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5dollarpromo_160x600 Simcraft

February 2012

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iRacing TV

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The Team

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

Lewandowski Edges Alfalla at the Monster Mile

by Jason Lofing on August 31st, 2011

208
Lewandowski scored on overdue first NiSWC win over Alfalla and Gorlinsky at the Monster Mile.

Everyone who drives in the NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship (NiSWC) will tell you Thomas Lewandowski knows how to find his way to victory lane. In fact, the New Yorker had visited the winner’s circle 167 times on the iRacing ovals before Tuesday night’s online race at Dover International Speedway.   Still, while Lewandowski has run well in NiSWC and even finished third in the 2010 points race, none of those 167 wins had ever come in NiSWC competition. But win number 168 proved to be a classic.  Lewandowski held-off both championship leader Ray Alfalla and John Gorlinsky over the final 54 laps of a rough and tumble race, to take the checkered flag by just 0.135 of a second. In a race filled with 11 cautions and constantly changing pit [...]

A Brand New Name in IndyCars

by David Phillips on August 30th, 2011

313
Brand has driven the Livestrong Dallara to third place on the ovals of the iRacing.com IZOD IndyCar Premier Series.

Monica Clara Brand’s name may not be quite as familiar to IndyCar fans as those of Sarah Fisher and Danica Patrick, but she has much in common with them.  Like Fisher she has qualified on the pole for an IndyCar race . . . 30 by actual count.  And, like Patrick, she has finished an IndyCar race in Victory Lane.  In fact, Brand has more than 25 wins to her credit from MIS to Iowa to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. What distinguishes Brand’s racing career from those of Fisher and Patrick is that all of her IndyCar success has come in a digitized Dallara on the virtual race tracks of iRacing.com.   In fact, the 34 year old resident of Bucharest, Romania has never even attended a “real world” IZOD IndyCar [...]

Király and Gelink – GRAND-AM Premier Series Champions

by Chris Hall on August 30th, 2011

248
Gelink's , coupled with Karaly's Daytona Prototype dominance, gave the Benelux Club a powerful one-two punch.

In what turned out to be a victory parade for the pair, András Király and David Gelink secured the Premier GRAND-AM iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series crowns in the respective Riley MkXX Daytona Prototype and Ford Mustang FR500S classes, to each walk away with $1000 in prize money, plus some impressive silverware for their efforts. The 10 week championship open to members of the iRacing motorsports simulation service has seen more than 600 sim racers enter the ultimate mixed-class virtual series in a bid for GRAND-AM glory. Riley MkXX Daytona Prototype Although Királywas wearing the biggest grin in the virtual Mid-Ohio paddock for the tenth and final round of the championship, it was Morgan Sowerby claiming the plaudits with the top points total of the weekend. The American secured his [...]

Kusheba Scores Big; Field Takes Over Lead

by Allen Krier on August 30th, 2011

71
This week saw the iRacing.com Street Stock Series travel to Lanier National Speedway.

The iRacing.com Street Stock Series made its way down south to Braselton, Georgia for Week Four. Top sim racers from all over the world would travel to Lanier National Speedway in their quest for the title. Weekly High Strength of Field This week’s top Stength of Field (SoF) race had a great points payout, awarding 222 points to the winner. Paul Kusheba (Connecticut) showed his dominance at Lanier by starting on the pole and leading every lap in the 40 lap race. Kusheba held-off Brandon Chretien (New York), who finished only seven tenths of a second behind. For his efforts, Chretien received 201 points. Cody Stickler (Florida) finished in third, almost eight seconds behind, and netted 181 points. Jarrid Boiros (Massachusetts) and Aaron Likens (Plains) rounded out the top five, [...]

Piropo Pilots MX-5 to the Top

by Tim Terry on August 30th, 2011

57
Nearly 2500 iRacers put their Mazda MX-5s through their paces at Lime Rock.

Kaique Piropo proved he is a force in the NVIDIA Cup once again this week as he took the overall victory in Week Three of the popular division at Lime Rock Park. The Brazilian sim racer took home 155 points and one win but ironically, both came in different starts for the week! Piropo’s 155 point total came in a second place run to Renaud Jouanny on Sunday’s 2745 sof race. Jouanny led the final 17 laps en route to the win and finished a half second ahead of Piropo. Nicholas Vandal, polesitter Antonie Higelin and Ian Davidson completed the top five in the event. Jouanny went on to start eight additional races, piloting his Mazda MX-5 to victory lane three times in those other starts. Second for the week [...]

