- iRacing.com Announces iRacing 2.011,355
- iRacing.com to create virtual McLaren MP4-12C GT38,006
- Scanning What’s in Store for iRacing with Tony Gardner6,013
- Dave Kaemmer Comes Clean on Dirt5,497
- Improving the Sound of iRacing4,825
- iRacing 2.0 Debuts in 2011 Season 34,765
- Preview Shots of HPD ARX-01C, Ford GT & Suzuka4,742
- Two New Cars and Two New Tracks Coming to iRacing Soon4,253
- iRacing Pro Race of Champions Gets Green Flag Wednesday3,304
- Gooden Plenty II2,942
- Towler, Wood Suspended from Upcoming iWCRR Events 66
- Coming Soon, the iRacing Driving School 41
- iRacing.com Announces iRacing 2.0 41
- SFI Decertifies All Impact Racing Products 27
- Dave Kaemmer Comes Clean on Dirt 27
- iRacing Announces Added Features, Lower Prices 26
- iRacer Profile: Sandeep Banerjee 25
- The Customer is (Nearly) Always Right 17
- iRacing Simulation Gives NASCAR Hall of Fame Guests Authentic Driving Experience 17
- Improving the Sound of iRacing 15
- iRacing.com2134
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David Phillips
Editor and ChiefDavid Phillips is a long-time contributor to print and electronic publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Racer, Autosport, AutoWeek, Motor Sport and SPEEDtv.com, oversees the daily updating of news stories and assigns, edits and contributes feature material for inRacingNews.com.
Chris Hall
iRacing.com Series WriterChris Hall has been writing since the nineties and moved into motorsports reporting in 2005, covering series such as ALMS, British GT, FIA GT, Le Mans and 2CV racing for Full Throttle magazine, Motorsport.com, The-Paddock.net, GTGateway.com, L' Endurance and, of course, inRacingNews. During 2008 and 2009, he worked with the RSS Performance Porsche Carrera Cup Team (and former British GT(C) champions) as a data engineer for a variety of drivers and models of 997s.
Jameson Spies
Contributing Writer19 years old, Jameson Spies lives in Quartz Hill, California. He grew-up surrounded by racing. His mother raced late models throughout Southern California while his father built and setup the car. Not surprisingly, Jameson began racing go-karts at the age of 13, and is now racing Spec Trucks at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. He has a passion about all forms of racing and hopes to make a career out of it.
Jason Lofing
iRacing.com Series WriterJason is 21 years old and was born and raised in Elk Grove. California. A big time NASCAR fan, he hasn’t missed a race on Sunday in years. Lofing is also a huge San Fransisco Giants fan and tries to take in at least a couple games a year. Other than sim racing, his biggest (and far more expensive!) hobby is photography. Although he is rather new to sim racing, Lofing has already accomplished some pretty impressive results, qualifying for the 2011 iRacing Oval Pro Series in Season 1, 2011, winning the inaugural Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge and finishing runner-up in the second one.
Ray Bryden
Technical contributorRay grew up in Nova Scotia, which means he’s a hockey nut, but in Nova Scotia’s two non-winter months he had to find other diversions, which meant watching F1 racing on weekends with his dad and brothers. Without the resources to get started in racing, he gravitated to computer versions of racing – first Atari games like Pole Position, followed by PC racing games like Indianapolis 500: The Simulation. Dozens of others came and went, until Grand Prix Legends came along and he decided sim-racing was his official hobby. Years were spent enjoying this both offline and online until a few years of fatherhood took priority. When free-time reappeared he heard about iRacing and signed up in 2008 and became so involved in the service that he wrote one of the first books on the subject of sim-racing, iRacing Paddock. When not writing for inRacingNews.com, his main occupation is as a research associate with Saint-Gobain working on advanced ceramic materials.
