ran wide trying to pass into the slow turn 11.  This gave McRae the opening he was looking for, and found himself in front once again as he exited turn 12 onto the Back Straight.  One lap later, and we had our first full-course caution of the day and the field bunched back up, and those cars one lap down were able to get a wave-around to be back on the lead lap once more.

Eric Biggs gets it all wrong exiting Oak Tree with Oscar Sahlin on the skids.

At the restart, both Antti Tuominen (in 2nd) and Jarrett Lawson (3rd) found themselves in trouble from the stewards being handed stop-and-go penalties due to overtaking before the start/finish line.

Lap 24 brought out another full-course caution with an incident between the #2 of Lenzi and the #10 of Hang Ho Tao.  Lenzi spinning on the exit of Oak Tree leaving the #10 with nowhere to go.  As the field bunched up again, Mustang positions up front remained unchanged.  But, in the MX5 division the #34 of Jason Bryfogle and the #16 of Eric Biggs had found their way into 2nd and 3rd places respectively, with Stevenson still leading.

Lap 28  saw the race back under green only to be under caution again 3 laps later.  Replays showed Joseph Peak’s unsuccessful move down the inside of Matthew Reinoehl at Oak Tree for 5th place.  Both spun, and Lenzi was just able to avoid contact with either, following close behind.

The #8 of Joseph Peak comes into contact with Matthew Reinoehl at Oak Tree.

Back under pace car conditions pit crews were calculating whether the 90 minute race would finish under the pace car or not. And, as the track was cleared of debris it looked as if there might be anywhere between 2-3 laps remaining if the pace car came in at the end of lap 34.  And, that proved to be the case, as the pace came in on lap 34, leaving drivers and fans with a 3 lap shootout to the finish.  Positions in the GS class had changed with 3rd placed Jady Baumgardner losing control and running wide at the fast South Bend.  This promoted Russell Klaesson into 3rd.  In the ST class Stevenson was still leading with Jarrett Lawson making a recovery to find himself back in 2nd and Jason Bryfogle now in 3rd.

So, green flag for the final time at Virginia, and everyone away cleanly, except for #57 of Stephane Morien who would be black flagged for jumping the start.  Out in front McRae, Sahlin and Klaesson were pulling away from the pack in their Mustangs.  But, back in the ST class Stevenson was being pressured by Lawson.  And, at turn 5 Lawson made a surprise move on Stevenson to get by cleanly before heading into the Snake to take the lead.  Stevenson again fought back on the Back Straight, and was able to find his way around the outside of Lawson at the Roller Coaster.

Three laps to go and Lawson leads, with some of closest MX5 racing in the iRacing service.

Meanwhile, McRae had been forced into an error exiting Oak Tree by Oscar Sahlin. And Oscar saw his chance and pulled his #84 Mustang alongside McRae on the Back Straight with a little over a lap to go.

The #84 of Oscar Sahlin makes his last attempt at grabbing the lead from McRae.

Approaching the Roller Coaster 2-wide Trace outbreaked Sahlin, yet still managing to keep control for the right-hander and maintain the lead and take the win, his 3rd in a row.  James Stevenson hung on to take his 3rd win of the series as well, after his first lap excursion.  Lawson missed his opportunity to grab second, with a last lap off at turn 4.

So, the finishing positions after yet another exciting CESCS race are:-

GS Class Podium
1. Trace McRae (No.69 Team Green)
2. Oscar Sahlin (No. 84)
3. Russell Klaesson (No. 22 vApex Racing Group/ Inside Sim Racing TV)

ST Class Podium
1. James Stevenson (No. 11)
2. Jason Bryfogle (No. 34 B Racing / Smarter Planet / St. Jude’s)
3. Matthew Reinoehl (No. 44 E. Kostritzer Schwartzbier)

Race Statistics
Laps completed (by leader):  37 laps
Cars finishing on lead lap: 23
Overall lap leaders:  Trace McRae, Oscar Sahlin.
Full-course Cautions: 3
DNFs: 1
Fastest Lap (GS class): 2:05.432 – Trace McRae
Fastest Lap (ST Class): 2:13.186 – Jarrett Lawson
Race Marshal: Mike Perry

The 5th Round of the CESCS will be at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on April 7th.

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The CESCS is an official iRacing league which mirrors the Grand-Am Continental Tires series. It features the Mazda MX-5 Cup competing in Street Touring (ST) and the Ford Mustang FR500S competing in the Grand Sport (GS) class. It was established to provide a proper mixed-class racing experience for drivers of the MX5 and the Mustang beyond what is currently offered and especially to provide a true endurance series for drivers of both vehicles. The schedule aims to replicate the real-world series featuring timed endurance race distances run at the same tracks as the real series including Daytona, Mid-Ohio and, this season, Indianapolis!

You can follow our races streamed live over the internet through GlacierTV or via our Live Timing & Scoring app. Both links are located on our Schedule page.

For more information on the Continental Endurance Sports Car Series check out the official website.

Stergios (41) made all the right moves at LVMS in besting Johnson (39) for his first NiSWC win.

Series heavyweights were nowhere to be found among the top finishers, but unpredictable finishes are a staple of the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship at LVMS.  Stergios’ surprise victory brought back memories of Sandeep Banerjee’s amazing drive through the field with a damaged car to win here back in 2010.  While not quite as dramatic, Stergios’ win will still be remembered as one of those “Where did he come from?” moments.

Series point leader Michael Conti had a rough, up and down day. He started on pole, looking to build on his championship lead over Ray Alfalla, who started third. Things looked promising for the opening 11 laps of the race, as Conti built a big lead over the rest of the field before the first yellow flew. However, Hall took the lead during the first round of pit stops and Conti could never find his way back to the front, as his car did not handle well in traffic. He ended-up twentieth at the finish after being involved in a wreck with just a few laps remaining.

After taking the lead on Lap 12, Hall would go on to lead a race high 98 of 134 laps, and it looked like no one but Alfalla could match his blistering pace. The same caution that helped Stergios to the win relegated Hall and Alfalla to seventh and eighth place finishes; respectable, but definitely not what their cars were capable of.

LVMS was not kind to the series heavyweights. Here point leader Conti (5) tangles with Steve Sheehan (6) and Josh Berry (72) as Jeremy R Allen (28) and Jon Adams (84) take evasive action.

Even with his disappointing finish, Conti remains the point leader after four of 17 races, although just a single point separates him from defending champion Alfalla. Brian Schoenburg moved up to third in the standings with his thirteenth place finish and sits dozen points out of the lead. Hall is another 12 points back and Johnson rounds out the top five.

The race at Vegas was the cleanest of the young 2012 season, which bodes well for the series heading to Texas Motor Speedway for Round Five. Texas and Las Vegas are both 1.5 mile tracks, but the similarities stop there, as each has its unique characteristics. The early front runners at Vegas, such as Hall, Conti and Alfalla, will be the early favorites, but as Stergios showed last night, you can never count anyone out until the checkers have flown.

Starting alongside My3id’s Hugo Luis, who’d set a pole position time of 1:04.196, Huttu methodically shadowed the 2011 World Champion for the opening half of the online race, until the Brazilian headed to pit lane for service. With a clear track ahead, the Team Redline pilot laid-down multiple hot-laps before taking to the pits himself for fuel and tires, to rejoin several seconds ahead of the incumbent champion. This proved decisive for the Finn, who is aiming to reclaim the title he lost last year, as he powered to the chequered flag, unchallenged and 10 seconds clear of Luis.

After biding his time in the opening stint, Huttu grabbed the lead on the pit stop exchange and drove to a convincing win at The Brickyard.

“A great race for me in the Team Redline Fanatec FW31!” Huttu enthused post-race. “I was able to follow Hugo close behind during the first stint. Getting the slipstream on the oval part helped but I felt like I was a little faster on some laps on the infield part. Because of that I thought our strategy would be similar, although I seemed to lose-out on acceleration so I was hoping that I’d have a bit more fuel.

“I did a few smooth and clean laps which I knew should easily be enough to get the lead. It worked out . . .” –  Greger Huttu

“I was surprised to see Hugo pit on Lap 37 which left me with three laps to build a gap as my plan was to pit on Lap 40. I did a few smooth and clean laps which I knew should easily be enough to get the lead. It worked out and I exited the pits with about a seven-second lead.”

Despite losing the winning advantage during the pit-stop shuffle, the result was still a positive one for Luis, enough to keep his hopes of making iRacing history by being the first sim-racer to retain the World Championship crown in consecutive seasons.

A pole-sitting Hugo led at the start, but was destined to finish runner-up

“Qualifying was better than I expected. I was struggling to do good lap times the whole day but fortunately I could run a fast lap good enough to have my first pole of the season.” Luis shared this week.

“There’s not much to say about the race. I tried to stay focused and lead the race the most I could because I suspected Greger’s car would be heavier on fuel, doing equal and even faster laps sometimes. Looks like the tire wear is so non-existent that you can do a full tank stint and still do very fast lap times at the end, so my strategy was probably one of the worst ones in the whole grid.

“After my pit-stop, I knew Greger would gain a lot on lap times and especially on his pit-stop for refueling less fuel, so I just wanted to make sure I’d finish second.”

“I knew Greger would gain a lot on lap times . . . so I just wanted to make sure I’d finish second.” — Hugo Luis

Bouncing his way up and down the top-five, Jaroslav Honzik recorded a season-best third place finish, with an outstanding drive to the chequered flag. By his own admission, the Czech Republican “felt like a robot” during the race, as he pulled-off several passes on-track – and took advantage of other competitors’ misfortunes — to finish on the podium.

