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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.

Vincent’s 5th Win Down Under

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on November 11th, 2011

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Season Three of the Red Sox Racing Leagues 2011 F1 calendar has officially turned into the coming out party for newcomer Brad Vincent.  Winner of the season’s first race at Silverstone, Vincent has reeled off five wins, a third, and a fifth place finish in eight races.  Incredibly, Brad has become so dominant over the rest of the field in each of his last four starts that even defending league champion Les Turner has accepted the fact that RSR could be crowning a new champion in a few weeks. In what started out as a very competitive season, weeks one through four saw four different drivers winning races, while nine different drivers earned podium finishes.  Vincent put a strangle hold on the points race after that point in the season [...]

Hazard Tops Texas, Takes Points Lead

by Tim Terry on November 11th, 2011

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Hazard Tops Texas, Takes Points Lead

Thomas Hazard (Rochester, MN) took the lead in the Trading Paints 150 for the first and final time on Lap 38 en route to the victory in Round Five of the GSRacing.net Truck Series. Hazard, who claimed his third win of the season, out-dueled Josh Berry (Mooresville, NC) and Kevin King (San Diego, CA) for the victory in the late stages of the 100-lap online race. Most of the field fought against their fuel tanks at the end of the race after a 60 lap green flag run to the finish left many of the front runners saving gas at the end . . . including Hazard, who ran out of fuel on the cool-down lap. Tyler Hudson (Brandon, MS), who along with King was making his first start of [...]

A Tale of Two Stories at Texas

by Michael Conti on November 11th, 2011

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The mid-week release of the new build caught some drivers off guard . . .

Before I begin talking about this great series, I’d like to thank everyone at inRacingNews for giving me this opportunity to put a spotlight on the NASCAR iRacing Class B Series and the drivers that take part in it. I feel that finally, these sim racers  will receive the notoriety and the credit that they deserve. — MC This past week, the NiCBS hit the track at Texas Motor Speedway to kick-off Season 4 of 2011. The bumpy, fast, 1.5 mile speedway seems to always pose a challenge to the drivers in this series, and for that matter any other online racing series that tackles this venue. Because of a delay in the new build, drivers knew the week would be pretty crazy as updates would be coming right smack [...]

A New Dawn at Sebring

by Dennis Grebe on November 11th, 2011

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A new season dawned as the iRacing.com Prototype and GT Challenge competitors raced into the Sebring night.

The venue for the start of the iRacing.com Prototype and GT Challenge turned out to be rather fitting, with a night race at Sebring International Raceway. In the latest update all three cars of the series had their tire model significantly updated, the Corvette C6.R even getting the New Tire Model for the first time as more than a few sim racers found themselves in the dark at the dawn of Season 4. After their nightly adventures at the Florida track, the series will head to Watkins Glen Boot to stretch their legs in broad daylight, before heading to Road America for Week 3 and Laguna Seca for Week 4. LMP2: HPD ARX-01c In a very competitive start to the championship it fell to DWC drivers David Williams (England) and [...]

Back to Business, Class A Style

by Jameson Spies on November 10th, 2011

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Sheehan was one of the veterans to come to the fore at TMS, taking two wins in four starts.

After a fun-filled Week 13 on iRacing.com, it was back to business for competitors in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series. There was no getting up to speed at a slow track, as sim racers were thrown to the wolves and attempted to conquer the lightening quick Texas Motor Speedway for Week One of the new season. Experience is key as speeds top the 200mph mark into the 24 degree banked Turn One, and while veteran sim racers topped the charts, a few new names made themselves known. Speaking of veterans, Kenny Humpe led all the qualifiers with a blistering lap of 27.107s edging another name familiar to iRN readers — Kevin King — by .032s, with Daniel Pope II (27.194s) the only other driver to break the 27.2s barrier.  [...]

