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February 2012

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iRacing TV

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The Team

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

Hunting Down

by Patrick Atherton on October 25th, 2011

170
McLeod returned, and showed the way. Race two, the roles were reversed.

The iRacers converged on Road Atlanta for Season Three’s final round of the iRacing.com V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport. Much like the Las Vegas IZOD IndyCar finale’s celebrations were horribly muted by the loss of Dan Wheldon, this end-of-term party was spoiled by yet another motorsport tragedy, this time the death of MotoGP rider Marco Simoncelli. It was a dark week for world motorsport. As said last week, the whole motorsport community feels it heavily, and sim racers are no different. Still, the V8 iRacers got on with business and with Madison Down atop the series ladder with a margin of 68 points to Mitchell McLeod, a solid result would secure his second title. But this is sim racing,  where real life tends to get in the way somewhat [...]

Nieminen Nails iNGPS Finale

by Chris Hall on October 24th, 2011

379
Nieminen jumped into the lead from pole, with Luis slotting into second ahead of Huttu.

In the final round of the iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series, Jesse Nieminen found his way to the top step of the podium for the fifth time this season after a dominating performance at the virtual Silverstone International Circuit. The My3id sim-racer, who was plagued with technical issues early in the season that effectively nullified his championship challenge, showed that with everything running in ship-shape and Bristol fashion the Finn will be a front-running contender for the 2012 title. Starting from pole-position with a time of 1:18.420, Nieminen moved his Williams-Toyota FW31 into a comfortable lead over Greger Huttu, with help from his team-mate and 2011 World Champion Hugo Luis, who snatched second position from the Team Redline pilot on the drop of the green flag. Whilst Huttu found his [...]

Salvatore Magic at New Hampshire

by Tim Terry on October 24th, 2011

32

Brandon Salvatore added 229 points to his historic season on Week Eleven of the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series (NiTMS) by notching the overall win at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Nicknamed “the Magic Mile,” New Hampshire brought out 95 of the best sim racers to battle for the top spot but it was the point leader who struck gold with the most points in the penultimate round of the series. Salvatore’s win came during a 3657 sof race on Thursday. Salvatore led wire-to-wire from the pole in the caution-free affair and defeated last season’s champ Herb Engelhart by nearly four seconds at the completion of the 75-lap race. Third in the race belonged to Taylor Meyn while Jason Brown2 and Caleb Shelton completed the top five. Engelhart (206) and [...]

iRacer Profile: Ashley Miller

by David Phillips on October 22nd, 2011

233
racing simulations

Ashley Miller has racing in his blood.  The great nephew of legendary Modified racer Junior Miller, Ashley has been a member of iRacing simsince 2009 and would love to transfer his sim racing skills to real world racing.  Those skills are formidable.  After finishing eighth in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series Division One standings in 2011 Season 2, Miller has amassed a dozen wins in 32 starts this season and headed into the final week of the 21011 Season 3 atop the NiCCS standings. The Lexington, NC resident is not just about Silverados, however.  He’s started a couple of NASCAR iRacing.com Class B Series races this season, winning a 2432 SoF race and more than holding his own against the likes of “high-ranked guys” Josh Berry, Kevin King, Richie [...]

2011 iNGPS Finale Broadcast Saturday!

by David Phillips on October 21st, 2011

151
Catch 'em while you can.  Saturday is the broadcast of the 2011 iNGPS finale.

The final round of the 2011 iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series will be broadcast Saturday on iRacing.com beginning at 6 pm Eastern (22:00 GMT).   The race will consist of 60 laps around the 17 turn, 3.194 mile Silverstone Grand Prix circuit and feature the Williams-Toyota FW31. Although Hugo Luis (Brazil) clinched the 2011 iNGPS title a fortnight ago at Suzuka, there is plenty to play for at Silverstone.  Outgoing champion Greger Huttu (Finland) has a pretty secure hold on second place in the standings.  But should he falter, fellow Finn Klaus Kivekäs (leader of the iNGPS points race for much of the season) could yet grab the runner-up spot with a strong finish on Saturday. Likewise the twenty-fifth spot (and final guaranteed place in the 2012 iNGPS) is still very [...]