“I left pit-lane in third place with almost 8-9 seconds gap between me and Roland (Ehnström), and 5-6 seconds to Hugo in second place!” Honzik told inRacingNews. “Roland been hold by other cars because he pit too early and to my surprise Samuel (Libeert) crashed in the pit-lane. Very surprising was to see where the hell Luke (McLean) came from on Lap 46, about 10 seconds behind me in fourth place. At start of stint it was very scary because Luke is hard alien, for him to get close to me and steal my third place – but after few laps I knew that only mistake would take my place because our pace was very close.”

McLean's impressive drive was highlighted by his bold outside pass of Egger in Turn One.

Although Honzik was a worthy contender for ‘Driver of the Day,’ it was Team Redline’s Luke McLean who left the biggest impression on Round Three of the iGPSWC, as he worked his way from the midfield to a slot in the top-five. Starting from fourteenth position, the Australian not only capitalised on the demise of team-mate Atze Kerkhof on the opening lap and Radical’s Libeert midway through the race, but also nailed several overtakes, including a daring pass of Matthias Egger.

“I had a long battle with Matthias which lasted a good 20 laps,” McLean explained. “My seventh gear needed one more click so I was struggling to get up alongside to do a pass. On Lap 37 I got a good run off the last turn and made a big dive around the outside of Turn One. Matthias gave me room and I did a power-slide on the exit and just held it, I had a lot of fun with that one.

“I did a power-slide on the exit and just held it, I had a lot of fun with that one.” — Luke McLean

“Then I had some good laps of clean air and low fuel to try and leap some positions. The lapped cars were extremely generous and gave way all race so I got those good laps in and attacked the pit entry. On the exit I was checking what cars were around and to my shock I was in fifth and right behind Roland in fourth. It seemed Roland was struggling a bit so I decided before he could get into a rhythm I would go for a move, and into Turn One I went for it.  He gave lots of room and then for the rest of the race managed fourth place.”

Securing his second top-five finish in as many races, Orion Racing’s Ehnström absorbed relentless pressure from Ben Cornett and David Williams to bag a hatfull of points behind McLean. The Swede had been promoted to fourth position by the time he left pit-lane on Lap 38, as Libeert made race-retiring contact with the wall when pulling out of his pit-box, but had to settle for a fifth place finish, after succumbing to the determined McLean, who was racing like a man possessed.

“Luke McLean finally made his stop after a very long first stint, and came out of the pits between me and Ben. ‘Where did he come from?!’ I thought, and didn’t even try to hold position,” Ehnström commented. “Luke passed me easily within a lap and set off into the distance, demoting me back to fifth position. But ironically Luke’s presence ahead of me helped me defend position from his team-mate Ben, as I was helped by Luke’s slipstream for quite a few laps to stay one second ahead of Ben.”

Haapala gives chase to Stergios on the way to a ninth place finish.

Heading into Round Three of the iGPSWC with several DNFs to his name, Team Redline’s Cornett openly admitted to a lack of preparation for the race.  His lack of testing showed, with a poor gearing choice for the long flat-out run to Turn One. Without the extra legs of an extended seventh-gear, the Australian was unable to carry the momentum in his attempts to challenge Ehnström, but he did manage to keep My3id’s Williams at bay, to bag sixth spot at the chequered flag.

Finishing three-tenths behind the aforementioned Cornett, Englishman Williams had a white-knuckle ride to flag, as he held-off continuous challenges from Jake Stergios to secure seventh position. After seeing Stergios dispatch Egger before the first round of pit-stops, Williams was in defensive mode until the American virtual-racer made an unforced error, one that sent him across the grass at Turn One. This gave Williams the breathing space he needed, whilst Stergios had his mirrors filled with Orion’s Illka Haapala and Egger, who ran nose-to-tail throughout the race en-route to ninth and tenth place, respectively.

As the 2012 iRacing.com Grand Prix Series World Championship heads to Round Four at bumpy Sebring International Raceway, Huttu has extended his lead over Luis in the standings to 32 points. With his first ever iWCGPS podium finish under his belt, Honzik occupies third, 20 marks adrift of Luis, while McLean and Ehnström are five and 16 points further back respectively.

A group of racing’s finest has come together to support the next generation of up-and-coming drivers in a new initiative launched by SAFEisFAST.com, a free online resource offering video tutorials on safety, fitness, mental skills, race craft, career development, sponsorship and marketing created by the Road Racing Drivers Club. The new project will allow drivers to receive advice directly from today’s top stars and will feature a new Online Driving Instructor every two weeks from April through September. Drivers already confirmed include Dario Franchitti, JR Hildebrand, James Hinchcliffe, Andy Lally, Johnny O’Connell and Scott Pruett, with IZOD IndyCar Series driver and reigning Firestone Indy Lights Champion Josef Newgarden kicking off the program this week.

“SAFE is FAST started as a series of free young driver workshops three years ago,” said Bobby Rahal, President of the Road Racing Drivers Club which, in conjunction with the FIA Motor Sport Safety Development Fund, launched the project to assist the careers of drivers in all forms of racing. “The workshops were highly successful and we quickly realized that we had created something of great value to today’s racers. Moving our coursework online through a series of video tutorials was a logical step – and will benefit drivers from around the world. Our latest program takes that one step further by offering one-on-one time with top drivers from a variety of disciplines.”

Beginning today through April 8, drivers will be able to pose questions to Newgarden via a form on SAFEisFAST.com. Newgarden will begin answering questions online on Monday, April 9, through Friday, April 13, with a new driver taking over Online Driving Instructor duties on April 16. The top-three questions, as chosen by the instructor, will receive free 3-month subscriptions to iRacing.com, the world’s foremost online motorsports simulation service.

The Online Driving Instructor initiative launches alongside a series of new video tutorials which will roll-out every two weeks in conjunction with a new instructor, offering drivers the opportunity to ask in-depth questions on the current material. New video features will include Race Car Setup, Working with the Media (featuring advice from the SPEED TV broadcast team), Basic Driver Workout, Nutrition: Fueling the Driver, Recovering from Injuries and Marketing Yourself.

“The SAFEisFAST.com website is just a terrific resource for drivers, and when they asked me if I would come on board as an Online Driving Instructor I immediately said yes,” noted Newgarden, who finished an impressive 11th in his IZOD IndyCar Series debut with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing at St. Petersburg two weeks ago. “I started driving karts when I was 13, and I would have loved to have been able to go to someone like Dario [Franchitti], for example, for advice. Fielding questions from up-and-coming drivers will be a lot of fun, and I look forward to offering my insight and experience to help them as much as I can.”

Future video features on SAFEisFAST.com will include Maximizing Physical Fitness Preparation, with sessions at PitFit Training in Indianapolis, Ind., featuring renowned fitness expert Jim Leo and IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Josef Newgarden and James Hinchcliffe; and the Secrets to Street Circuit Racing, which will be filmed during the upcoming Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach; as well as an in-depth look behind the scenes at iRacing.com.

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About SAFEisFAST.com/RRDC:
The SAFEisFAST.com website is supported by a grant from the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety and Sustainability, a not-for-profit organization that develops and improves motorsport safety worldwide. The site was created by the Road Racing Drivers Club, a U.S. organization made up of many of the world’s most successful racing drivers. Members are elected by their peers and include Formula One World Champions, Indianapolis 500 winners, champion sports car drivers, and top American amateur road racers.

The club was founded in 1952 by a group of prominent American road racers as a way to give champion drivers a say in their sport – particularly in the area of safety. At the time, racing was enjoying a post-war boom with new circuits springing up throughout the country, but the predominance of haybale-lined tracks proved to be quite dangerous.

Now celebrating its 60th Anniversary, the club continues to lead the way in motorsport safety and young driver development.

If Blake Townend’s name seems familiar, it’s with good reason.  A past Star Mazda, Solstice Cup and double England Club champion, the resident of Milton Keynes (UK) has been a top iRacer since joining the service in early 2009.  So much so that he carries an A-license to the ovals and a coveted-Pro license to the road courses where, among other things, he’s been a regular competitor in the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series World Championship from the get-go.  Although he didn’t figure prominently in the 2010 edition of the WDC, last year saw him fall just three points shy of the top ten in the overall championship.  Although he didn’t get off to the best of starts this year, with a DNQ at Watkins Glen and a P21 in round two at Zandvoort, Townend is looking for better things this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Speaking of which, Townend has already enjoyed “better things” so far in the Premier GRAND-AM iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series.  he’s batting 1.000 after two events, having won last week at Barber Motorsports Park after taking the checkered flag at Daytona with a veritable thimble-full of virtual fuel left in his Riley Mk XX.  But then, Townend figures he IS a better tin top/sports car pilot than open wheel . . .

Q:          How long have you been sim racing?
A:         About six years.

Q:         What attracted you to iRacing?
A:         Laser-scanning technologies with the tracks and the cars.

Q:         What are your favorite iRacing cars/tracks?.
A:         Tracks:  Silverstone (home circuit), Road Atlanta, Lanier, Spa, Suzuka and Daytona Road.
Cars: Legends ’34 Coupe, Star Mazda, Pontiac Solstice, Riley DP, Corvette C6.R, Ford GT and the F1.  I seem quicker in tin tops and sports cars category compared to single seaters.

Q:         What do you like most about iRacing?
A:        Online mainly – racing with the best, racing others with a lot of respect and meeting new friends.  Racing on laser-scanned tracks is pretty cool as well. Getting the opportunity to race with the pros like Justin Wilson, Will Power, Shane Van Gisbergen and more.

Q:         What would you change about iRacing?
A:         Having driver swaps is a must for iRacing; and dynamic weather.