Greer Out of the Gate with Win

by Tim Terry on November 10th, 2011

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The iRacing.com Late Model Tour kicked-off Season 4 at Lanier National Speedway.

iRacing.com Late Model Tour Series veteran Rusty Greer started off 2011 Season 4 by taking the overall win at Lanier National Speedway in Week One. Greer, a former Late Model Tour champion, has not won the title since 2010 Season 2 but has four straight seasons of finishing as a bridesmaid leading into the current schedule. Greer’s 198 point winning total came on Wednesday during a 3172 Strength of Field (sof) race. Greer led all 65 laps in the online race and defeated Eric Hoggarth by over five seconds at the finish. Ryan Bergenty, Reginald Gill and Kenneth Smith3 completed the top five in the 16-car field. Hoggarth’s 184 points put the Plains Club sim racer in third overall for the week amongst 955 drivers to test their skill at [...]

Starting in Style

by Dennis Grebe on November 10th, 2011

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….and occasionally ends in less than desirable results!

The new season for the Grand-Am iRacing.com Online Sports Car Series started in style at (where else?) Daytona International Speedway’s road course which also kicks-off the real life Grand-Am Rolex Series with its annual 24 hour race. The top race of the week took place at 1.00am (UTC) on Sunday for the Daytona Prototype class, while the Mustang class saw some skewed Strength of Fields due to a mid-week change in the points system with no immediately identifiable top race. There are, however, efforts underway on the iRacing Forums to organize reliably well-attended races each week – make sure to check there if you are looking for the top SoFs in this series. Daytona Prototype The quicker of the two classes saw an immensely tight fight for the weekly honors, [...]

Playseat Chassis Contest!

by David Phillips on November 9th, 2011

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playseat-inracingnews

OK. You’ve battled in countless online races sitting at your desk but you’ve always wondered what how much better it would be if you were sitting in a purpose-built sim racing chassis. Here’s your opportunity. Playseat America has stepped-up to give all iRacers a chance to win a brand new Playseat Evolution Chassis. Simply paint any car with the Playseat logo as your primary logo. You can find the logo in the Paint Shop sponsor dropdown menu. Then race in at least 10 official races in Season 4 (11/1-1/23). You’ll be automatically entered to win at the end of the season. For more information on Playseat America seats, go to www.playseatamerica.com/

And She Don’t Scrape No More

by Katier Scott on November 9th, 2011

591
The Lotus 79 is more fun to drive than ever.

iRacing’s Eric Hudec recently provided the Lotus 79 community with a superb example of community co-operation in working through a series of comparatively simple, but much requested, changes to this challenging Class B car. Led by Classic Lotus Grand Prix Series/community leader, Frank Herfjord, the Lotus 79 community used a forum thread started by Hudec to discuss changes they felt were fairly simple to implement but important to improving the realism and enjoyment of the car. Within a week of the discussion, Hudec had worked through the requests and created a patch which he successfully implemented on Monday night, allowing the community time to get used to the revisions before Week 2 commenced. The revisions included changes to the Lotus 79′s fuel economy, the increments for fueling the car, increased [...]

King Dominates Wild Race at PIR

by Jason Lofing on November 9th, 2011

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King (29) didn't lead from flag-to-flag, but he always had an answer for the likes of Davidowitz (25) and Lindsey (50).

Nearly everyone in sim racing knows how much Kevin King likes Phoenix International Raceway . . . and it was not hard to see why on Tuesday night. King completely dominated Round Two of the NASCAR iRacing Pro Series (NiPS) at PIR, leading 120 of the 156 laps and never coming under any pressure to speak of, even on several late-race restarts. Dominant as King was he did not sit on the pole, as the advantage of starting in the number one spot went to Nick Ottinger.  However, Ottinger’s time at the front was short-lived.  The first lap saw him get together with Richie Davidowitz on the back straightaway, sending the pole-sitter  around and losing several positions in the process.  Ottinger would never regain the lost ground. Cautions came early [...]

A Radical start to the season…

by Katier Scott on November 8th, 2011

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Challenging cars, close racing and a sense of comaradarie saw the Radical Racing Challenge attract lots of iRacers to Watkins Glen.