Oh Brother!

by David Phillips on October 21st, 2011

132
racing simulations

IndyCar may have the brothers Bettenhausen and Unser, NASCAR may have the  Bodines, Burtons, Buschs, Labontes and Woods (to name a few), but iRacing has the Stergios brothers.  Jake and PJ Stergios (New England) demonstrated that fact in emphatic fashion last night, driving their Star Mazdas to a brotherly one-two finish ahead of Evan Maillard (France) in the iRacing.com Road Racing Tournament final at Watkins Glen International. While Jake started on pole and led the 20 lap race from start to finish, PJ had to work a little harder – make that a lot harder – for his spot on the podium.  Fifth on the grid, he worked his way up to P2 by Lap Four only for Maillard to reclaim the spot on Lap 10.  The two ran nose [...]

Kettelle Saves Fuel, Steals ‘Dega Win

by Tim Terry on October 21st, 2011

109
Kettelle Saves Fuel, Steals ‘Dega Win

Brandon Kettelle (Cape Coral, FL),  had enough gas left in the tank of his #80 Tide Chevrolet Thursday night to take his first career GSRacing.net Truck Series victory at the Talladega Superspeedway. Kettelle was in second place when leader Andrew Berger (Richland, PA) ran out of fuel under caution coming through the tri-oval on the last lap and held off a furious charge from drivers who had chosen to pit under green. Danny Hansen (Amherst, WI) brought his #32 JDR Graphics Chevrolet home in second followed by Tanner Stoops (Sioux Falls, SD), Jesse Atchison (Prince Frederick, MD) and Jon Adams (Hiram, GA). Four yellow flags slowed the 80 lap online race, which took one hour, thirty minutes to complete. The final caution flag of the evening flew with one lap [...]

Vincent Perfect at Laguna Seca

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on October 20th, 2011

58
015_Laguna

Brad Vincent was in perfect form as he became the first repeat winner of the Red Sox Racing League’s 2011 Season 3 schedule during the “Monterey F1 GP at Laguna Seca”.  Coming off his worst performance of the season at last week’s event at Mosport, Vincent brushed aside rumors about dissension in the Amplified Motorsports garage.  “We knew Mosport was the exception to the rule”, said Vincent after the race.  “Other teams might doubt us, but I’ve got complete confidence in our ability to race for the win every week!” The win at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, coupled with a victory in the season opening race at Silverstone, gave Vincent four top-5 finishes in the first five races of the season and a thirty-one point lead over Turner in the [...]

Kusheba Grabs Street Stock Points Lead At Charlotte

by Allen Krier on October 19th, 2011

118
The Street Stocks got physical on Charlotte's Legends track.

Charlotte Motor Speedway was once again the site of the iRacing.com Street Stock Series for Week 11 of the season, with sim racers tackling the 1/4 mile Legends track. Tempers would run high as drivers trade a lot of virtual paint during the 50 lap online races. Weekly High Strength of Field Week 10′s high Strength of Field (SoF) race ran on Thursday night and had an SoF of 2634. Starting on the pole and leading every lap was Michael Vaughn (West). Vaughn finished just over a second ahead of Lance Gomez Jr (New York) and received 165 points for the win while Gomez collected 146 points for second. Chris Hughson (New York) finished in the third position, nearly three seconds back and netted 128 points for his efforts while [...]

Hazard Takes Texas

by Tim Terry on October 18th, 2011

111
NiCCS + TMS = great online racing.

NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver Thomas Hazard took home the overall victory during Week Eleven action in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) at the Texas Motor Speedway. Hazard, point leader in the GSRacing.net Truck Series, grabbed the NiCCS victory by taking control of the top split online race of the week at the popular Texas oval. Hazard’s win in the 3809 Strength of Field race on October 17th didn’t come easilyy for the sim racing veteran as he started 13th in the 20 truck field. Hazard wasted no time climbing through the pack though, capturing the lead on Lap 13 and holding the position for 42 of the 90 total laps in the race. Second in the race belonged to Byron Daley with David Krikorian, Chris Overland [...]