Q:         How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A:         It varies, racing wise not much, I’m spending a lot of time practicing for the iWCGPS.

Q:         Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s) . . .
A:         My normal colours, are Red, Blue and White. Red and blue are my favourite colours. I love my iRacing helmet so much that I would properly use that design if I were to race in real life. I drive for Radicals (www.radicalsonline.com) who have the colours red and black, and white that represents steelseries www.steelseries.com logo and the name SteelSeries on the cars. It gives me great joy whenever my teammates or I place our cars on websites like inRacingNews and the Grand-Am website.

Q:         What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A:         I don’t really have the time to play other games, though I do own GT5.

"It gives me great joy whenever my teammates or I place our cars on websites like inRacingNews and the Grand-Am website." Enjoy Blake! (Here shown leading teammates Scott Michaels and Samuel Libeert at Daytona.)

Q:         What are your favorite video games?
A:         When I was younger I loved the TOCA series. Gran Turismo is another great game where I would spend hours on end doing races.

Q:         What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A:         I have a few that all seem to be endurance races:
ISRA 2 hrs Winner in the Ford GT with 0 incident points @ Spa
SSCA 2.4 hrs Overall Winner C6R with 0 incident points @ Spa 2.4 hrs in the Grand Am Championship 10pm race, winner with zero incident points @ Daytona Road 0.2 gl left in the tank as I crossed the finishing line.
I’ve had some interesting strategies during these races, notably not having enough fuel towards the end of the Grand Am race and trying to do one less stop by saving on tyres and fuel in the SSCA race.

Q:         What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A:         Ah, we all have them. The biggest one that I will remember forever was in last year’s iWCGPS race at Spa. I started to push once I knew I had enough fuel to finish, Richard Towler was ahead and I was trying my hardest to catch him. I entered the bus stop for the last time and lost control of the car, as I went to spin the car around, there was a bit of grass and then another bit of grass that was not merged in line with the first bit of grass, this made the rear wheels become beached and my race halted. At the time I was running in 6th place and sadly lost that position with one corner to go. I would be classified in 15th place as the race had  finished.  It took me a couple of hours to sleep off that mistake.
Also, racing the trucks @ Michigan with a Pocono set-up. I somehow forgot to change the set over……..my race didn’t last long.

Q:          What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A:         Definitely Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and Long Beach. Both circuits would be very special to compete in the iWCGPS and I’m sure they would be good to watch on broadcast.

Q:          What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A:          Ayrton Senna, Sir Jackie Stewart and Dan Wheldon.  All talented behind the wheel and all very special people outside the cockpit.

Q:          What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A:          F1.

Townend is looking for goof things in Round 3 of the iGPSWC at the Brickyard.

Q:          Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A:          Jackie Stewart Winning is Not Enough.

Q:          Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
A:          There’s too many to have one.

Q:          How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A:          School mates none (all for football!). I class my teammates as my close friends so a lot of them.

Q:         Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?

A:        I’ve seen the community on iRacing become very helpful when situations arise, where someone needs a great deal of help and it’s guys/girls all over the world that help out. That right there is something special to have, especially when you have never met the person. After signing up to iRacing, I have been more interested in other forms of motorsport like NASCAR and Grand-Am. Had I not joined iRacing it may have been a different story.

Finally, I’d just like to say a Thank You to Radicals and SteelSeries for the continuing support.

iRacing partnered with Willliams in creating the virtual Williams-Toyota FW31 . . . which is right at home at Spa-Francorchamps, another iRacing partner.

iRacing’s partners blanket a spectrum of automotive and motorsports organizations, who share an appreciation for iRacing’s cutting-edge technology and commitment to providing its 35,000 members with an authentic motorsport experience.

That experience begins with iRacing’s painstaking recreation of real world race tracks, one based on laser-scans of the tracks surface to insure accuracy within 2 mm.  If there’s a bump or crack in the real pavement, it’s there on iRacing’s version of the track.  What’s more, iRacing’s track-building is an ongoing process.  Following the Daytona International Speedway’s massive repaving project in 2010, for example, iRacing did a complete “rescan” of the 2.5 mile speedway.

But the tracks are just the start.  The more than two dozen cars available on iRacing have been recreated with equal fidelity, fidelity that is more than skin deep.  In addition to a staff of talented artists who lovingly recreate the appearance of everything from sprint cars and Late Models to sports prototypes and Formula One machinery, iRacing employs vehicle dynamicists whose real world racing experience insures the cars’ performance matches that of their real world counterparts.

While iRacing is justifiably renowned for its state-of-the-art digital cars and tracks, the Boston-based company is unique among PC-based motorsport games in that it has its own an internal sanctioning body, one that not only schedules more than 1200 races a week but which has developed graded licenses and a defined ladder system enabling members to progress from novices to professional sim-racers.

Together with its cutting-edge technology, iRacing’s sanctioning body led to the establishment of jointly-sanctioned online race series with NASCAR, IndyCar, GRAND-AM, the Sports Car Club of America and Australia’s V8 Supercar Series.  The NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, for example, features virtual Chevrolet Impalas competing on a schedule mirroring NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series.  Race reports and updated standings appear on NASCAR.com, and the series winner is honored each year at the Sprint Cup finale with a NASCAR championship ring . . . and a check for $10,500.

iRacing and partner ISC introduced a re-scanned Daytona International Speedway, complete with a night racing feature.

“The online world is an ever growing marketplace filled with NASCAR fans. To provide those fans with the most realistic NASCAR racing environment, iRacing was the right partner for us,” says Blake Davidson, NASCAR managing director of licensed products. “Bill France Jr. had the original vision for this series . . .  He foresaw a day when NASCAR fans could experience NASCAR’s side-by-side racing from the comfort of their own homes; that day has come.”

To that we would only add that the service is not for NASCAR fans alone, but for a worldwide community of gamers and race fans who, in company with professional race drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr, Alex Gurney, Justin Wilson, Ron Capps, Rubens Barrichello and Shane van Gisbergen, proudly call themselves iRacers.

Barrichello is looking for a strong performance this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park.

Barrichello is looking for better results in Round Two of the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park.  With good reason:  He already has a couple of legs-up compared to last weekend.  Sure, he and the KV Racing Technology team tested at the 2.38 mile road course a few weeks ago.  Thanks to iRacing.com, however, Barrichello knew his way around BMS before he ever turned a wheel at the track.

Shortly after signing with KVRT and faced with the prospects of racing on a steady diet of new tracks this season, the Brazilian turned to iRacing.    Soon after he took to the Alabama track at the test, he realized the proof was in the pudding.

“iRacing taught me Barber Motorsports Park,” he says.  “It helped short-cut my learning curve.  The way they’ve done the laser-scan is pretty amazing.  I was able to learn the track visually and, for sure, I knew the track pretty well when I went there for the test.”

"iRacing taught me Barber Motorsports Park," says Barrichello

Barrichello is no stranger to motorsports simulations, of course.  He competes in GTR Brasil every month, an online racing series featuring touring cars.

“It’s quite a lot of fun,” he says.  “Good competition and some very good drivers.”

And, of course, driving for Williams, Brawn, Honda and Ferrari in recent seasons, he had access to multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art simulators.

So when Rubens Barrichello says he is impressed with the authenticity of iRacing’s version of Barber Motorsports Park, he’s not just whistling Dixie.  No wonder iRacing figures in his plans for the rest of his rookie season of IndyCar racing.

“When I get the chance, I’ll definitely go back to iRacing and learn the tracks,” he says, “especially the ovals.”

iRacing.com, the world’s foremost online motorsport simulation service, today announced plans to add the RUF RT12R to its lineup of virtual race cars and high performance automobiles.  Manufactured by RUF Automobile GmbH, the RT12R is among the world’s very fastest production automobiles.

“We’re excited to offer the RUF RT12R to iRacers around the world,” says Steve Myers, Executive Vice President and Producer, iRacing.com Motorsport Simulation, LLC.  “We’re proud of the assortment of virtual race cars we have available, but iRacers have made it clear they also want high-performance, exotic automobiles in our service.  The RUF RT12R certainly fits the bill.  It’s a superb piece of automotive sculpture, with performance that is nothing short of breathtaking.”

At the heart of the RUF’s performance is a 3.8 liter, twin-turbo, flat six engine producing 730 horsepower and nearly 700 lb/ft of torque.  Coupled with a six speed transmission, the RT12R has a top speed of 230 mph.

“RUF is pleased to partner with iRacing.com in building a digital version of the RT12R,” said Estonia Ruf, Director of Marketing, RUF Automobile GmbH.  “For more than 70 years RUF has been recognized for the craftsmanship and cutting-edge engineering that goes into all of our automobiles.  Although it is a young company, comparatively speaking, iRacing clearly shares those core values of craftsmanship and engineering excellence.”

iRacing vehicle dynamic engineers will begin the process of creating a digital prototype of the RT12R later this spring.  When completed, the prototype will undergo a rigorous testing and development process in order to insure the virtual RUF drives just like the real one.  iRacing expects to make its RUF RT12R available to iRacing members in the fall of 2012.

Free (aka loose) is fast . . . just ask Maxime Paquette!

Paquette scored two wins in three starts at Thompson, with his top win coming on March 24th during a 3018 strength of field (sof) race. One lead change transpired in the 50 lap online race when Paquette, who started third, took the lead from outside pole sitter Chase Raudman with 11 to go. Raudman would hold on to second with pole sitter Jeff Conover less than a car length behind him at the flag. Justin Hoyle and Brian Ewoldt completed the top five. The margin of victory for Paquette was nearly three seconds. Paquette scored 187 points for the win but when his other top finish was factored in, he left Thompson with 171 points, tops amongst his peers during Week Eight.

