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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.

Luis One Step Closer To World Title

by Chris Hall on September 12th, 2011

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iRacingSim 2011-09-12 17-32-53-43

In an action packed 47 laps of the 4.048 mile virtual Road America, Hugo Luis held off a spirited attack in the closing minutes to seal his fourth win of the iRacing.com Nvidia Grand Prix Series and further increase his lead in the World Championship standings. As the green flag dropped, Luis made the jump on Greger Huttu, who saw his pole-position immediately evaporate as he struggled to get traction off the line; and by the time the current Champion reached Turn One, he was surrounded by a swarm of My3id FW31s. Whilst Luis sailed off into the distance, the sister cars of Klaus Kivekas, Jesse Nieminen and then David Williams pushed Huttu down to fifth spot with passes at the opening bends and Turn-Five, where the Team Redline pilot [...]

Team Spirit

by David Phillips and Shuji Aratani on September 10th, 2011

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There’s no “I” in team. There may be plenty of “I’s” in Team Giddy-Up! and the names of Toshinobu Shigemitsu, Nobuhiro Fujitaka and Teruaki Kato.  And, obviously, there’s an “i” in iRacing.    But when it came to Round Three of the Okayama Challenge Cup, a two hour enduro at Okayama International Circuit in July, there were no “I’s” — only teammates who pulled together with co-driver (and fellow iRacer) Yuho Abe and a pit crew full of iRacers to score a remarkable podium finish. Remarkable?  Consider that Team Giddy-Up! was debuting its VITA-01 (a sports racer with a semi-monocoque chassis powered by a 1.5 liter Toyota Yaris engine) at Okayama and that the three drivers chosen by team director Shigemitsu to pilot the #93 entry had never driven at Okayama [...]

Fallen Heroes 200 Presented by GT Vodka to Close Vidane Season

by Tim Terry on September 9th, 2011

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Fallen Heroes 200 Presented by GT Vodka to Close Vidane Season

The simulation cars and stars of the eXlander Pro Series will take to the track for one final time in the 2011 season as the Late Models roll into Bristol Motor Speedway Sunday, September 11th for the Fallen Heroes 200 Presented by Grand Touring (GT) Vodka. This is the fifth event on the Summer schedule for the popular late model series, which runs on a wide array of oval tracks provided on the iRacing Motorsports Simulation service. Entering competition on Sunday night, the points championship is all but wrapped up for Middletown, Connecticut’s Paul Strickland Jr. Strickland leads his nearest competitor Jeremy Hughes (Kingsport, Tennessee) by 39 points, meaning if Strickland can keep his nose clean on the #94 eXlander Designs/Grand Touring Vodka Chevrolet Monte Carlo he will be crowned [...]

The Suzuka Master

by Jordan Hightower on September 9th, 2011

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Richard topped the points-getters in the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge's initial visit to Suzuka.

Fresh off a week of action at Okayama International Circuit, Week 5 in the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge saw the sim racers remain in Japan for a second week of competition, this time at the nine turn, 1.394-mile Suzuka International Racing Course – East Course.  482 racers tried to solidify their spot as the top sim racer in Japan for Week 5, but after seven days of racing, Danis Richard (Central-Eastern Europe) topped all drivers with 151 points. Weekly High Strength of Field Although Richard earned the most championship points for Week 5, he was unable to score the victory in the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event.  The 2457 SoF saw Kenneth O’Keefe (Eastern Canada) leading all 20 laps and sailing away to a 5.168s margin of victory over [...]

Tim Terry Day

by David Phillips on September 8th, 2011

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Tim Terry Day

You probably didn’t notice on your calendar, but today is Tim Terry day at inRacingNews.  Not only did our intrepid sim racing correspondent from the Maritimes deliver three (typically) top notch reports on the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series, the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series AND the NVIDIA Cup, he is the subject of a profile by Pat Healey in the current edition of The Enfield Weekly News. SCOTIA SPEEDWORLD: He’s called some of racing’s biggest names during online racing games and for the past two years he’s been the Voice of Scotia Speedworld and the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour. He is Tim Terry, an affable 21-year-old whose maturity surpasses his years. However, the enthusiasm and energy he brings as he belts out the action on the racetrack [...]