Kline Upends Field at USA

by Tim Terry on October 18th, 2011

43
Week 10 saw the NiTMS in action at USA International Speedway.

While Brandon Salvatore continued to add to his point total in the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series (NiTMS) on Week Ten, it was veteran sim racer Shane Kline who showed the way in Round Ten. The Untamed Motorsports driver captured the top split race of the week at the USA International Speedway to take the overall win for the week. Kline took the win in Saturday’s 3476 Strength of Field affair by just over one second. Kevin Walker came home as the runner-up, edging-out Derrick Cormier2, Carl Sundberg and Mitch Miller. Kline led 90 laps en route to the win. The race featured just a single caution period and just two lead changes between Kline, who started on the pole, and Walker. Kline gained 217 points for the win. Though [...]

V8 iRacers farewell Dan

by Patrick Atherton on October 18th, 2011

538
MID1

Sim racers are just like any other motorsport enthusiast. When a real-world driver’s life is tragically cut short,  all enthusiasts feel as though they have lost a colleague. The loss of IZOD Indycar driver and 2011 Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon was felt by all in the iRacing community. The V8 racers no less, as Wheldon was scheduled to drive at the Gold Coast V8 Supercar event. The Las Vegas tragedy took the edge off a normally charged-up and dynamic iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport, when they arrived at Mid-Ohio for Week 11. This report will be equally subdued. The evening’s racing was as well-fought as usual, with plenty of spills. However the highlight of both timeslots was a silent tribute lap at the close of racing, organised [...]

Week 13 Classic Indy 500

October 17th, 2011

130
Week 13 Classic Indy 500

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, two of iRacing’s most “niche” and dedicated communities are coming together for a friendly match in this specially hosted event in Week 13 featuring the Classic Lotus 79.   Practice starts on Tuesday, September 18 with qualifying and the race scheduled for Saturday, October 30. Sign-up here and enjoy the fun! Tuesday, October 18 @ 15:00 UTC: 6 hours practice Tuesday, October 25 @ 15:00 UTC: 6 hours practice Saturday, October 29 @ 15:00 UTC: 6 hours practice Sunday, October 30@ 15:00 UTC: 2 hours practice Sunday, October 30 @ 17:00 UTC: qualifying (4 laps) Sunday, October 30 @ 17:10 UTC: race (200 laps) One fast tow; single file restarts.

Remarkable

October 15th, 2011

137
driving games

iRacing.com was part of a remarkable evening of racing last Saturday at Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, IL.  That’s when and where Shane Hmiel returned to Victory Lane on the anniversary of an accident that left him paralyzed.  A year after a crash in a USAC Silver Crown race at Terre Haute ended his career as a racing driver, Hmiel won USAC’s Gold Crown Midget Nationals as the owner of RW56 Motorsports’s 3 Wide Life midget driven to victory by five time USAC national midget champion Levi Jones. “What a remarkable night,” Jones said. “To be able to win in just my second start for Shane and on the anniversary weekend of his wreck is just absolutely amazing. The weekend couldn’t have worked out any better for us. It was [...]

iRacer Profile: Maksym Yefanov

by David Phillips on October 15th, 2011

315
racing games

Should you find yourself in the middle of an iRacing.com Prototype and GT Challenge race with a Ford GT piloted by an iRacer in a blue and yellow helmet, chances are good that the Ford GT is being piloted by Maksym Yefanov.  The long-time iRacer has proudly adopted the colors of his native Ukraine for his helmet paint scheme.  Chances are also good that that Ford GT will be at or very near the front of the Ford GT class competition.  After all, Yefanov currently stands P2 in the Ford GT class of the iRacing.com Prototype and GT Challenge, trailing only Wyatt Foster in the points race thanks to a dozen wins and more than two dozen top five finishes in 27 starts. Q:    How long have you been sim [...]