Raudman’s week was busy as well as the California Club driver took home four checkered flags in eight starts. His biggest win came on March 21st when he led wire-to-wire at Thompson in a 2489 sof race, winning by over three and a half seconds over Tony Dugan. Kenneth Lang, James Edens and Michael Fisher all scored top five finishes and in a numerologists dream, the top five qualifiers finished the 50 lapper in the spots in which they started the race! Raudman finished the week fifth overall in the standings with 150 points.

Trenton Moriarity was perfect on the week, going 3 for 3 in NiLMS competition during Week Eight. Moriarity finished with 165 points after his three wins each tipped the scales in the 2600 sof range. The biggest win for Trenton was during a 2687 sof race on March 21st where he spanked the field by over 13 seconds, leading wire-to-wire on his mission to victory lane. Coleman Anderson finished a distant second, followed by Richard Felton2, Steven Landry and Brian Babb.

Heath Smith made one start on the week and was successful in finding Thompson International victory lane as he secured the checkers in a 2602 sof race on March 23rd. It wasn’t as easy as some though. Even though Smith led all 50 laps from the pole, Shawn Stitt kept the pressure on for most of the race but eventually fell to eight car lengths off Smith at the finish. Brian Lambert, Caleb Williams and Fisher each took home top five runs in the race. For the victory, Smith captured 161 championship points.

Like Moriarity, point leader Mark Lambert was also perfect during Round Eight. Four races resulted in four wins and a 157 point total when all was said and done in Connecticut. His biggest win came during a 2754 sof race on March 26th and once again it was Stitt making the leader very uncomfortable up front. Lambert led all the laps in the race but just three tenths of a second behind at the finish was Stitt. Thomas Fleming2 was third with Chad Detillier and Kevin Gravitte each grabbing a piece of the top five in fourth and fifth respectively.

Timothy Green made the most starts of the week with 26 and converted for five wins, the same amount Darrell Bryson and Colman Anderson achieved in Week Eight. “The Tamworth Torpedo” Jeremy Davis took the pole position at Thompson with a 19.487 second lap in the qualifying sessions. Moriarity, Lambert, Smith and Stitt completed the top five in qualifying. Lambert went to the top in the Time Trial competition as he took the top honor home at Thompson over Smith, Davis, Stitt and Moriarity.

Lambert continues to enjoy the point lead with 1317 points, 105 points more than Division Two leader Smith. Conover is third overall with 1167 points, 150 markers off the pace set by the leader. Division Two’s Jeremy Ahlum is fourth overall with 1050 and Division Three leader Brian Lambert is fifth with 1013 points. The top five are currently the only five of over 2,400 drivers to obtain more than 1,000 points after eight weeks of racing. Divisional leaders from Divisions Four to Ten include Mark Meech, Chad Arnold, Jeremy Poole2, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Darrell Phillips, Cale Thompson2 and Petie Madrid.

Next up for the NASCAR iRacing.com Late Model Series is the USA International Speedway. With a wide track to play with, high speed short track excitement is expected during Week Nine, the first week that drop weeks will come into play with the point standings. Does anyone have anything for Mark Lambert? Find out here at inRacingNews.

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

The Irish Hills smiled on the Class A racers at MIS in Week 8.

Another week of big point totals, and our Division One championships contenders running neck and neck. Leading the way however was former NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) driver Jeremy Thornton with 353 big points. This is a huge deal for Thornton who is currently on the bubble in locking himself in to the top twelve in points. Leading only 26 of the 100 laps, it was not easy for Thornton, but he rose up in the clutch and took the 5520 Strength of Field win over championship contender Jason Karlavige.

Despite Karlavige putting together a 339 point week, it was not enough to overcome the man he is chasing in the overall standings, Jared Crawford. In a separate, narrowly lower, race than the one won by Thornton, Crawford dominated and earned a cool 347 points to go along with the trophy. What all that means is as the season heads into the final stages, Crawford holds a fourteen point advantage over Karlavige. For those new to the iRacing.com points system, fourteen points equates roughly to one position on the track in the high split races.

While some drivers race for points, others race for fun, not having a care in the world what it might do to their individual statistics. Twenty eight drivers definitely fall into that category, as they competed in more than ten races on the week. Former NiPS driver Rick Savage set a high standard with twenty four starts on the week, besting Ivan Garcia by six races. Kenny Humpe once again set the bar in wins, going to victory lane in seven of his ten starts. The next highest win total came from Kyle Peddle with five.

As the season heads into the final four weeks, drop weeks will now start taking effect. An unusual problem for the top NiPS hopefuls… They don’t have much to drop. In a normal season a driver will compile a few bad weeks over the first eight weeks, utilizing the four drop weeks to overcome their less than stellar performances. To put things in perspective, the current bubble spot, Jeremy Thornton, is averaging nearly 250 points per week. Thornton’s current 1697 point total would have won him the Division One Championship last season.

From the fast, wide, high banks of MIS, to the short, tight, and flat confines of Martinsville Speedway for Week Nine of 2012 Season 1. The paper clip shaped track has built a reputation over the years for twisting fenders, tight racing, and surprise winners. There are no “Lucky” wins at Martinsville, it takes talent and car control to get your Impala to the finish in a position to win, a task in which even the most thrifty drivers have difficulty with.

Having survived the thrills of last week’s race at Zandvoort, members of the Red Sox Racing League returned to the United States for week eleven of the 2012 Season One schedule where the rolling hills of the Virginia International Raceway (VIR) hosted the 18 lap “Oak Tree Tavern 30 at VIR Full”.

VIR has been hosting races since 1957.  It features a 3.27 mile, 17 corner layout which can exhaust even the most seasoned road course drivers.  Texas native and winner of the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans, Carroll Shelby described VIR this way.  “One lap at VIR is like a hundred at Watkins Glen”.  RSR drivers would likely agree with that assessment, as many learned the hard way that 50+ years of racing have not tamed the track.  Two drivers in particular would see opportunities for victory slip from their clutches as the challenging terrain at VIR knocked them out of contention.

Andrew Gantman and Les Turner were the fastest drivers during qualifying in the Class A field.  Gantman earned his 2nd pole of the season with a blistering lap time of 1:38.354.  Turner’s lap of 1:38.525 was the only other sub 1:39 lap time posted in the session.  Jim Albertson, Terry Daul, Andrew Feldman, Gary Jorgensen, William Kabela, Divina Galica, and Wilbur Gildersleeve, Jr. completed the HPD grid.  Gildersleeve Jr. was forced to start from his pit stall due to an unprecedented error when league officials noticed that he had forgotten to remove his trousers before hopping in the car.

Reed Rundell led the way in the Class B field when he secured his first RSR pole in recent memory with a lap time of 1:43.952.  Tommy Rhyne started in 2nd place with a lap time of 1:44.115.  Dean Moll, Jeff Thomas, Scott Husted, Ed Sutcliff, Bill Hadden, Larry Krupp, and James Prostell, Jr. completed the Corvette grid.

Things were calm during the pace lap, but the normally cautious RSR drivers were unable to make it safely through Turn One once the race went green.  The first corner at VIR is perhaps one of the most daunting corners on the schedule.  It is a narrow one groove hairpin with virtually no run off area.  Getting sorted out for a single file run through the corner is critical.  The front HPD drivers got through the corner without incident, but things turned ugly when Jorgensen, Kabela and Galica were forced to brake hard to avoid the accordion-like effect of traffic slowing in front of them.

It was a classic case of just too many cars trying to file through the narrow corner at the same time.  By the time Divi reacted to the slowdown in front, she had already been engulfed by Corvettes on either side.  Galica initially managed to avoid contact with Kabela, but a hard hit from behind by Rundell pushed her into the rear of Kabela with enough force to lift his rear tires off the track.  Her momentum carried Galica into the right side of Moll’s Corvette, forcing him off track.  His return to the track caused heavy wheel damage to Divi’s left front.  Galica retired from the event before the leaders had cleared Turn Five.

The first corner contact dropped Rundell out of first place in the Corvette class and allowed Rhyne to take the lead.  Rundell never recovered.  His race went from bad to worse when he went off track, then crossed back in front of the field during a lazy spin in Turn Four.  Despite a gallant effort to recover, Rundell spun and went off track again in Turn Five.  The Class B pole sitter eventually collected twelve incidents before retiring on Lap Four.

Feldman was the next driver to suffer heavy damage when he went off track and hit the outside tire barriers in Turn Eleven.  He survived the incident with enough car left to return to racing action, but retired after a hard impact with the railing while exiting Turn 5A on Lap Seven.

Moll must have been watching Feldman, because he drove off the track in almost the exact spot in Turn Eleven on Lap Three.  Moll was able to continue driving, but hard impact affected his car enough to cause another spin in Turn Eight two laps later.  Moll would drop four spots before climbing his way back up through the field in the latter half of the race.

Gantman led the early laps, but spun out in Turn Four on Lap Five in an incident which looked identical to the spin Rundell had suffered a lap earlier.  The race leader’s car was stopped sideways in the infield grass when Turner drove past into the lead and waved goodbye.

Several other drivers made critical mistakes which cost them valuable track position during the race, but the last incident to impact the race occurred when Albertson mistook Husted’s wide approach to Turn Ten as an invitation to pass.  Albertson hit Husted hard enough to send both cars into 360 degree spins through the grass.  Albertson recovered from the accident, but the time it took for him to rejoin the track eventually cost him 2nd place.

Turner, Daul, Sutcliff, and Prostell earned bonus points for completing the event without collecting an incident.