“B-Dub” Does it at Chicagoland

by Tim Terry on September 8th, 2011

94
Week 5 brought the tailgaters of the NiCCS to Chicagoland Speedway.

Williamson takes top split, Downs wins week. Racing, like many other sports can have luck run in streaks. Just ask Brandon Williamson. After two horrendous starts during Week Five of the NASCAR iRacing Class C Series (NiCCS) at Chicagoland, Williamson (known in racing circles as “B-Dub”) got up on the wheel and took the top rated race of the week on Monday. The Georgia sim racer led just nine of the 90 laps in the 3724 sof race at Chicagoland but finished the seven yellow flag affair ahead of G Allen Lewis and Carson Downs to take the win. Dustin Lengert and NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship (NiSWC) driver Chad Coleman were credited with top five finishes in the 20 truck field. Lewis led the most laps of the race, [...]

Salvatore Celebrates at Stafford

September 8th, 2011

71
The Connecticut countryside echoed to the sounds of the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series last week.

Brandon Salvatore took a huge step forward this week in his efforts to win the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified crown in 2011 Season Three by taking the checkered flag in the top-rated online race at the Stafford Motor Speedway. The Wide Open Racing driver captured a big win on Thursday that shook the ground of the point picture after Round Five of the 12 week season. Salvatore led all but one of the 100-laps at the Stafford oval to take the victory in the 3606 sof race on the first day of the new month. Just one caution slowed the event and saw Salvatore gap second place Ray Farlow by over two seconds at the finish. Derrick Cormier2 finished third and was followed to the line by Kevin Walker and [...]

Coomans Creams Competition at Lime Rock

by Tim Terry on September 8th, 2011

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One of the more than ? drivers to contest the NVIDIA Cup race week at Lime Rock uses all the road (and more) exiting the Downhill Turn.

Jan Coomans wasted no time getting to the front in 2011 Season 3b of the NVIDIACup as the Benelux club sim racer had a perfect week en route to the overall victory in Round One of Four of the popular entry level iRacing road racing series at Lime Rock Park. His biggest win came on Thursday when Coomans led flag-to-flag to pick up the victory in the 2837 strength of field online race. Seven seconds behind Coomans at the completion of Lap 20 came Mikko Nassi while 2011 Season 3a NVIDIA Cup titlist Alvaro Marcos wasn’t too far behind in third. Mark Chorley and Kenneth Maciver took fourth and fifth in the top split race of the week for the Mazda-MX5s. Nassi scored 159 points for second place which will [...]

Hot ‘lanta

by Jameson Spies on September 8th, 2011

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If anything, the battle between Bryant, Davies and Berry overshadowed the earlier race.

Atlanta Motor Speedway has built its physical world reputation as being fast, slick, and downright tough to get a grip on . . . literally. All the same characteristics transferred over to iRacing’s virtual version of the facility and it showed as only the best of the best were able to make a charge at the aging track. Although its 1.5 mile layout may tempt some to classify AMS as a typical “Cookie Cutter,” competitors in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series learned that claim is half-baked. In the week’s top slit, Steve Sheehan and Bob Bryant had a dogfight to the finish, much resembling Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson’s ten lap brawl to end the Sprint Cup race early Tuesday. Unlike Johnson, Sheehan was able to track down the [...]

Championship Performance

September 6th, 2011

87
Infineon's roller coaster layout challenged the IndyCar sim racers.

Yang Ou (Scandinavia) secured the iRacing.com IZOD IndyCar Series Premier road racing title like a true champion, leading from lights to flag in Sunday’s top Strength of Field race at Infineon Raceway.  Taking his ninth win of the season, Ou crossed the line 18.7s ahead of Andre Boettcher (DE-AT-CH) with Aleksi Elomaa (Finland) a further 23 seconds back just ahead of PJ Stergios (New England). Ou’s domination of the online race came as no surprise, given than fact that he claimed his 11th pole position in a dozen outings with a sizzling lap of 1:15.593, more than .3s quicker than Boettcher’s best.   In fact, only Ou and Boettcher broke into the 1:15s as Elomaa gridded third with a best lap of 1:16.715. The start saw Ou take full advantage of [...]

