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5dollarpromo_160x600 Simcraft

February 2012

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M T W T F S S
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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.

Motorsport Stars Gravitate to iRacing at Autosport International

by Chris Hall on January 16th, 2012

419
Gary Paffett gets some virtual seat-time before the Sky cameras.

Last week saw iRacing make their first “full” appearance at the Autosport International Show with a dedicated booth.  In the opening two-days (reserved for the motorsport trade patrons), the iRacing stand (72465) was one of the busiest at the NEC, Birmingham show.With a pair of VRX 3D motion simulators, the iRacing display brought delight to sim-racers, race fans and drivers alike. The first professional driver to dip his toe into the iRacing Motorsport Simulator was Mercedes-Benz DTM driver/McLaren F1 tester Gary Paffett.  Paffett found himself pitted against Sky Sports correspondent Craig Butler in a demo race featuring the HPD ARXo1cat Spa-Francorchamps.  With the benefit of some guidance from Kevin Bobbitt, iRacing Director of Marketing, Butler and Paffett started their three-lap sprint. Following a close start, Parfett was able ro break [...]

Daytona Past and Present

by David Phillips on January 13th, 2012

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motorsport simulations

When it comes to Daytona International Speedway, iRacing will soon be offering its members the best of both worlds: Daytona past and Daytona present. Following the 2010 racing season, of course, the famed “Big D” underwent a $20 million resurfacing project.  Although the primary focus was the 2.5 mile oval, the Bus Stop chicane and adjoining apron on Daytona’s 3.56 mile road course were also resurfaced.  In keeping with its commitment to the accuracy of its digital race circuits, iRacing conducted a total rescan of Daytona following the repaving work and is in the process of rebuilding its version of the track. Although the “new” Daytona International Speedway will be integrated into iRacing’s various online racing series in February, the service will continue to make the “old” Daytona available to [...]

Sim Racing Meets Real World Racing

by Katier Scott on January 10th, 2012

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Sim Racing Meets Real World Racing

This weekend features one of the most eagerly-anticipated shows on the motor sport calender as Autosport International opens its doors at the NEC Birmingham.  Covering over one million sq ft of floor space, Autosport International is widely regarded as Europe’s largest motorsport exhibition. The event opens to the members of the motorsports trade for two days on 12th and 13th January before the public get the chance to enjoy the wide range of exhibitors on the weekend of the 14th and 15th. This exciting event features stands from companies as diverse as Formula 1, down to go-karting and both oval and road, national motorsport.  Amongst the hundreds of stands, and probably thousands of steel, plastic, carbon fibre and fibreglass cars, will be exhibits featuring various elements of sim racing, reflecting [...]

Improving the Sound of iRacing

by Tony Gardner on December 7th, 2011

4,808
"'Sound improvements' could mean working on existing sounds like the noise created by crashes . . ."

Although iRacing.com is constantly adding new elements to our online racing service there are always many improvements we would like to make to our current features.  One of those features is sound, which happens to be a very broad topic. When we think of sounds in a racing game, most of us think of the cars’ engine noises, and that certainly that is a focus of our work.   We have some good ideas on how to improve those engine sounds and add more range.   Of course, our objective is to be authentic when it comes to engine sounds — or any sound for that matter.  That’s why we go to the track and record every car in iRacing, and also do things like taking sound meters to the tracks to [...]

Dave Kaemmer Comes Clean on Dirt

by Nick Neben on December 2nd, 2011

5,423
Developing artist's conception of iRacing sprint car on dirt? Easy (relatively).  Developing practical model of dirt track racing for iRacing? Not so much.

Dirt: It’s that painfully slippery surface that causes most of us a 1x or a 2x at some point; a 4x if we are unlucky enough to really lose it.  It’s something that will take a perfectly fine race car and send it 180 degrees backwards into a barrier or sand trap. For most road racers dirt is evil.  Most oval racers don’t even worry about dirt while racing in their paved coliseums.   But for one group dirt is for racing.  Pavement?  It’s just for getting there.  From short, bullring dirt tracks to miles of rally stages, this group thrives on sim racing in the dirty stuff. Motorsports on dirt takes many forms across the world.  It’s best known in America for dirt oval racing, while the rest of the [...]