One week into 2011 Season4 of the Radical Racing Challenge and jaws are having to be scraped off virtual cockpit floors as sights, not seen before, surprised series regulars.  Last season bore witness to the second highest number of drivers ever in the series, but this season, opening at the popular Watkins Glen circuit has seen participation records being utterly destroyed. Just the first weekend of racing saw five successive split races in the first 24 hours with 187 drivers, numbers that grew to a total of 291 drivers in 15 online races and splits by the end of the Week 1 — an increase of more than 100 drivers over last season’s visit to the Glen and an average of nearly 19.5 cars per race. Last season many sim [...]

Purcell Starts-Off Hot

by Allen Krier on November 8th, 2011

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The iRacing Street Stocks started-off Season 4 with a visit to SoBo.

For Week 1 of Season 4, the iRacing.com Street Stock Series traveled up north to South Boston Speedway. This tight 4/10th mile oval is known for tight racing and trading paint. Sim racers looked to start-off the season right in their efforts to dethrone three-time champion Nick Ottinger (Carolina). This week would be an interesting one as the new build was released mid-week, causing havoc for many of the racers. Weekly High Strength of Field The high Strength of Field (SoF) race for Week 1 took place on Monday night and had an SoF of 3132. Eric Purcell (Florida) dominated the race from the pole, leading every lap in route to a 1.3 second victory. For his efforts, Purcell received 196 points. Donovan Ponder (Florida) finished second after starting eighth, [...]

Lotus 49 Coming to iRacing

by David Phillips on November 8th, 2011

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Chris MacAllister hustles the ex-Jim Clark Lotus 40 around the Loews Hairpin at Monaco.

iRacing.com and Classic Team Lotus have announced plans to create a digital version of the renowned 1967 Lotus 49.  This will be the second of the marque’s iconic Formula One cars available on iRacing, joining the 1978 World Championship-winning Lotus 79 which has been raced in the Classic Lotus Grand Prix Series since 2009. “We’re honored to have the opportunity to build another great Formula One Lotus,” says Divina Galica, iRacing director of partner relations. “In addition to being among the most technically significant — and successful – Formula One cars in history, the Lotus 49 embodies a truly golden age of Grand Prix racing.  I have no doubt the members of iRacing will be positively thrilled at this news.” Today’s announcement solidifies the relationship between iRacing.com and Classic Team [...]

NASCAR Drive for Diversity Video Features iRacer Dylan Smith

November 8th, 2011

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online racing

iRacer Dylan Smith plays a featured role in a video on NASCAR’s 2011 Drive for Diversity Combine, conducted at Langley Speedway in October.  The program brings together 26 drivers of diverse backgrounds ranging in age from 16 to 24 and representing 10 states, Mexico and Puerto Rico to compete for spots on the 2012 Revolution Racing team as part of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity. After trying-out for the team last year and not making the cut, Smith worked in the Revolution Racing shop and trained on iRacing virtually non-stop.  The results?  He was fourth fastest in October’s Drive for Diversity Combine. Click here to see the video.

Aussies Bet on Horsepower

by Patrick Atherton on November 7th, 2011

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Season Four blasts off in Canada

Season Four of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport kicked off at Mosport, straight out of the starting gates the Down v McLeod show re-ignited. That said, there are some new-ish names looking awfully fast, and wanting a piece of the action. Aussies love a punt, and Season Three nearly-man Mitch McLeod gambled on Tatts Corp sponsorship giving him a turn of luck for Season Four. Season Three champ Madison Down was absent for the 7.45 race, so McLeod came out punching. Pole position was his from Richard Hamstead, Rens Broekman, Cal Whatmore and Scott U’Ren, also sporting Tatts colours. Newbie Michael Clark was in sixth from Beau Cubis, Lewis Dodimead, Stuart Wood and Richard Lock. There were a few new faces in this top split, not surprising [...]

Kerkhof Dominates at Spa

by Chris Hall on November 7th, 2011

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Kerkhof opened his iPSRR account with a flag-to-flag victory at Spa.