Nfinity Survive Island Marathon

by Patrick Atherton on August 30th, 2011

159
The Nfinity prime mover steams into Honda.

WEEK 4 of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport was the “Enduro”- a whopping 38 laps of the Aussie V8′s spiritual home, Phillip Island. The extra dimension of pitstops added some spice which was, if the forums and the corporate box buzz was anything to go by, a highly popular move. It would take a brave man to try on a no-stop strategy here at the tyre-shredding Island. It was an Nfinity 1-2-3- qualifying extravaganza with new boy Scott Andrews poling at 1 min 30.718 from Nfinity teammates Mitchell McLeod and Rens Broekman. There would have been a fourth Nfinity driver in the top ten but for Scott U’Ren being plagued with internet dramas pre-race. The consistent Mick Claridge was fourth from XSG Motorsport’s Michael McCabe. Trans Tasman [...]

Luis Elbows His Way to The Top

by Chris Hall on August 29th, 2011

211
Huttu used his pole position to good advantage.

In a dramatic 44 lap online race at the virtual Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Hugo Luis muscled his way to the front of the pack to collect his third victory of the iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series (iNGPS) and move into the standings lead with just four championship races remaining. Starting from pole position for the championship’s second visit to Spa-Francorchamps this season with a time of 1:44.596, Greger Huttu made the perfect get away when the lights went green, to lead Luis, Klaus Kivekäs and  Luke McLean into Turn Onne, aka the La Source hairpin. Keeping clear of some mid-pack chaos in the opening turn that sidelined Atze Kerkhof, Ray Alfalla and Brad Davies, Huttu led a train of Williams-Toyota FW31s for the opening laps, until the Finn was able [...]

Benelux Benefit

by David Phillips on August 29th, 2011

77
One series, two classes, two champions from one club.

The Premier GRAND-AM iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series already has the longest title among the multitude of online racing series on the iRacing.com service.  But in the wake of the series inaugural season, it may be time to insert two more words into that lengthy title:  Benelux Club. That’s because Benelux Club’s Dave Gelink and András Király not only took home top honors in the mixed class (Ford Mustang FR500s and Riley MkXX) series, they won their titles going away. To say Gelink dominated the pony car class is an understatement.  After all, the Dutchman took 10 wins in 14 starts and finished in the top five every time out, while notching 8 poles to boot.  Although he didn’t lead all the way (Dylan Sharman, Norbert Rebelski and Dániel Sinka) [...]

Three’s Company, 363 is a Crowd

by David Phillips on August 29th, 2011

895
The iRaciing.com Belgian Grand Prix attracted more than 350 entries from iRacers around the world.

Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Jenson Button had plenty of company on the podium at Spa-Francorchamps over the weekend.  Less than 24 hours before 24 Formula One pilotes set off for the 2011 Shell Belgian Grand Prix, more than 363 iRacers took to the challenging 4.35 mile circuit in their virtual Williams-Toyota FW31s for the iRacing.com Belgian Grand Prix as part of the 2011 World Tour of iRacing. The entry produced 14 splits of 26 iRacers with Atze Kerkhof leading 40 of 44 laps in the top strength of field (4304) event to best fellow Benelux Club member Rudy van Buren by 16.9s with Alberto Baraldi (Italy) coming home third.  Other winners included Richard Crozier (Celtic), Marko Penttinen (Finland), Sam Hazim (Celtic), Philip Widdowson (England), Russell Kao (California), Andrew Hartley [...]