Class A results:

Turner and Gantman gave the fans plenty to cheer about in the opening laps as they battled for the top spot.  Gantman’s only mistake of the race allowed Turner to take the lead on Lap Five.  It was all that the past RSR champion needed as he would go on to an impressive 13.6 second margin of victory.  The win was Turner’s fifth of the season and cemented his lead in the overall championship.  Turner holds an insurmountable 19 point lead over Gantman going into the final race of the season.

Gantman’s 2nd place finish at VIR was his ninth top-5 finish of the season.  He has an eight point lead over Albertson going into the final race.  Albertson escaped disaster during his Lap Twelve incident and hung on to cross the line in third place at VIR.

Daul and Jorgensen rounded out the top five.  Kabela (6th) was the last driver to cross the line on the lead lap.  Gildersleeve (7th) was scored one lap down.  Feldman (8th) and Galica (9th) both retired from the race with damage.
 
While Turner appears to have locked up the HPD season championship, second place is still up for grabs between Gantman and Albertson.  Daul is the only other driver with a shot at a podium position, while Feldman may still have a chance to catch Kabela for 5th place overall.

Class B results:

Rundell gave up the lead to Rhyne in Turn One of Lap One.  Rhyne never looked back, despite a series of challenges from Moll, Thomas, and Husted.  Rhyne’s smooth driving and ability to remain focused allowed him to earn his first victory of the season.  It was also his tenth top-5 finish.

Moll crossed the line in 2nd place.  Thomas followed in 3rd place.  Thomas was happy with his effort.  “We had a fun race tonight.  I thought I had 2nd place, but Dean hunted me down, so we’ll settle for 3rd.  It was one of our best finishes of the season and helps us stay in the top five in the standings.  TeamDraft has drivers in the top-5 of both classes this season!  I’m looking forward to next week’s night race at Daytona RC.”
 
Sutcliff (4th) and Prostell (5th) rounded out the top five.  “I was very pleased with the way our team bounced back this week”, said Sutcliff.  “We worked hard to keep the car on the track and out of trouble.  The effort paid off.”  Prostell had a similar strategy.  “We just concentrated on keeping all four wheels on the track.  The result was another top-5 finish that I’ll certainly take!  I’ve had a great time racing with RSR this season.”

Hadden (6th), Husted (7th), Krupp (8th), and Rundell (9th) completed the scoring.

Rhyne has a 3 point lead over McGrew in the championship battle, while Moll, Thomas, and Sutcliff round out the top five spots.

Next event RSR drivers travel to Florida for next week’s “RSR Continental 24 Season Finale”, at the Daytona Road Course under the lights.

EDIT: Tonight’s final event at Daytona RC  has been re-scheduled for April 5th due to torential rains moving in 10 minutes into the qualifying session.

Results / Standings / Video coverage:

Race Results:
https://ileaguerace.com/champ/show_event_result/Red-Sox-Racing-League/1098

League Standings:
https://ileaguerace.com/champ/show_champ/Red-Sox-Racing-League/227

League Video Site:
http://www.youtube.com/user/draftin11

Joining Red Sox Racing League

The Red Sox Racing League is currently accepting driver applications for next season.

The deadline for applying is May 3rd.

Email Jeff Thomas at (jt@teamdraft.com) if you are interested.

In qualifying Italian Max Dell’Orco would continue on his supreme form as he positioned his Williams-Toyota FW31 on pole position this week ahead of Jake Stergios, the latter would however be absent from Friday’s Strength of Field (SoF) online race.

This would be the perspective of Dell'Orco enjoyed by most iGPS competitors after the Italian secured his third pole position of the season.

Starting next to Dell’Orco on the front-row would be Australian Danny Davidson followed by Ryan Terpstra. As the race got underway, there would be a big shuffle in the positions as Terpstra got off to a flying start, taking the lead on the opening lap ahead of Dell’Orco. Davison from second dropped back to fourth after an earlier contact with one of his rivals on track. Stephen Michaels made great progress early on and would find himself in third as the first lap was completed. He would not stay there for long though, as leader Tersptra made a mistake on his 3rd lap which saw his car going sideways – handing second place to Michaels. New leader Dell’Orco started putting down some serious pace at this moment, increasing the gap to the cars behind. But the race would not be over as the Italian received a 15 second penalty for an unsafe pit entry during his pit stop. Terpstra – due to his earlier spin — was unable to retake the lead as he finished 5 seconds behind Dell’Orco. Front row starting Davidson, who dropped to fourth at the start found his way around Michaels during the pit stop sequence to take third. Rumyana Nikova came home in a solid fifth.

Chaos erupted in Turn One moments after the start of Sunday's 17:15GMT race.

The start of Sunday’s 17:15GMT race saw a big Turn 1 incident as fast starters Ryan Terpstra and Teemu Iivonen made contact entering turn 1, sending them sideways in the middle of the path of oncoming cars. This incident would bring damage on a big part of the field who had to pit for damage repairs on the opening lap. As the melee was cleared, Wolfgang Reip and Jake Stergios were running nose-to-tail for the lead, followed by unuwell Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola. Cristian Lorente starting in tenth on the grid found himself running in fourth as he had cleared the first lap pile-up. Reip starting progressively putting a gap to the chasing Stergios and Uusi-Jaakkola, but a different fuel strategy would see him lose out to both of the cars behind, as non-stopping Stergios would go on to take the win ahead of also 0-stopping and Uusi-Jaakkola. Reip was followed by Lorente who drove a consistant race to finish just outside the podium in fourth. Simon Cattell made his way through the field to take fifth after being involved in the opening-lap mayhem.

Reip (closest to the camera) out-smarted his rivals with a non-stop strategy.

To everyone’s pleasure, the 19:15 saw a cleaner start then in the previous race and upfront the pole-position sitter Dell’Orco would once again lose the lead to his fellow row-starter, this time Davy Decorps. Dell’Orco pushed to regain the lead position, but a small mistake in the last sector saw his Williams-Toyota FW31 taking a hit to the wall and forcing him to retire from the race. Thanks to this, Steve Kasimatis would advance to second place behind Decorps. Pierre Urbizu was on the button and had made his way all the way up to third from his ninth place starting position. The top 3 would however all lose to one driver behind them that they had forgot about – Wolfgang Reip in fourth – who this time was on a different strategy than the previous race where he lost the lead, this time the Belgian did a clean and consistant race and as the pit stops had cycled through, found himself in the lead which he held on to the chequered. Decorps took the runner-up position followed by Simon Cattell who after a great battle earlier in the race with Riku Alatalo took the last podium spot after passing Kasimatis during his pit-stop. Pierre Urbizu clung on to take the fifth position.

Urbizu (leading) and Stergios put on a great show until the latter made the pass for the lead and checked-out to take his second win of the week.

The final SoF race this week had Stergios lining-up to lead the field away followed by Marcus Caton and Pierre Urbizu. The latter would however be the leading car as they manouvered their cars through the first turn. Pierre Urbizu held off charging Stergios until lap 6 as the American found his around the Frenchman entering Turn 3 – a lead he held to the end of the race increasing the gap to 19.9 seconds. Xavier Busoms rolled over the finish-line in third place after a few close incidents that could have ended his race. Laurent Beteille drove a feisty race to take fourth after running outside the top ten for a big part of the event – closely followed by Caton in 5th as three tenths of a second separated the two over the finish-line.

Although familiar names dominate the top five positions overall, a small shuffle of names occured as Dell’Orco now follows series leader Stergios with Beteille sitting third. Countrymen and team-mates Uusi-Jaakkola and Alatalo also shuffled their positions as they sit in fourth and fifth respectively with Marcus Caton now holding the last position eligible for a Pro license.

Engelhart’s triumph of the week came on March 22nd when he went to victory lane in the 100-lap feature on the high banks. Engelhart started third in the field and led 29 laps en route to the win. The race featured five cautions and five lead changes amongst five leaders. Only the top three finished on the lead lap with Richard Smith5 and Derrick Cormier2 completing the podium. Donny Moore and Brett Osborn were credited with top five finishes in the 3497 sof race. Engelhart (219, first), Smith5 (206, second) and Moore (180, third) each obtained their weekly standing spot with this race.

NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series puts the "Thunder" in "Thunder Valley."

Another former champion of the series was also making waves at Bristol on March 22nd as Robert Sandt rumbled to victory at the “World’s Fastest Half Mile.” Sandt started third and led just a shade over half (52) of the laps in the race. He and Cormier2 exchanged the lead amongst themselves thrice with Cormier2, who started on the pole, having to settle for second at the checkers. The margin of victory in the caution free race was just under four seconds. Trent Hullum was third, followed by Ray Farlow and Gary Holbrook. Six of the 14 cars which started the race completed all 100 laps of the event. Sandt would go on to score 169 points for the win and fifth overall in the weekly standings. Cormier2, who started three races on the week, would take his two best point finishes and leave Tennessee with 174 points and the fourth place position in the standings.

Paul Wisniewski made the most starts of the week, seeing the green flag six times during Round Eight. No driver won more than once on the week as 13 different driver punched their ticket to victory lane, including David Markham, Jonathan Dockery, Rick Webster, Lee Ward, Joe Gauthier, Darrell Pyrtle, Devin Chapman, David Colley, Giovanni Mungin, Osborn, James Poleske, Sandt and Engelhart. Mungin, the point leader of the series, topped the chart in qualifying with a 14.758 second lap around Bristol. Defending Tour Mod champ Brandon Salvatore, Nathan McGee, Cormier2 and Marc Pilon rounded out the top five in qualifying. McGee took the top spot in Time Trials for the week over Osborn, Shane Kline, JR Ray and Holbrook.