Vive la Différence

by Allen Krier on September 6th, 2011

97
The Street Stocks took to the Legends Oval at CMS in Week 5.

Week 5 brought the iRacing.com Street Stock Series to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the second time in 2011 Season 3, but this time was a little different. Instead of running the 1.5 mile oval, sim racers tackled the 0.25 legends oval, located on the front stretch. Weekly High Strength of Field Week Five’s high Strength of Field (SoF) race took place on Friday and saw an SoF of 3154, which would award 197 points for a win. Once again, Nick Ottinger (Carolina) showed why he is the two-time defending champion of the Street Stock Series. Ottinger started on the pole and led all 50 laps, nearly lapping the field. Second belonged to Alex Ciambrone (Pennsylvania) who finished just over 16 seconds behind Ottinger. In contrast, Jarrid Boiros came home just [...]

Down back to front

by Patrick Atherton on September 6th, 2011

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Down powerslides to another Season Three win

Week Five, Season Three of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport took the circus to the relatively flat Silverstone International layout. Rens Broekman has proven to be a worthy signing for the Nfinity Esports team. He helped out the team by snaring pole, and helped out the commentators by sporting a new, less green livery to help tell the Nfinity cars apart. Splitting those two Nfinity cars was Madison Down, enjoying a return to (his usual) form. Mitchell McLeod was next from Mick Claridge and Simon Madden. Lewis Dodimead was sixth, finding even more speed since his return to the top split. Nfinity’s third driver Scott U’Ren was next from XSG’s Shay Griffith, then Richard Lock and Stuart Wood rounded out the top ten. All of our well-known [...]

The Racing Dreamz Foundation iRacing Charity Race Series

by David Phillips on September 5th, 2011

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The Racing Dreamz Foundation iRacing Charity Race Series

Professional racing organizations such as NASCAR, GRAND-AM and INDYCAR are full of racers and team owners who use their talents and their audience to give something back to society. Money is raised for charity in all forms of motorsports so those less fortunate can have a fighting chance at some of the things most of us take for granted. Now the Racing Dreamz Foundation and iRacing are joining forces to enable the sim racing community to give something back doing something they already love to do. That is, to race! The Racing Dreamz Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Elizabethton, TN, with chapters planned in Southern California and Middle Tennessee.  The organization’s mission is to guide underprivileged, disaffected, disabled and sick children toward a life of responsibility, stability, teamwork [...]

From Armchair to Race Seat – Partridge Shows the Way

by Chris Hall on September 3rd, 2011

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Together with co-driver  Partridge was in the hunt for a podium spot in his debut at Brands Hatch.

Recent years has seen several highly publicised sim-racers making the step up from the virtual to the real world of motorsport, with names such as Wyatt Gooden, Bryan Heitkotter, John Prather and Jim Caudill, Jr successfully making the transition. What’s different about iRacing member Chris Partridge’s story is his objective of sharing his experience of going from armchair supporter to eyeballs-on-stalks racer by recording his progress for a series of BBC segments. The 42 year-old, a member of the BBC News production team, hit upon the idea for the series of reports following a one-off piece with Anthony Davidson in 2010, when the pair compared their layman and professional driving skills. Encouraged by his 1:19.9 lap time around the Bedford Autodrome circuit (just over four-seconds from Davidson’s), Chris set his [...]

iRacer Profile – Luke Beck

September 3rd, 2011

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Australia’s Luke Beck is man who knows what he likes.  And when it comes to sim racing, his likes can be summed-up in two words: Lotus 79.  OK, if you want to be positively wordy about it, his likes can be summed-up in five words: Classic Lotus Grand Prix Series. It’s not that he hasn’t tried other cars on the iRacing service, and even liked them.  Heck, Beck has raced (and continues to race) everything from Legends, Street Stocks and Silverados to Radicals, Dallaras, Ford GTs, Star Mazdas and HPD ARXo1cs.  But his true métier is tapping into his inner Mario Andretti/Ronnie Peterson with the Lotus 79.  In fact, Beck has finished no worse than third in the Classic Lotus GP Series standings in the past three seasons, twice earning [...]