John Joins Season 3 Winners at Lanier

by Tim Terry on August 29th, 2011

63
Week 3 saw the Tour Mods take to Lanier National Speedway.

NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series veteran Jerold John sent a powerful message to his online racing competitors on track during Week Three of the season by scoring the overall win at Lanier National Speedway. John, who has racked up multiple checkered flags a week in the past got the most important one of the week during a 3184 strength of field race on Saturday, which brought the Connecticut sim racer 199 points when he crossed the stripe first. The event featured just two yellow flags over 120 laps and saw 11 cars answer the call to the green flag. Troy Talman finished second with Paul Wisniewski coming home with the final podium spot. Brandon Salvatore led the most laps of the race (102) but had to settle for fourth, just [...]

iRacer Profile: PJ Stergios

by David Phillips on August 27th, 2011

258
driving games

If PJ Stergios’s name sounds familiar, there are plenty of reasons.  First, PJ features regularly on inRacingNews’ accounts of a number of series from NASCAR Class A, Radicals, Silver Crown  (where he won the 2009 Season 3 title) Sprint Cars (he is P5 in Division One as of this writing) to IndyCar (where he currently ranks P2 in the IZOD IndyCar Premier Series oval and P14 on the Premier road series).  The fact that his brother Jake (a finalist in last year’s Intel® World Series and currently P11 in NASCAR Class A) also figures prominently in iRacing lore helps on the name recognition front as well. Then again, if you’ve spent time around the short tracks of the Northeast, you might have seen the Candia, NH resident racing Quarter and [...]

Family Affair

by David Phillips on August 27th, 2011

90
The Hubbells practice together to improve their sim racing games and to keep in contact across the miles.

The family that sim races together stays together, even when one member of that family is in the military, stationed far from home.  That’s certainly the case with iRacers Jeff Hubbell and his son Chad, a Master at Arms in the U.S. Navy. With Chad stationed at the joint Naval Support Facility Anacostia/Bolling Air Force Base near Washington, DC and his family living near Pittsburgh, obviously the distance could be greater . . . say the tens of thousands of miles from Western Pennsylvania to Okinawa or Diego Garcia.  Still, the 250 miles or so from the ‘burgh to DC is plenty.  But a few clicks of their computers’ mice — and a few twists of their steering wheels — brings Jeff and Chad Hubbell together again. “iRacing keeps us [...]

Thompson Tops Bristol’s Best

by Tim Terry on August 26th, 2011

95
More than 1300 iRacers competed at Thunder Valley in Week 3 of the NiCCS.

Though the record books will show former NASCAR iRacing.com Class C (NiCCS) champion Tyler Hudson as the winner of the week at the Bristol Motor Speedway, it was Georgia sim racer Justin Thompson who stole the show with an impressive eight wins in eleven races at the half-mile. Thompson scored two wins higher than the 208 point total put-up by Hudson, but due to the point structure for the series (with the best finishes being averaged to determine a point total), Thompson finished the week with 187 points. The top split of the week saw Hudson obtain his 208 point total for the week. The race featured six cautions and saw Thompson lead 70 laps from the fourth place starting position en route to victory. Starting from pole, Hudson finished [...]

High Banks + High Speeds + Davies = High Points

by Jameson Spies on August 25th, 2011

101
The high banks and high speeds of MIS produced great racing - as usual.

Once again the high banks and high speeds of Michigan International Speedway provided some of the closest online racing of the season in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series. Speeds topped the 200mph mark as drivers sailed-off into the eighteen degree banking in the turns. Utilizing the high side of the track gave drivers a head of steam down the straightaways, and made passing very difficult. NASCAR iRacing World Championship driver Brad Davies once again led the way for the week, scoring a huge 335 points. Davies dominated the 5357 SoF, leading 38 laps en route to the 6.414 second victory over Kevin King. Fellow NiSWC competitors Josh Berry and Patrick Fogel came home third and fourth, while the top Class A driver on the week, Nick Ottinger, put in [...]

Like Father, Like Son

by Jeremy Hughes on August 25th, 2011

92
Week 3 of 2011 Season 3 found the Late Models racing at Irwindale Speedway.

This week the NASCAR iRacing Late Model Series made the long trip out west to Toyota Speedway in Irwindale, CA. The half mile asphalt track seats 15,000 fans and features a Bose sound system that was broadcasting the name Hubbell all week. When you hear the name Hubbell, you think of a telescope. In this case it’s the father-son duo of Jeff and Chad Hubbell.  Jeff, the “Old Man” as Chad calls him, took the top spot in the online racing competition for the series this week with 161 points. Chad, who is a police officer in the US Navy and stationed in the Washington D.C.  area captured the second spot with 159. “It’s nice to jump on here and work on setups with the old man, it almost feels [...]