Taking his first steps towards the 2012 iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series, Atze Kerkhof took the spoils of victory and maximum points at the opening round of the iRacing.com Pro Series Road Racing at Spa-Francorchamps with a dominant flag-to-flag performance. With the top 25 in the standings gaining entry to next years iNGPS following the twelve-round iPSRR season, the battle is intense as demoted sim racers from this year’s World Championship and newly-promoted Pro sim-racers fight it out in the virtual Williams-Toyota FW31s. Starting from pole position after setting a 1:44.967 qualifying lap, Kerkhof maintained his position at the front when the green flag dropped, closely followed by Andre Boettcher and Samuel Libeert who made the jump on Roland Ehnström before reaching Turn One, aka La Source. Whilst it looked [...]

Radical Racing Challenge ROARs into action for Season 4

by John Bodin on November 7th, 2011

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motorsport simulation

The buzz around iRacing these days seems to be all about the New Tire Model, but the Radical Racing Challenge series has quietly been drawing its share of attention, with attendance for Week 1 of Season 4 showing roughly a 93% increase in participation over Week 1 of Season 3.  While others are struggling to come to grips with the NTM, many iRacers have discovered that although the Radical SR8 is still riding on the previous Old Tire Model, it’s also still quite a joy to drive — and some have compared the Radical’s handling to the Skip Barber Formula 2000 before it was fitted with the NTM, only with a lot more horsepower and a lot more grip to go with it. With the Radical Racing Challenge having a [...]

Vincent Turns Okayama Into Nightmare

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on November 5th, 2011

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Mimasaka, Okayama Japan was the site for week seven of the Red Sox Racing League’s 2011 Season Three F1 Championship Series.   The “Spooktacular F1 GP at Okayama” was billed as a thrilling twenty-five lap shootout between some of sim-racing’s cleanest drivers.  In reality, it was a nightmare for anyone not named Brad Vincent!  Vincent used the entire 2.314 mile, eleven corner layout as his personal playground on the way to his third victory in a row.    The RSR Thursday night F1 league is a fixed setup league which in theory, ensures that everyone is using the same car and setup.  Despite the leveled playing field, drivers still have to use their own skills to demonstrate their mastery of the car and course.  Vincent has been putting on a clinic in [...]

iRacer Profile – Keith Melhiser

November 5th, 2011

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games racing

Keith Melhiser knows what he likes.  When it comes to racing, it’s open wheel racing, preferably USAC, and most certainly preferably on dirt.  That’s a good thing for the resident of Petersburg, IN is within driving distance of scores of dirt tracks scattered thoughout his native state, not to mention Illinois, Ohio and other points north, south, east and west.  Indeed, he’s raced on a few of them himself in ? and ? And when it comes to sim racing, Melhiser also knows what he likes.  Not surprisingly, that would be the Silver Crown Cup and Sprint Car Cup.  Since joining iRacing in 2010, Melhiser has run 227 races — all on ovals, the vast majority in Silver Crown and Sprint Cars.  And to good effect.  A two time division [...]

Win a Thrustmaster Steering Wheel & Pedals on iRacing.com

by David Phillips on November 5th, 2011

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thrustmaster-inracing

Congratulations to Rick Wheeler of Maine, USA, the winner of the Season 3 Thrustmaster Sponsorship Contest. Wheeler ran the Thrustmaster logo in at least 10 official races in Season 3. By doing so, he was automatically entered to win a Thrustmaster T500RS wheel and pedal set courtesy of Thrustmaster and WON! Don’t worry if you didn’t win. Thrustmaster is bringing the contest back for Season 4 (Nov 1 – Jan 23). All you have to do is display the Thrustmaster logo (found in the Paint Shop Sponsor Dropdown) in the primary sponsor location on your car AND race in a least 10 official races during Season 4. By doing so, you’ll be automatically entered to win one of these great Thrustmaster T500RS wheels. It’s that easy. For more information on [...]