Patrick Atherton
Contributing WriterPatrick Atherton, originally from Adelaide in the state of South Australia, currently resides just outside of Melbourne, Victoria with wife of 17 years and 3 kids. A business manager by profession, but also dabbles with blogging, cartooning and fine art, having been published both as a writer in a short-lived South Australian motorsport yearbook and later as a cartoonist in a niche trade magazine. At the age of 19 he competed in club circuit events in an Austin Healey Sprite, later indulging in sprint karts between 1994 and 2000. Following the move to the State of Victoria he raced Road Race Karts (“Superkarts” as they are known in Australia) in the popular Rotax class, competing at Phillip Island, Oran Park, Mallala, Wakefield Park, Eastern Creek, Calder Park, Sandown and Winton. It was during this time he met former Australian F2 champion and inventor of Australia’s first, and most prolific race simulator rig, Jon Crooke. This culminated in an introduction to Papyrus’ legendary NR2003 simulation, and the subsequent sim racing addiction which brought him to iRacing.
Tim Terry
Contributing WriterTim Terry, aka the voice of Maritime stock car racing, fell in love with sim racing in 2004 after he joined the Sim Racing Network crew as a pit reporter. From October 2004 to SRNtv’s closure in June 2007, he’s covered prestigious races and leagues such as the Online 500, FLM Fall 400, Real Racing Online and the DMP Racing League – each as the lead broadcaster for the company. At the same time the wheels started to turn in another direction as he began announcing stock car racing locally. Terry became the assistant announcer at Scotia Speedworld in May 2007 and took over full duties in May 2009 when long-time voice Mike Kaplan retired from the track. Terry also became the series voice of the Parts For Trucks Pro Stock Tour in ’09 and continues to hold down both posts in 2011. He has also announced races for the Pro All Stars Series, Atlantic Open Wheel and Maritime League of Legends tours and has called races at six different Atlantic Canadian tracks. Terry can be heard online at WebRacingNetwork.com, RLMtv.com and OLRtv.com covering sim races. He also makes occasional appearances on PSRtv.com. In addition to inRacingNews, his articles and columns can be read on ScotiaSpeedworld.ca, MaritimeProStockTour.com and his own website at timterryonline.com.
David Allen
Contributing WriterNorth Carolina born and raised with over 15 years of computer/IT experience, I combine two of my biggest hobbies -- racing and technology -- here at inRacingNews. In my spare time I run a Nascar fan site and cure my own need for speed riding atvs. If it involves technology or racing I'll be there, but combine the two and I'll be looking a front row seat. Stop by and say hello anytime!
Allen Krier
Contributing WriterAllen was born in West Palm Beach, Florida but grew up in Atlanta and attended Georgia College and State University where he received a BS in Information Systems. Currently a resident of Albany, GA, he started sim racing in 2008 while in college when iRacing was first released to the public. Since then, Krier has been a two time iRacing Pro Series driver (2009 and 2010), picking up one Pro Series win at Daytona in ‘09. Besides sim racing, Allen’s other hobbies include RC Car racing as well as “attending and watching any sporting event that I can including going to the local dirt track.
Alfalla, Luvender Named iRacers of the Year
January 4th, 2012
The members of iRacing.com have named 2011 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Champion (NiSWC) Ray Alfalla and Trading Paints’ Steve Luvender iRacers of the Year. The members selected Alfalla (Driver of the Year) and Luvender (Member of the Year) from an outstanding field of nominees during voting between December 15 and 31, 2011. Alfalla scored three wins and eight more top five finishes en route to the 2011 NiSWC, clinching the title with one race remaining in the season. In addition, he enhanced his reputation as a fine all ‘round sim racer by taking a pair of top five finishes en route to fifteenth in the NVIDIA Grand Prix Series (NGPS). “First I’d like to thank all of the iRacers who voted for me. This is the icing on the cake [...]
Warren Wins Vegas on Last Lap Pass
by Jason Lofing on January 4th, 2012
The NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series visited Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the tenth week of twelve in the season. With time running out to secure a spot in the 2012 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, Vegas was expected to be a hotly contested online race, and it lived-up to expectations as Alex Warren beat Patrick Baldwin in a thrilling late race battle that featured some of the best racing of the whole 2011 NiPS season. Mitchell Hunt started on pole and jumped out to about a half-second lead shortly after the green flag flew. However, it quickly became obvious that the whole field of sim racers was very evenly matched; so evenly matched in fact that drivers who normally run very strong, such as Nick Ottinger, were mired back in [...]