Tuomainen Takes Road America

by Jordan Hightower on August 24th, 2011

88
Brake lights flash as more than dozen Mustangs slow for Turn Five.

The Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge marked its quarter-season mark this past week as the racers tried to navigate the 14-turn, 4.048-mile venue known as Road America located in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.  Over 500 sim racers made the virtual journey up to Wisconsin to see who could master the monster of course, but Finland’s Hannu Tuomainen earned the most championship points for the week. Weekly High Strength of Field While Tuomainen earned the most championship points for Week 3, Paulo Valente (Iberia) took home all the marbles in the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event.  The previously mentioned Tuomainen finished in the second postion, 2.173s behind Valente.  Third was taken by George Kuyumji (DE-AT-CH) followed by Tamas Wagner (Central-Eastern Europe) and  Sascha Thomaszik (DE-AT-CH). Weekly Standings The battle for the top [...]

Decorps Delivers in Okayama

by Tim Terry on August 24th, 2011

66
Some of themore than 2300 sim racers to tackle Okayama battle into First Corner.

Davy Decorps sent a statement to his fellow NVIDIA Cup drivers in Week Two that he is here to vie for the 2011 Season 3a championship. Decorps, who boasts a 3300+ road iRating took the overall win this week over 2300 fellow sim racers when the series visited the popular Okayama Short Course. Decorps scored 157 points in his only start of the seven day span, one which ended in Victory Lane in Tuesday’s tilt. Eleven drivers began the 2518 sof race with Decorps leading every lap en route to the win over Alexander Ossadtchikh. Ivan Seco, Paul A. Taylor and Tony Galliani completed the top five in the race. With his runner-up finish and the 141 points that went with, Ossadtchikh was credited with fifth place overall for the [...]

The Big One

August 23rd, 2011

176
Did somebody mention "The Big One?"

The iRacing.com Street Stock Series, one of iRacing’s few fixed set-up series, made its way south to Charlotte Motor Speedway this past week. Top sim racers looked to tackle the 1.5 mile track which is known to create pack racing with these low horsepower cars, which also means “The Big One” was on everyone’s mind.  While there was plenty of bent, folded and mutilated virtual sheet metal to go around during the week, NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver Tyler Hudson (Mid-South) made his presence known in a big way. “I’ve been hearing how fun the street stock class was at the big Charlotte oval . . .” – Tyler Hudson Weekly High Strength of Field Hudson, who also races an iRacing.com-sponsored Super Truck at Hickory Motor Speedway, won the [...]

New and Not-So New

by Christopher Leone on August 23rd, 2011

119
Although the SRF competitors may have had their disagreements, nobody douobted Hughson was the iRacer to beat at Summit Point.

Week 3 of Season 3 of the 2011 inRacingNews Challenge featured the series’ home track, Summit Point Raceway, and its Jefferson layout. Dominated last season by the two series champions, Marius Golombeck in the Pontiac Solstice and Gabriel Tobar in the Spec Racer Ford, this season offered other sim racers the opportunity to reach the top of the charts. So two different drivers – one a newcomer to the front, one not so new – seized the respective championship leads with strong performances. Michael Booth, whose Solstice performance has been stellar thus far in the early part of the season, won his lone race from the pole to score a class-best 143 points. In SRF, longtime class bridesmaid Chris Hughson is seeking to wrest the crown from Tobar; starting 27 [...]

Sea of Green at the Glen

by Patrick Atherton on August 23rd, 2011

143
The Nfinity Esports crew threw everything they had at the opposition

Week Three, Season Three of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport saw the field arrive at Watkins Glen. Reality and its virtual counterpart were colliding in many meaningful ways. It was less than a week since Aussie Marcos Ambrose scored his maiden Sprint Cup win at the same (real world) venue. Meanwhile, iRacers Shane Van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin had hit the podium at least once in the weekend just gone, at the Queensland Raceway V8 Supercar round. The rolling green hills of The Glen were made even greener by no less than four Nfinity Esports Falcons in Mitch McLeod, Rens Broekman, Scott Andrews (another real world V8 racer) and Scott U’Ren. Van Gisbergen was missing from this round, as was Peter Read. McLeod was on pole, scraping [...]