Mungin will head into Week Nine as the point leader with 1657 points, 166 more than his nearest competitor Taylor Meyn (1491). Salvatore has some work to do if he wants to three-peat as he sits with 1387 points with four weeks to go. Cormier2 (1250) and Division Two point leader Markham (1203) round out the top five overall in points. Leaders from skill-matched Divisions Three to Ten include Noel Parker, William Kabela, David Ross, Timothy Finnegan, Sebastian Taylor, James Falton Pratt, Curtis Berleue and Nicholas Maxwell. In fact, two divisions have point battles with just four points between their top drivers. Division Five sees Ross up over David Schamp by four markers while Taylor’s Division Seven lead is just four over David MacDougall. Not to be outdone, the fight in Division Three between Parker and Justin Chase is just ten points.

With Divisional battles heating up, Week Nine’s festivities at The Milwaukee Mile will be for more than just bragging rights. While some will be gunning for checkered flags, many others will be driving with points in mind. Who will come out on top at the one-mile oval? Find out here at inRacingNews when the racing wraps up!

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

Thursday’s SoF race took place at 8:30pm EST and had 25 drivers make the race. Phil Juhring (New Jersey) continued his hot streak as he qualified on the pole for the race but was quickly passed by Brandon Hauck (Eastern Canada), who started in second. Hauck would dominate the race, leading 83 of the 90 laps in route to the victory. For his win, Hauck received 233 points. Juhring finished the race in the second position, after starting on the pole, and received 223 laps. Thomas Davis (Mid-South) finished in the third position, after leading three laps midway through the race. Davis received 213 points for his finish. Will Bell (Mid-South) and Jeffrey Parker (Florida) round out the Top Five. Bell would receive 203 points for fourth while Parker received 194 points for fifth.

At MIS as in the Season 1 standings, Juhring finds himself in pole position.

As the win came to an end, Juhring found himself on top of the weekly standings. Juhring used is strong second place finish in the SoF race to get himself to the top. Hauck finished the week in the second position after winning the SoF race and running three more races on the week. Hauck would finish the week with three wins and 208 points. Parker finished the week in the third position with 194 points after only running one race on the week. Davis finished the week in the fourth position with 191 points after making races starts on the week, winning three and finishing in the Top Five’s in nine of those ten races. Brian Grubs (Mid-South) rounded out the Top Five after making two starts. Grubs finished the week with 189 points.

With his second place finish in the SoF race, Phil Juhring catapulted himself to the top position in the season standings. Juhring now has 1379 points on the season with a 73 point lead over second. To top it all off, Juhring has one less week counted so his lead will ultimately increase next week.  Brad Mahar (New England) was able to maintain his second position after Week Eight after increasing his points total by 145 points, bringing his total to 1306. Brandon Buie (Atlantic) dropped from the top spot to third after Michigan. Buie was only able to net 48 points during Week Eight and bringing his total to 1290. Jeffrey Parker and John Bunton (Carolina) swapped position this past week. Parker jumped the fourth spot after netting 194 points and brought his total to 1265. Bunton dropped to the fifth spot after received 165 points at Michigan. Bunton has brought his season total to 1239 points.

“The championship is certainly within reach.” — Phil Juhring

When asked about his chances to win the championship, Juhring said “The championship is certainly within reach. I missed Daytona which hurts, because of all the points offered up that week. That being said, I’ve got two wins and two seconds the last four weeks to go along with a win at Dover to start off the season. We head to Kentucky this week, a track in which I was very good at last season.”

When the week came to an end, Jukka Savolainen (Finland) was on top of the qualifying charts. Savolainen turned a blazing 39.022 second lap around the two mile track. Juhring finished the week in the second position after turning a 39.081 second lap. Hauck was third with a 39.095 while Andrew Shirley (Mid-South) was fourth with a 39.108. Davis rounded out the Top Five for the week after turning a 39.166 second lap.

Next week the NiCBS will travel to Kentucky Speedway. Week Nine is an important point in the season because that is when drop weeks will come into effect. Will anyone be able to keep pace will Juhring or will he run away with the championship? Find out next week at inRacingNews!

Hindman’s Week Seven triumph came on March 17th during a 3499 strength of field (sof) race at Pocono. Hindman led 15 of the 50 laps of the race after starting in 12th place and finished two seconds up on Craig Jernigan at the finish. Mark Wright was third, followed by Tony Monge and Richard Hillenburg. Mason Weitzel started on the pole and led four laps before falling to 15th place in the finishing order. Wright led the most laps as he paced the field for 18 laps in a race which featured four yellow flags. Hindman scored 216 points for the victory.

Made in the shade. . . . Hightower edged Coleman by .008s at MIS.

Second for the week at Pocono was Stephen Dotson. Dotson, who represents the Indiana club, won a 3182 sof race on March 16th (also) from the 12th starting spot. Dotson led the final eight laps after taking the top spot in the only lead change in the event from pole sitter and second place finisher Jimmy Helie. Randall Robertson was third in the race while Jeff Chandler and Brad Bubel rounded-out the top five. The race saw five yellow flags slow the tempo of an online race that netted Dotson 197 championship points for the win.

Third for the week went to Bubel after he went on to win a 2903 sof race later on March 16th. Bubel led only the most important lap in the race, taking the lead on the final lap and creating the sixth lead chance in the event. Michael McLain led 12 laps and finished second, crossing the line ahead of Michael Vandish, Douglas Lemire. Weitzel once again started from the pole and led 30 of the 50 laps in the event but was out before the finish in 15th place. Bubel, who started sixth in the five caution affair would be rewarded with 182 points for his efforts on the Tricky Triangle.

Nick Ritcey made the most starts of the week, appearing in 34 races at Pocono. Jason Richardson was the most successful in hunting checkered flag as the New England sim racer collected eight wins in Pennsylvania. David Krikorian was the quickest in qualifying, lapping the big track in 55.454 seconds. Championship contender Justin Brooks was second, followed by Cody Byus, Brian Viola and Weitzel. Bill Brown was the top Time Trial competitor for the week over Chris Allex, Kenville Inniss, Dustin Bartee and Paul Conway.

When it came to Week Eight, Hindman was the top when it came to the points as he amassed 248 points in his win at MIS.  His triumph came on March 21st during a 3937 sof race in which Hindman led 25 of the 65 laps after starting third. Alan Gray, who led 37 laps from the pole, finished second, ahead of Austin Lamberth, Greg McKinney and Richard Beasley. The race saw two caution periods and three lead changes amongst four drivers.

“I was digging in the final two laps . . .” — Jordan Hightower.

The top split race of the week was rated at 4347 sof and took place on March 23rd. Jordan Hightower started fourth on a green-white-checkered finish and ended up in victory lane after leading only one lap of the event – the last one. “I was digging in the final two laps,” said Hightower, who started in 13th place in the race, which saw four cautions. Chad Coleman was second, followed by Jeremy Thornton, who won six races in 12 starts at Michigan. Completing the top five were Kevin King and Beasley, who run similar paint schemes on their race trucks. While the top three went on to make multiple starts on the week which would play into their point total, King, who celebrated the birth of his first child on the weekend, was awarded with 228 points on the week and second place amongst 1,488 drivers.

Pat Baldwin was third on the week after his two win performance in four starts resulted in 222 points at Michigan. His biggest win of Round Eight came on March 24th during a 3620 sof race where he led 24 laps en route to the victory after starting in tenth place. Mike McKinney was second, followed by Mitchell Kelley, Mike Burnell and pole sitter Brandon Hauck, who led 17 laps. Three caution flags and nine lead changes set the tone for the race.

Jason Richardson made the most starts of the week at the two mile oval as he raced 39 times at Michigan. He turned those 39 starts into 11 wins, the most of any driver in the Irish Hills. Brooks set the pace in qualifying with a lap of 39.761 seconds. Michael Guest, Brian Viola, David Krikorian and Hunter Davis completed the top five in qualifying. Brown took the top spot in Time Trials over Milt Matice, Edward Szigeti, David Ankeney and Chris Allex.

Hindman has went to the top of the board when it comes to the standings with 1454 points, 68 more than Brooks, who has 1386 points. Jernigan, Division Two leader has 1368 points and is currently ahead of a three driver battle for fourth overall involving Phil Brown (1186), Trey Jarrell (1184) and Hauck (1183). Divisional leaders from Divisions Three to Ten include Tom Moustakas, Brock Garis, Rock Harris, Michael Valentin, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Robert Cori, Sean Cummings2 and Robert Mason2.

Next up for the series is “the Paperclip” as the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series heads to the Martinsville. Who will come out of the shortest venue of the season on top of their peers? Find out here at inRacingNews as the series heads towards crowning a 2012 Season One champion.

Until next time, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

In qualifying, it was Yang Ou grabbing his fourth pole position with a 20.560s lap.  Just behind in second place was Chris Cahoe, turning a 20.571s lap.  Third went to Tim Doyle (20.597s) with Chris Manifold fourth (20.626s) and Michael Peters (20.668s) rounding-out the top five.

At the drop of the green flag, Ou rocketed to the lead with Doyle able to follow along in second place.  Cahoe settled into third with C. Manifold and Peters in fifth.  The top five was single file and relatively unchanged with the exception of Niles Anders, who moved up from his eighth-starting position and passed Peters on Lap 19 for fifth.  Sixth-starting Scott Manifold meanwhile fell to as low as thirteenth place with Monica Clara Brand, making her first start of the season, moving up three spots to seventh position.

Ou and Cahoe lead the field to the green at PIR.