The iRacing.com Road Racing Tournament Set for October 18 & 19

by Kevin Bobbitt on October 14th, 2011

414
race simulations

iRacing.com is hosting an online racing tournament featuring the Star Mazda at Watkins Glen International (Boot Configuration). We’ll be utilizing one of our newest features, tournament racing, to host this special two-night event. The tournament kicks off on Wednesday, October 19th at 8 pm EDT (October 20th 00:00 GMT) and concludes the following night. The format will be as follows: Wednesday – Qualifying and Rounds 1 & 2 · 8pm EDT (00:00 GMT) 20 minute open qualifying. This will be open to the first 420 racers to register for the hosted session. The top 360 people will move on to Round 1. (10 servers) · 8:30pm EDT (00:30) Immediately following the qualifying we will host Round 1. Roughly equal fields will be set using a snake split format for this [...]

Hazard’s GSR Truck Series 2-Fer

by Tim Terry on October 14th, 2011

106
Hazard (9) leads Pope (16), Wright (71) and Buchberger (17) to the GSR win at Charlotte.

Thomas Hazard (Rochester, MN) picked up where he left off one week ago by taking the victory in Thursday’s GSRacing.net 100 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Hazard, driving the #9 nVidia Chevrolet Silverado, started sixth in the 32 truck field and wasted no time getting to the front, working his way into the top three by Lap 17 and into the lead for the first time on Lap 48. Daniel Pope II (Smyrna, TN) finished in second place ahead of Brad Wright (High Point, NC) and Brandon Buchberger (Sugar Grove, IL), followed by Dylan Duval (Halifax, NS), who charged from eighth place with 13 laps remaining to take a top five spot. Adam Gilliland (Dallas, TX) started the night by winning the GSRacing.net Pole Award with a time of 30.552 [...]

Return to Suzuka

by Jordan Hightower on October 14th, 2011

82
Return to Suzuka

For the second time this season, the drivers in the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge headed to Japan for some action at the 3.609-mile, 17-turn Suzuka International Racing Course.  A total of 367 sim racers attempted to be crowned the week’s best, but after seven days of online racing, Norbert Leitner (Central-Eastern Europe) was the driver who earned that title. Weekly High Strength of Field It was a battle of the Norbert’s for the victory in the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event.  Leitner was able to get the better of Sulzer (DE-AT-CH) during the high SoF, claiming the victory by almost 13 seconds.  Luigi Nespolino (Italy) finished in the third position followed in fourth by Antti Karjakin (Finland).  Rounding-out the top five is Ernesto Medina Nievas2 (Iberia). Weekly Standings With [...]

Saarinen Uncorks at Laguna

by Jordan Hightower on October 14th, 2011

44
The Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge tackled Mazda Raveway Laguna Seca and the famed Corkscrew in 2011 Week 9.

Week 9 in the 2011 Season 3 Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge took the sim racers to the twists and turns of the 11-turn, 2.238-mile Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the hills overlooking Monterey, California.  Over 500 drivers tried to entictoryer their names into the record book as a winner at the famed California track, but after seven days of racing, Antti Saarinen3 (Finland) was able to finally carve his name into that book as the TMC’s top points-earner. Weekly High Strength of Field Oscar Sahlin (Scandinavia), a name now familiar in the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge series, captured the victory during the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event, cruising to an 11.326s margin of victory over runner-up Saarinen.  The final podium position was earned by Texan Christopher Blocker, with Maik Peters [...]

The Certain Champion

by David Phillips on October 14th, 2011

284
Ou (20) battled friend/teammate Doyle for the IZOD IndyCar Premier Series Oval title.

Dario Franchitti or Will Power?  Who will wear the mantle of 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series champion?  We won’t know for sure until the conclusion of Sunday’s IZOD IndyCar World Championship at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but the identity of one 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series champion is already certain.  That would be 22 year old Yang Ou, winner of both the iRacing.com IZOD IndyCar Premier Series Oval and Road Racing competition and, as such, iRacing’s overall IndyCar champion.  And the spoils of his many online racing victories include a cash prize and a trip to Las Vegas for the 2011 IZOD Indy Car Series finale. And what a long, strange trip it’s been.  A native of Wu Han, China, Ou currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark where he is studying media technology.  [...]