Ferey Fires on All Eight

by Jordan Hightower on September 1st, 2011

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Some of the nearly 600 iRacers to make the virtual tow to Okayama take the green flag.

Week Four of the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge sent the sim racers to one of the newest tracks in the iRacing service.  The Okayama International Circuit, located in Mimasaka, Okayama, Japan, is an 11-turn, 2.314-mile “country club” race track.  598 racers attempted to solidify their spots as the best at Okayama, but Raphael Ferey (France) showed them all up with a 168 point effort. Weekly High Strength of Field As mentioned above, Ferey was the top championship point earner for the week collecting 168 points for his win in the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event.  The 2686 SoF saw Ferey leading all 12 of the event’s dozen laps and cruising to a 2.240s margin of victory over second place driver Oscar Sahlin (Scandinavia).  The final podium spot went to [...]

Short Track Racing is Alive and Well on iRacing

by David Phillips on September 1st, 2011

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racing games

With the recent releases of Suzuka, Iowa Speedway, Okayama and Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, iRacing’s short track racers could perhaps be forgiven for feeling slightly slighted.  Not any more.  There’s a veritable bonanza of bull rings in the iRacing pipeline. For openers, Mosport Speedway, traditional site of the season opener to the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, is currently in production. When it’s released, any iRacer who who already owns Mosport International Raceway will automatically see iRacing’s newest half mile oval added to their collection of tracks. Also in the works is the .686 mile oval at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis (formerly known as Indianapolis Raceway Park), home to NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series not to mention scores of USAC events including the legendary Night Before the 500. There’s a [...]

Valley Victorious at Iowa

by Tim Terry on September 1st, 2011

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Cormier comes to checkers first in top split race. While Derek Cormier2 was celebrating as the winner of the top split NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series race, Royce Valley had reason to smile after Round Four of the series at Iowa Speedway. Cormier may have taken the race victory but with additional starts added in over the week, it was Valley who left the new track with the highest point total of the week – scoring 199 points for his second place effort to Cormier. Cormier led just 11 tours in the 100-lap affair en route to the biggest online race win of the week for the New York Club sim racer. Valley crossed the line in second with Ray Farlow, 2011 Season Two champion Herb Engelhart and Bob Winslow [...]

Boxing Week

by Jameson Spies on September 1st, 2011

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racing games

Competitors in the NASCAR iRacing Class A Series put their boxing gloves on and did battle Week Four at Bristol Motor Speedway. While some sim racers battled the tricky track more than their competition, others were able to score a knock-out and tally big points at the half-mile oval. With many NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship drivers focusing on their dance with Dover the following week, it was the time to shine for Class A drivers at Bristol. It showed, as twenty-two of the top twenty-five overall drivers on the week had a blue stripe on their iRacing license. Harrison Donovan was a pre-season favorite to lead the charge into the NASCAR iRacing Pro Series, but to this point has not done much to reinforce many peoples predictions. Donovan reminded [...]

Marcos Edges Coomans for NVIDIA Cup

by Tim Terry on September 1st, 2011

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The NVIDIA Cup's 2011 Season 3a finale drew more than 2100 iRacers to Okayama.

Coomans takes victory at Okayama Jan Coomans’ run to an NVIDIA Cup championship in 2011 Season 3a came up eight points short but not before a strong run in Week Four at Okayama International Circuit nearly propelled the Benelux sim racer into the top spot in the standings. Coomans topped the weekly standings in Week Four, but after that was factored-in along with one drop week to the overall standings, it was Alvaro Marcos who was crowned champion – his second title in 2011 as he was also the top driver in 2011 Season 1a. Coomans scored 162 points in a victory in a 2599 sof event on Monday that saw him lead the 25 lap race wire-to-wire and finish ahead of Raul Saraiva, Reuben Bonnici, Phillip Diaz and Jonathan [...]