Scanning What’s in Store for iRacing with Tony Gardner

by Nick Neben on November 18th, 2011

5,984
The Long Beach spline is finished . . . now comes the tricky part!

One of the biggest selling points in iRacing for me is the laser-scanned tracks.  As a sim-racer I may not benefit from knowing each bump and nuance of the real-world track, but knowing what I am driving from my living room is accurate down to the millimeter to what I see drivers racing on TV and in person adds to my experience overall. This unique and authentic feel that you can only get from laser-scanning adds so much to each track within the iRacing service. Tony Gardner, president of iRacing.com, recently provided me with some insights to the process of how the company decided on laser-scanning, the process of signing tracks, what goes into the decision on what tracks are brought into the service for the members and the status [...]

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 [...]

Lotus 49 Coming to iRacing

by David Phillips on November 8th, 2011

1,682
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 [...]

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 [...]

New Tracks, New Features Highlight Season 4 Release

by David Phillips on November 3rd, 2011

237
Classic Oulton Park is one of the highlights of the 2011 Season 4 release.

The addition of Oulton Park and Kentucky Speedway, together with a host of new features and infrastructure improvements, highlight iRacing.com’s 2011 Season 4 release. An integral part of the fabric of the British racing scene for more than half a century, Oulton Park boasts eight different configurations, including the 2.8 mile, 12 turn International Circuit, the 2.2 mile, seven turn Island Circuit and the 1.6 mile, six turn Fosters Circuit — each as challenging as it is picturesque.  Long-time host of IZOD IndyCar, NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series events, Kentucky is the latest track to join the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule. And if last summer’s overflow crowd for the 1.5 mile oval’s first Sprint Cup race is any barometer, Kentucky figures to be among the most popular new [...]

iRacing.com Nears 500 Million Laps

September 27th, 2011

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380-featured

iRacing.com members have now driven over 380 million laps around the  50+ ultra-realistic virtual road and oval tracks since the iRacing opened for business in the summer of 2008. 170 million of the 380 million laps were completed in the more than 30 racing series sanctioned by iRacing.com, which stages some 1,500 official races weekly including many in partnership with organizations such as NASCAR, IndyCar, GRAND-AM and the Super V8 series in Australia.   115 million laps took place in open practice, where iRacers can practice on-track with fellow members from more than 80 countries, while another 11 million laps were run during official qualifying sessions.   Some 30 million laps were turned in iRacing’s time trial competition, along with 15 million laps in “fun” races and special events like the iRacing [...]

Down the Hatch

by Patrick Atherton on September 20th, 2011

163
The field tries to chase Down

Week Seven of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport travelled to the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. The Indy “club” section, with its tight, narrow confines, is a stark contrast to the wide-open, sweeping curves of the forest section. With its dramatic elevation changes and awkward cambers, it would prove to be another tyre-killer. With less than half the season to run and only three points separating series leader Mitch McLeod from the rapidly closing Madison Down, things were getting tense. McLeod did what he needed, duly taking pole from Madison Down, by 5/1000ths of a second, the story of the season. Once again, Down was the cat amongst the Nfinity pidgeons, with U’Ren and Broekman third and fourth. Richard Hamstead was an excellent fifth in his first [...]

iRacing.com to create virtual McLaren MP4-12C GT3

by Kevin Bobbitt on September 14th, 2011

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mclaren_inhome

Bedford, MA (September 14, 2011) – iRacing.com and McLaren Automotive today announced plans to build a virtual version of the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 race car.  Based on the groundbreaking McLaren MP4-12C road car, the first production car wholly designed and built by McLaren since the McLaren F1 – the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 marries Formula 1™ and innovative road-car technology with GT3 specification performance enhancements to create a new generation of racing car. iRacing.com will apply expertise in creating a state-of-the-art digital version of the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 that will be available to iRacing members in 2012. The McLaren MP4-12C GT3 project is the second development from iRacing.com and the McLaren Group. Earlier this year, iRacing.com incorporated McLaren Electronics’ ATLAS Express data analysis software into the iRacing service, providing the more [...]