On lap 30, Austin Ogonoski, also making his first start of the season, lost control off of Turn Four with two 360s, yet managed to not hit anything.  The caution waved as a result, allowing the entire field a chance to come in and take on tires and fuel.  The top five remained unchanged after pit stops, but once the green waved again, Peters reclaimed fifth place from Anders, but only for ten laps before Anders once again took the position.

Ogonoski gets it sideways in Turn Four.

The race would go green for the next 56 laps.  Some drivers, fearing tire wear that could result in a blown right front, started making pit stops under green.  Cahoe, Peters and Anders  stopped on Lap 89 with three more drivers pitting the following lap (C. Manifold, Robert Bohanek and Thomas Lewandowski).  Unfortunately this would come back to haunt them as the second caution period came out on Lap 92 when race leader Ou got loose in Turn One while trying to put  a lap on Peters, sending Ou for a spin and bringing out the yellow flag.  This caution temporarily trapped the drivers who had pitted under green a lap down, but they got the wave around before green flag reappeared to tag onto the tail end of the field.

Ou's version of spin & win.

The race had many interesting stories during this caution period.  The race out of the pits saw Doyle pass Ou, only to suffer connection issues and drop from the server.  Brand, meanwhile, was up to third place when others pitted under green and used this to her benefit by remaining on the lead lap and lining-up second to Ou on the restart.  Mitch McCracken, who started thirteenth, was now up to third by stretching his tires over the last green flag run.  S. Manifold, who was running in twelfth position before others pitted under green, now lined-up fourth position on the restart with Cary Bettenhausen in fifth.

Joy to tears for Doyle, who takes the lead exiting the pits only to suffer connection problems,

The racing went back to green on lap 96 with Ou leading the way.  The green remained out until Lap 115 when C. Manifold got loose entering Turn Three and lost control after getting his left side tires down on the apron.  He was forced to retire after suffering heavy damage to the left side of the Dallara.

This was a timely caution though for many drivers who had fallen back from race leader Ou.  With the top four drivers (Ou, Brand, McCracken and Bettenhausen) staying out under caution, the drivers in the back all took advantage of the chance to get fresh tires in the hopes of mounting a charge in the remaining laps.

S. Manifold, now back on the lead lap in fifth position, led the surge of drivers on fresh tires on the restart.  Cahoe though wasted no time displacing S. Manifold for fifth, then Bettenhausen for fourth the following lap.  He waited two laps before moving past McCracken for third, and caught Brand with two laps to go.  While Ou enjoyed free sailing up front, Brand was able to hold Cahoe at bay and secure the second place finish in a fine return to the series.  McCracken held onto fourth position just ahead of S. Manifold in fifth.  For race winner Ou, it was his third win in a row in the series and fourth top five in four races entered.

Ou winning in the desert!

Race Stats

Laps: 130
Pole: Yang Ou
Lead changes: 2
Cautions: 3
Caution laps: 12
Lap leaders: Ou 1-46; Doyle 47-48; Ou 49-130.
Margin of victory: 00.766s
Hard charger: Mitch McCracken (9 spots)
Biggest loser: Tim Doyle (9 spots)
Laps lead: Ou (128)
Fastest lap: Cahoe 20.688s  (Lap 126)

Top 5
1-  Yang Ou
2-  Monica Clara Brand
3-  Chris Cahoe
4-  Mitch McCracken
5-  Scott Manifold

Cars finishing: 14
DNF: Neffry Aawg, Austin Ogonoski, Chris Manifold

In a manner befitting an iRacing World Champion, Brazil’s Hugo Luis dominated Saturday’s Intel GT Series World Finals, leading every lap of the 30 minute race at Circuit de Spa Francorchamps to bring his HPD-ARX01c home in first place.   Winner of the 2011 iRacing.com Grand Prix Series World Championship, Luis took the checkered flag 5.67s ahead of South Africa’s Zaahir A. Essa, with Yuho Abe of Japan finishing another second in arrears to complete a podium worthy of the Intel GT World Finals title.

Luis (left) leads Essa and the rest of the Intel GT World Finals field to the green flag. This would be as close as anyone came to Luis for the next 30 minutes.

Luis, who also set fastest lap of the race on his final tour of the virtual 4.35 mile circuit, will receive a complete custom Intel gaming computer valued at $3600.  Runner-up Essa will receive an Intel SSD drive while Abe secured an Intel i5 processor and motherboard by virtue of his third place finish.

Essa and Abe engaged in their own private battle for second.

Raymond Mooney (Scotland), Ben Cornett (Australia), Dániel Sinka (Hungary), Austin Cobb (USA), Dan Green (Australia), Mogar DG Filho (Brazil) and Sergio Roda Junior completed the top ten. The field featured the eight top sim racers from four regional competitions in Africa/Asia/Australia/New Zealand, Europe, North and South America.

A special thanks to Intel for once again supporting iRacing, this fantastic global competition and the world-wide sim-racing community.

The Cadillac CTS-V got off to a winning start on the streets of St. Petersburg. (Richard Price/Cadillac Racing photo)

The win is the second for the Cadillac CTS-V since entering Pirelli World Challenge competition last year, and O’Connell’s third career win in World Challenge competition.  As the result of the penalty to Aschenbach, Cadillac’s Andy Pilgrim moves up to fourth place in the final race standings.

For more information on Cadillac’s St. Petersburg win, go to Cadillac Racing.com.

More than 800 iRacers answered the Late Models call at Iowa Speedway.

Conover’s winning total for the week at Iowa was 168 points after he went to victory lane in a 2783 Strength of Field (SoF) online race on March 10th. Conover led all 45 laps of the race from the pole position, but was closely perused by Alex Kan, who finished just four car lengths behind Conover at the finish. Brandon Simmons followed closely behind in third with Craig Pearson and John Bage completing the top five.

The top split race of the week belonged to Heath Smith. Smith made seven total starts of the week, winning in six of those and coming home with 163 points. His biggest single race point haul was the top split, which was rated at 2913 SoF. Smith started from the pole, led all 45 laps and cruised to the win over Sheldon Leesekamp, Simmons, David Oliver and Brody Hays. The win was worth 179 points, which factored into Smith’s week long point total.

Lambert continued his solid season with a spot on the weekly podium at Iowa. His triumph of the round came on March 11th when he led all 45 laps of the event from the pole and came home a half second up on Johnny Housley. Ronnie Binkley was third in the race, followed by Steven Landry and Daniel Williamson. The race was rated at 2582 SoF and earned Lambert 161 valuable championship points.

Percy Hennings was the busiest driver of the week, making 26 starts at Iowa. Sixes were wild in the win column as six drivers took home a six pack of wins during Week Six, including Smith, Garry Gonya2, Richey Etheridge, David Barr, Ray Blossom and Steven Landry. Smith edged-out Lambert in qualifying, grabbing the pole with a 24.025 second lap. Housley, Binkley and James Kirsch completed the bottom half of the top five in single car qualifying. Lambert got the edge on Smith though in Time Trials, taking the win over Smith, Housley, Thomas D Smith and Simmons.

The series moved to Concord Speedway for Round Seven and it was Lambert keeping his rapid pace at the top of the standings with another weekly win in the NiLMS. Lambert started from the pole and led the field for all 50 laps around the tricky triangle and edged Benhamin Harste by just a few car lengths at the end of the March 15th affair. Mike Budzien was third, followed by Bruce Perry and Tyler Laughlin. Lambert scored 179 points for the win, and in fact, the strength of the race was so tough that Harste’s 164 points put him second overall for the week.

Brodie Kostecki was third for the week after four starts resulted in four wins and 161 points. The biggest of his four wins came on March 17th when he drove to victory lane in a 2732 SoF race. Kostecki led wire-to-wire in defeating Brandon Hauck by four tenths of a second. Third in this race belonged to Shawn Stitt, who also scored four wins on the week in a dozen total starts. Scott Blackburn and Miles Crabbe completed the top five in this race.

Chris Noble entered the most races of the week, starting 18 events at Concord. Four was the top amount of wins turned in by one driver, and that number was obtained thrice — by Kostecki, Kenneth OKeefe and Stitt. Lambert was the top qualifier for the week with a lap of 15.543 seconds, besting runner-up Heath Smith who was followed by OKeefe, Kostecki and Jeff Ford. Lambert completed the sweep for the week with the top effort in Time Trials as he defeated Smith, Stitt, Kostecki and Satoru Ohno in that discipline.

Lambert leads the series after seven weeks of competition with 1160 points, 109 points better than second place overall and Division Two leader Heath Smith. Third overall belongs to Conover with 1030 points, with Jeremy Ahlum (920) and Division Three leader Brian Lambert (885) completing the top five overall. Leaders from Divisions Four to Ten include Vinny Troia, Chad Arnold, Sean Odea, Fausto Bessa Gomes, Darrell Phillips, Cale Thompson2 and Petie Madrid.

The series now heads to the high banks of Thompson International Speedway. Can Lambert keep up his pace en route to his first NASCAR iRacing.com Late Model Series championship or will Smith, Conover or others have something to say about that? You can follow along with all the short track action here at inRacingNews.

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

Where's Waldo (aka Chris)? iRN's intrepid reporter got back to his roots at Sebring. (Photo Danny Kent)

Yet despite this, most of the motorsport media are detached from the fans of racing, instead, choosing to view the ‘paying punters’ from afar, as an inconsequential part of motorsport, which frankly is wrong. Without race fans, and their perseverance to suffer at the hands of the elements, whilst taking their lives into their own hands with a diet of under-cooked chicken (an experience I personally enjoyed at Spa Francorchamps), and the horror of porta-cabin toilets that’d make the most hardened of men shed a noxious tear, events like Le Mans, the Daytona 500 and Sebring 12 Hours would come and go like a club meeting at Knockhill. There would be no razzmatazz, atmosphere, or influx of money into the local community of race circuits.