Wilsey Tops Thompson; Moriarity Rolls at Richmond
by Tim Terry on January 3rd, 2012
Division Two point leader Mark Wilsey entered Week Eight of the iRacing.com Late Model Tour in the top five overall. When he left Thompson International Speedway (TIS) after seven days of online racing, he had himself an overall weekly win, second place in overall points to his credit and the satisfaction of knowing he had established the fact that he can contend for the top prize in short track racing on the iRacing service. Wilsey’s big win came on Christmas Eve during a 2812 Strength of Field (SoF) race. Wilsey led all 50 laps from the pole position on the Connecticut high banks and came home nearly three seconds up on second place driver Sandro Vitelli. Late Model and sim racing veteran Jeff Conover was third, followed by Matt Bussa [...]
iRacer Profile: Fredrik Tackman
by David Phillips on December 31st, 2011
You could certainly say that Fredrik Tackman is a quick learner. Last season he finished a respectable 13th in the iRacing.com Star Mazda Series with seven wins in 22 starts. Season 4? He’s leading all comers after eight weeks of racing, with 19 wins (and 38 top fives overall) in 42 starts. But as the 40-something (at least until October!) from Ostersund, Sweden says it’s not really the results that give him pleasure so much as the feeling of being in control of the car. And Tackman is in control of a lot of different cars on the iRacing service, with wins in Season 4 in a Class A Impala at New Hampshire and in an HPD-ARX01c to his credit, along with all those victories in the Star Mazda. But [...]
Tricky Magic
by Jameson Spies on December 30th, 2011
Tricky New Hampshire Motor Speedway was the venue for Week Eight of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series (NiCAS). Nearly 250 sim racers were brave enough to take on this oddball of a track in the top oval stock car in the world of online racing. While some were able to overcome to challenges of the Magic Mile, others were left scratching their heads. Flat track ace, and current NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship (NiSWC) driver Josh Berry captured top honors on the week. A constant threat whenever he races, Berry positively thrives at flat tracks . . . as this week demonstrated. Berry heads a rather unusual top five with Brendan Doyle coming home second, followed by the surprise of the week, Brodie Kostecki in third. Kostecki is an [...]
Hooks Rolls at Thompson
by Allen Krier on December 29th, 2011
Week Eight saw the r iRacing.com Street Stock Series travel to Thompson International Speedway. Thompson, which is located in Thompson, CT, is a 5/8th mile semi-banked oval. 760 sim racers attempted at least one online race during the week, while 274 racers turned a qualifying lap. Weekly High Strength of Field Last week’s high Strength of Field (SoF) race had a rating of 2666, which paid 161 points to win. Kevin Moody (New York) started on the pole and lead all 40 laps in route to a seven second victory over Benjamin Harste (Midwest). Harste collected 143 points for second while Moody racked-up 161 points for the victory. CJ LaVair (New York) finished in the third position, nearly 10 seconds behind and earned 125 points. Chad Cole (Midwest), who started [...]
Kerkhof Seals the Deal
by Chris Hall on December 28th, 2011
In formidable fashion, Atze Kerkhof powered his way to an unchallenged seventh victory in the iRacing.com Pro Series Road Racing at Road America, and ensured the iPSRR title would be heading to Dutch shores. With four rounds of the championship remaining, the Team Redline pilot’s path to the title has earmarked Kerkhof as a front-running contender for the 2012 NVIDIA Grand Prix series that opens its third season in late January. Starting from his seventh pole position of the season with a time of 1:33.775, Kerkhof made a clean getaway from the line to lead the field of sim racers into Turn One, closely followed by My3id’s Martin Krönke, who had followed the Dutchman past Danny Davison into second position. For front-row sitting Davison, the drop of the green flag [...]
Adams Makes his Mark
by Jason Lofing on December 28th, 2011
With the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) starting to wind down for 2011, sim racers took to Pocono Raceway for the ninth race of the season. The Tricky Triangle is a very demanding track, with three very different corners, requiring drivers to compensate on their setup to ensure their car drives well in all three turns. Throw-in a dash or two of the unexpected — such as the number and timing of caution periods and the resulting havoc they play on pit stop strategy — and you had the makings of a thoroughly unpredictable online race. Jon Adams got it right on all counts, emerging as the fastest man on the track in the second half of the race and then playing the fuel strategy perfectly to power home [...]