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 [...]

Let the Tournaments Begin

by David Phillips on August 4th, 2011

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racing games

One of the most exciting aspects of iRacing 2.0 is the new Tournament Racing feature.  Now you can organize, host and stage your own sim racing tournament, with multiple heat races winnowing the field down to the crème de la crème in the final/feature. To learn more about staging your own tournament, check out this great “how to” video: http://youtu.be/F3QDoIpAsKE

iRacing 2.0 Debuts in 2011 Season 3

by David Phillips on July 29th, 2011

4,763
iracing-2-feature

iRacing 2.0, the most significant new build in iRacing history, is here in time for 2011 Season 3.   Brimming with new features and content, iRacing 2.0 truly represents the dawn of a new era for iRacing. Topping the list, of course, is the new tire model.  Years in the making, the NTM’s remarkably authentic performance is a watershed development in online race simulation, one that will revolutionize the sport of sim racing. Of course, the first phase of the NTM has been available for some time on the new Class B Impala, and will be fully integrated into the iRacing service throughout Season 3.  We’ve continued improving the NTM on the Class B Impala and our new virtual rubber will also be installed on the COT, Chevy Silverado and Skip [...]

Two New Cars and Two New Tracks Coming to iRacing Soon

June 30th, 2011

4,244
Two New Cars and Two New Tracks Coming to iRacing Soon

The release of iRacing 2.0 may still be a few weeks away, but iRacers can get a jump on some of the content thanks to iRacing’s first ever Four-for-All. That’s right, four exciting features of iRacing 2.0 –Iowa Speedway and Suzuka International Racing course, the Ford GT and HPD ARX 01c – are now available for pre-sale. That’s one of America’s finest new speedways, a world class road circuit, an iconic GT machine and one of the fastest sports prototypes ever built. In other words, something for everyone! The Ford GT is a modern version of the car that defeated mighty Ferrari at Le Mans in the 1960s. How modern, you ask? The iRacing Ford GT is a digital version of the car that David and Andrea Robertson and David Murry piloted to third [...]

A League of Your Own

by David Phillips on June 20th, 2011

229
online racing

Check-out iRacing.com’s new public micro-site focusing on private leagues. We think you’ll agree, whether you want to be the czar of your own sim racing league or you just enjoy competing with a group of sim racing pals in a format of your collective choosing, iRacing has a league for you. Want to be sim racing’s answer to Bill France or Bernie Ecclestone?  iRacing has all the tools you need to form and administer a sim racing league, including dozens of cars and tracks as well as the flexibility to choose private or open sessions, mixed or single class racing and fixed or open setups with up to 60 cars at some tracks.  iRacing even provides a starter kit designed to help you create a web site for your league. [...]

iRacing.com Video Contest Winners Announced

June 17th, 2011

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iRacing.com Video Contest Winners Announced

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner in the iRacing.com Video Contest. Correct that, we have 15 winners in the iRacing.com Video Contest, headed by Christian Braun who received the lion’s share of the votes cast by his fellow iRacers. One of four grand finalists, Braun will receive $500 in iRacing credits and an opportunity to do some additional video work for iRacing.com for his efforts. The remaining three grand finalists – Florian Godard, Jens Denker and Nick Neben – will each receive $150 in iRacing credits, while $100 in iRacing credits will be deposited in the accounts of eleven other finalists including Daniel Vergara Muro, Nathan Lively, Jose Fernandez, Jyrypekka Lehtinen, Taylor Meyn, Jon Adams, Bryan Blackford, Andrew MacPherson, lefevre ludovic, Stefan Wisselink and Steve Claeys. Congratulations to all [...]