Go back to 2005, and the likes of Radio Le Mans could be found exploring the vast camp sites, meeting and talking to fans, whilst getting their unique perspective of motorsport – a process that has been sadly lacking in the past few years. In an attempt to redress the balance, I left my media credentials for the 12 Hours of Sebring race in the dresser draw, to spend five days going back to my roots of being a race fan at the infamous Turn 10.

The first thing that stands-out when joining the likes of the Turn 10 race fans is their sense of organization and attention to detail, with months of planning going into their operation ahead of the ALMS season-opener at Sebring. This includes preparing and safety checking their ‘grandstand’ scaffolding, designating tasks to different members of the Turn 10 crew and getting their RVs parked in line several weeks before the race week arrives, to ensure they secure their regular spot at arguably one of the best viewing corners of the Florida circuit.

The underlying reason thousands show up to this little corner of Highlands County, is to see some of the best motorsport around and be part of the ‘fans community.’

Once the gates open at 5am of the Wednesday morning ahead of the 12 hour race weekend, it’s like a military operation as RVs, trailers and tents are herded into a small enclave of the 3.77 mile track. With Turn 10 occupied by a cosmopolitan mix of Americans, British, Dutch and Kiwis, a well-oiled machine springs into action like a praying-mantis, and within a couple of hours, the viewing platform is assembled and collection of grilles put together to create the camp kitchen.

With ‘home-from-home’ set up, it’s time to meet the neighbours, in the form of the fan group ‘Turn 9.9′ and the dedicated corner workers of Turn 10. In fact, the bond between the marshals of Turn 10 and the fans that occupy it is a strong one, with the white overall brigade, (whose dedicated volunteering ensures everyone gets to enjoy racing), sharing breakfast, lunch and dinner with the fans on a daily basis; it makes up for the measly can of fruit, crackers and cheese stick the circuit unashamedly supply to the safety teams who risk life and limb to put on such a major race event.

Mistakenly, the likes of Turn 10 and other similar groups of fans are viewed as beer-swilling Neanderthals, who see Sebring as a party with a race thrown in as a source of entertainment.  The truth is, they carry an insight into the world of motorsport that’d put many contemporary journalists to shame. This is reflected by the many team members and drivers from the past and present who can often be seen gracing the likes of Turn 10, such as Jan Magnussen, Shane Lewis and this year, Divinia Galica.

Sure enough, alcohol does play a part in alleviating the effect of the scorching hot Florida sunshine; there’s even ‘some woman’ who has designed her own petrol-powered margaritas maker from the guts of a garden trimmer motor!  But the underlying reason thousands show up to this little corner of Highlands County, is to see some of the best motorsport around and be part of the ‘fans community.’  Just exploring the surrounding area of Turn 10, you’ll find the likes of La Bomba who each year build a mock-up of a race car attached to a bus chassis (this year it was an Audi) and the F-Troop group of fans, who tirelessly provide entertainment in the form of live concerts and stage shows every night of the week in the camp site.

Audi - first on the track and first in the hearts of the Turn 10 fans. (Photo Bo Ives)

When ‘mad-Friday’ arrives at Sebring International Raceway, it’s the Turn 10 fans go at bringing entertainment to the paddock, with their mock racing team: Team Impala. Adorned in a variety of costumes, the Slug, N.E Monkey and Evel K Nevel sign ‘driver cards’ and hand- out Turn 10 memorabilia, whilst bringing a big smile to the ALMS teams – something unique to America’s biggest road racing event of the year.

When race day arrives, the anticipation for the start of the race is palpable, and by the time the green flag is about to drop on the mixed class racing, the Turn 10 ‘grandstand’ is packed to the rafters with fans clamouring for a view of the start. Due to its very location and set up, the view from the scaffold is unprecedented, with race cars visible from the exit of the hairpin, all the way through to Turn 11, and throughout the 12 hour race, there’s barely any space available. This is where the Turn 10 fans are in their element, as they unflinchingly keep their eyes peeled on the action for the entire race, taking photos and analyzing the cars’ performance over the bumpy concrete surface. Then, as the chequered flag drops and the fireworks fire into the sky, each member of the Turn 10 fans congratulates each other on their own endurance performance, regardless of the team or car they are supporting. This extends into the early hours of Sunday morning, as the race and preceding days are analyzed, before heading to the RVs for the final night of fitful sleep. Then as the sun rises once again, but with less gusto than when arriving, the grandstand is dismantled, then packed away, whilst friends, old and new, shed a tear as they say a long goodbye for another year and head to their far away homes.

And this is what makes being a race fan so unique and important: whilst you may arrive as friends, you leave as family. So as the plans for 2013′s visit to Sebring International get under-way, it looks like that media cred will continue to occupy a corner of my sock drawer.

When the lights go green for the Intel GT Series World Finals on Saturday at Spa, Mogar D. Gomes Filho will be one 32 of the world’s top sim racers (including seven fellow-Brazilians) battling for first place — and the custom Intel gaming computer that goes with it.  Not bad for a guy who doesn’t even count the featured HPD-ARX01c among his favorite iRacing cars . . . although Spa IS his favorite circuit.

Then again the Sao Paulo-based electronics engineer has very catholic tastes when it comes to sim racing.  He’s become a force in the (relatively) under-powered SpecRacer Ford class of the inRacingNews Challenge, currently leading the overall SRF standings with 14 wins in 19 starts so far this season after placing P3 in 2011 Season 4.  At the same time, Gomes Filho is also coming to grips with the Williams-Toyota FW31 and has a couple of wins in the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series to his credit.

Then again, we’re talking about a guy who’s raced karts against some pretty high level competition.  How high level?  Consider that Mogar competed against the likes of  the Rubens Barrichello, Tony Kanaan and Nelson Piquet Jr in the 2010 edition of the Granja Viana 500 mile race.

So when it comes to hustling an HPD-ARX01c around Spa this weekend, you could do worse than place your bets on a guy who’s raced karts against world class competition and, within a couple of weeks of each other, driven a SpecRacer Ford to victory at Jefferson (Reverse) AND a Williams-Toyota FW31 to a pair of wins at Watkins Glen . . .

Q: How long have you been sim racing?
A: I’ve always liked racing games. The first one I’ve played was Enduro for Atari 2600 when I was about four years old. But the first time I’ve tried what I can call a simulator was around 2003.

Q: What attracted you to iRacing?
A: Some drivers from other simulators that I knew told me iRacing’s physics was one of the best around. Then I decided to give it a try, and since I tried two years ago it is the only simulator I’ve been using.

Q: What are favorite iRacing cars/tracks?.
A: For cars, I really like the SpecRacer Ford, Corvette and Williams FW31. For tracks, I believe Spa is my favorite.

Q: What do you like most about iRacing?
A: The fact that for each season we get updates, so there is always something new, and the concept about the service.

Q: What would you change about iRacing?
A: Maybe a bit of improvements on net code for people with higher connection latencies (we in Brazil suffer a little bit with it), and dynamic track conditions. On real life, the track is not the same for the whole day and is affected by weather changes and rubber laid by tyres.

“When you talk to people from different parts of the world, there is always something to learn.”

Q: How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A: I believe that around four hours/week.

Q: Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s) . . .
A: For the cars, I keep my team’s colours using customized skins. For helmet, I could reproduce using the standard tools my actual helmet that I use on go-kart racing.

Q: What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A: Before iRacing I used to drive Live For Speed (started on it in 2003), but the lack of updates made me stop driving it for a while. Other simulators like Forza, Gran Turismo don’t attract me that much, since I tend to like the more “hardcore” simulators.

Gomes Filho is starting to come to grips with the Williams-Toyota FW31.

Q: What are your favorite video games?
A: Besides racing games, I used to like strategy games.

Q: What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A: I believe the first win is always special, but my second place at the iRacing.com Grand Prix series was I believe the most important result I’ve got. I was quite surprised by the fact I could chase Max Dell’Orco and Jake Stergios for a while.

Q: What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A: Thankfully they are few, but those where I did a mistake and harmed other driver’s race. Once I do a mistake, I make the most to avoid involving other drivers.

Q: What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A: I’m satisfied with the cars we have, but I would love to see Interlagos track on the service. Not only it’s on my hometown, but it’s a very technical track and we always have exciting F1 races there.

Q: What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A: I admire a lot Ayrton Senna. He is an example of what pure talent and hard work can do. He was always looking for doing his best, whatever if he was already ahead the competition. And also, he did a lot of charity work without publicity.

Q: What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A: My favourite is still the Formula 1.

News flash: karting is a BIG deal in Brazil. Ask Mogar DG Filho, Rubens Barrichello, Tony Kanaan, Nelson Piquet Jr . . . or Hugo Luis.

Q: Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A: Principles of Managerial Finance from Lawrence Gitman, but for classical literature, my favourite would be The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas from Machado de Assis.

Q: Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
A: Midnight in Paris was a fantastic movie for me.

Q: How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A: My closest friends are not that much into sim racing. But I have a good relationship with some drivers from the Brazilian community.

Q: Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A: When you talk to people from different parts of the world, there is always something to learn. May be aspects of their culture, experiences of their lives, you may not notice but they change the way you think. Competing with iRacers is an opportunity to be in touch with people you normally wouldn’t be.

Be sure and watch the iRacing Live broadcast of the Intel GT Series World Finals on Saturday, March 24 at 19 GMT (3pm EDT).