Warren Wins at Iowa
by Tim Terry on December 27th, 2011
Alex Warren took one big step forward in his quest to become NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) champion in 2011 Season Four during Week Seven by taking the overall win at the Iowa Speedway. Warren, who competes on the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS), is locked-in to a title hunt in both series in this final 12 week season of the 2011 year. Warren’s big win came on Saturday when the Illinois sim racer crossed the line first over Brodie Kostecki, Gary Cooksey, Chris Overland and Mitch McCracken. Kostecki led the most laps (52) in the 100-lap race while Warren led 22 en route to the win. The race featured four yellow flags and five lead changes amongst four drivers. The race was rated at 3459 Strength of Field [...]
Flight(s) of the Phoenix for Cormier & Engelhart
by Tim Terry on December 27th, 2011
While Derrick Cormier2 was racking-up the starts (and wins) during Round Seven of the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Seried (NiTMS) at Phoenix International Speedway, it was former champion Herb Engelhart who was thinking “big picture” as he departed the “Valley of the Sun” with the most points for the championship hunt. Over 100 sim racers took part in the Week Seven festivities at the one-mile oval. The top split of the week took place on Tuesday as the field combined for a 3585 Strength of Field (SoF). The 75-lap race featured just one caution and was won by outside pole-sitter Cormier. Cormier led 57 laps in the win and finished the race three and a half seconds clear of runner-up Jamie Collier. Pole-sitter Royce Valley was third, followed by Paul [...]
Karlavige ‘Corners’ First GSR Win at Richmond
by Tim Terry on December 23rd, 2011
While most eyes were on the 15 sim racers eligible to make the Chase for the GSRacing.net Championship, it was Jason Karlavige who scored big by not only taking the victory in the Tim’s Corner Race to the Chase on Thursday night at Richmond International Raceway but also moved into the top 33 in the standings which guarantees him a start in the first race in the playoffs. Karlavige, who made his third start of the season Thursday night moved to the lead for the final time on Lap 99 of the 130-lap affair after a pit stop promoted him from the fourth place. He held-off a hard charging Josh Berry for the win on a one-lap, green flag dash to become the fourth first time winner this season in [...]
Nailing It
by Jameson Spies on December 23rd, 2011
The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series blew into the “Windy City” for Week 7 of their twelve week season. Chicagoland Speedway always presents some of the best door-to-door online racing of the NiCLAS season, and this week was no different. With speeds topping the 200mph mark into vastly different corners, nailing the setup was the key to success over the course of Week Seven. One person who seems to be nailing the setup every week, no matter the track size or configuratation, is NiCLAS points leader Kile Gottula. Gottula found himself in a tie with NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series contender Robert Hall for this week’s top honors. Gottula won three of his four starts to extend his lead in the season standings, while Hall made one trip to victory lane [...]
iRacer Profile: Scott U’Ren
December 23rd, 2011
Scott U’Ren is a young man who knows what he likes. When it comes to sim racing that would be iRacing.com and, specifically, the iRacing V8 Supercar Series. That’s not to say he doesn’t occasionally try his hand at other cars and other series, but it is to say that, since August, he has participated in just four practice sessions driving anything besides his Ford Falcon. Practice may not make the Melbourne-based U’Ren perfect, but it makes him pretty good. Good enough to have finished P4 in the fiercely competitive 2011 Season 3 iRacing V8 Supercar Series on the strength of a dozen top fives (and two wins) in 14 starts; good enough to currently stand fifth in the Season 4 points race behind Madison Down, Rens Broekman, Mitchell McLeod [...]
McKinney Takes SoBo
by Allen Krier on December 22nd, 2011
For Week 7 of the iRacing.com Street Stock Series, top sim racers traveled to the famous SoBo (South BostonSpeedway ). In total, 832 racers took to the track at least one time during the week at the famous Virginia short track. Weekly High Strength of Field Last week’s high Strength of Field race had an SoF of 2866, which paid 174 championship points for the win Coming-out on top in the field of 11 drivers was NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship regular Tyler Hudson (Mid-South). Hudson led every lap from the pole en route to a 2.3 second victory over CJ LaVair, who netted 156 points. Coming home in third was Nathan Rhew (Carolina), almost 11 seconds behind the race winner. For his efforts, Rhew received 138 points. Mark McDowell [...]
Tim’s Corner Race to the Chase Goes Thursday
by Tim Terry on December 22nd, 2011
Fifteen drivers. Ten chase spots. One race and 100 laps to get it done. While the objective for the 35 drivers in the Tim’s Corner Race to the Chase will be simple come race time, 15 of those will have an extra goal in mind and that is to be one of the ten in Chase for the Championship contention after 100-laps at the Richmond International Raceway. After all, when the checkered flag falls at the Virginia short track the ten sim racers who will duke it out for the GSRacing.net Truck Series championship will be decided. The drivers in contention for the title are no strangers to sim racing and have been in these big race type scenarios before. The only driver that is currently “locked in” to a [...]
2012 iRacing.com World Tour Schedule
by David Phillips on December 22nd, 2011
From the virtual sands of Daytona and the digital bricks of Indianapolis to the simulated shores of Phillip Island, the 2012 iRacing.com World Tour will enable iRacers to compete in online versions of some of the world’s classic motorsports events. Scheduled for the same weekends as their real-world counterparts, the World Tour events are open to all iRacers, regardless of license level, who own the appropriate car/track content. The schedule kicks-off with a mixed-class GRAND-AM doubleheader at Daytona International Speedway – the GRAND-AM Continental Showdown Before the 2.4 and the GRAND-AM Racing 2.4 Hours at Daytona — on January 27/28. The World Tour returns to Daytona for the iRacing.com Daytona 500 on February 25 and continues on to Sebring, Charlotte, multiple events at Indianapolis, Spa-Francorchamps, Phillip Island, Talladega and Road [...]
McLean Tops Intel GT Series Round 2
by David Phillips on December 21st, 2011
Round 2 of the Intel GT Series saw Luke McLean (Aus/NZ) emerge as the overall winner in the week-long competition to qualify for the Africa/Asia/Australia Regional Finals. McLean came out on top of nearly 200 iRacers during the week of online racing featuring the HPD-ARX01C at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. For his efforts, McLean wins an Intel Core i5 Processor and Motherboard, along with $50 of iRacing credit. Along with the other 19 top finishers in Round 2 of the Intel GT Series, McLean now moves on to the Regional Finals, which has been rescheduled for Saturday, January 7, 2011 at 9pm AEST (11:00 GMT). The 20 finalists will compete in a single 30 minute race at Spa in their HPD-AR01Cs, with the top eight finishers qualifying for the Intel GT [...]
Warren’s Dover Strategy Pays
by Jason Lofing on December 21st, 2011
Dover International Speedway played host to Week Eight of the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) season and saw Alex Warren deny Nick Ottinger’s bid for a third straight win in the series. Ottinger made his presence known, leading 59 of 200 laps, but Warren had the speed and track position when it counted, leading the final six laps to earn his second win of the season. The Monster Mile didn’t come by its nickname by accident, as the high-banked, bowl of concrete is often the site of some rough and tumble action. This online race was cleaner than anticipated, however, as the event had two long green flag runs including two rounds of green flag stops, both of which had a pronounced affect on the outcome. It came down to [...]
iRacers Team-Up
by David Phillips on December 20th, 2011
Two iRacers — NASCAR Sprint Cup regular Joey Logano and NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series/NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (fixed) championship leader (and former inRacingNews contributor) Jordan Hightower — teamed-up to provide Logano’s fans with some insights on the recent iRacing.com Pro Race of Champions . . . Oval The first of two events in the inaugural iRacing Pro Race of Champions took place under the lights at the digitally recreated Charlotte Motor Speedway driving the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chevrolet Silverado for 25 laps. Joey Logano started his No. 20 truck from the 17th position and was quickly moving his way up through the field. He would race as high as 12th, but misfortune on lap seven took Logano’s chance at a good run away as he made contact [...]