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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.

Thursday Night V8 Supercar Racing

by Patrick Guerin on April 11th, 2011

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Thursday Night V8 Supercar Racing

If you live in North America and have wanted to run the V8 Supercar Series, you would have to be awake when the Australians are to have any hope of getting in an official race. This means early mornings, or during the few precious daylight hours of the weekend.  That is, until now. Through a recent poll on the iRacing V8 Supercar forums, many V8 drivers agreed on one common time slot to race during the week. So far, 19 drivers have given the nod to Thursday nights at 8:45pm EST (GMT -4). With this many interested sim racers, it should allow for an official race every Thursday for the remainder of Season One, and hopefully continue into Season Two. Mark your calendars, and check the race planner. There is [...]

Q & A With iWCSRR Racer Luke McLean

by Chris Hall on April 9th, 2011

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Q & A With iWCSRR Racer Luke McLean

With true Aussie grit, Luke McLean found his way onto the roll-call of iRacing.com World Championship Series Road Racing winners following a hard-fought victory at his ‘home’ circuit Phillip Island. Despite a disappointing fifteenth place finish in his last race at Zandvoort, the Team Redline sim-racer occupies fifth in the championship standings, barely 50 points off current series leader Klaus Kivekäs. As preparations for this weekend’s race at the Barber Motorsports Park got under-way, inRacingNews grabbed McLean, arguably Australia’s number one sim-racer, for an insight into his online career, and his path along iRacing’s pinnacle road racing championship. Q:  Tell us a little about yourself… How did you get started in sim-racing? What do friends and family think of it? Do you have any real life track experience? A:  One [...]

iRacer Profile: Chris Seymour

by David Phillips on April 8th, 2011

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iRacer-Profile

What can you say about a guy from Winnipeg who posts the lyrics to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air as his biographical sketch on the iRacing.com member site?  A guy whose nickname is Moose 3, who lists curling and baseball as his favorite sports, and PCs and “wife” as his hobbies? Although he joined iRacing in mid-2009, Seymour has been sim racing for more than a decade.  And he’s gotten pretty good at it, witness the fact that he currently occupies P30 overall in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series on the strength of five wins and a baker’s dozen of top five finishes in 28 races, with his most recent victory coming at Pocono Raceway in mid-March. Since then, a new “hobby” has entered the life of Chris [...]

iRacer Profile – Nenad Matijevic

by David Phillips on April 2nd, 2011

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iRacer Profile – Nenad Matijevic

So far it’s been a pretty typical week for Nenad Matijevic, at least in terms of sim racing: two starts and two wins in the Mustang Challenge, eight starts and five wins in the Pontiac Solstice and one start and one win in the SpecRacer Ford in the inRacingNews Challenge.  OK, so Matijevic didn’t do so well in the iRacing Grand Touring Challenge – disconnecting from Thursday’s race at Silverstone after just a couple of laps.  But you can’t win ‘em all.  And besides, the iRacer from Backa Palanka, Serbia was a newcomer to GT Cup competition, having focused most of his energies on the Mustang Cup and iRNC this season after finishing fourth in SRF and seventh in the Solstice in the inaugural iRNC last season. Although Matijevic has [...]

Carolina Club Challenge Set for Saturday

by David Phillips on March 29th, 2011

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Carolina Club Challenge Set for Saturday

Not every iRacing club has the NASCAR Hall of Fame in its midst.  But Carolina Club does and they’re planning an extraordinary club activity in Charlotte this coming Saturday, April 2. “We wanted to do something that would give the Carolina Club members a chance to get to meet one another and have some fun together,” says Jeff Addison, who came up with the idea for the Carolina Club Challenge.  “We thought the NASCAR Hall of Fame would be perfect and Matt Aldrich (membership sales manager) at the Hall of Fame has gone out of his way to help us make it happen.” A trip to the NASCAR HoF is just part of the fun.  The day begins in Mooresville with a tour of the JR Motorsports shop, where the [...]

iRacer Profile: Shawn Maier

by David Phillips on March 26th, 2011

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iRacer Profile: Shawn Maier

Shawn Maier races just about anything he can get his hands on:  go karts, radio-controlled cars and for nearly a decade, virtual race cars of many shapes and sizes.  That should be no surprise, considering he hails from a state synonymous with auto racing:  Indiana.  Although he mainly sim races the VW Jetta TDI in the iRacing Grand Touring Cup (he’s P10 in Division Two with a pole and six top fives in eight starts this season), the Mustang FR500S, and FG Falcon V8 Supercar, Maier hopes to one day compete in the real world GRAND-AM Rolex Series. Q:      How long have you been Sim racing? A:     I have been racing with a wheel and pedal set for about 3 years. But my sim racing starts all the [...]

iRacer Cassill Takes Over for Elliott

by David Phillips on March 24th, 2011

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iRacer Cassill Takes Over for Elliott

iRacer and NASCAR driver Landon Cassill will take over driving duties for Phoenix Racing beginning at Auto Club Speedway this weekend.  Cassill, 21, replaces 1988 NASCAR Cup champion Bill Elliott, who started the first four races of the season in the No. 09 Chevrolet. “Hopefully, I can do good enough to keep the car in the top 35 (in points) and even in the top 25,” Cassill said. For more details, see Lee Spencer’s story here:  http://bleacherreport.com/tb/b8DqY

iRacer Profile: Brian Heiland

by David Phillips on March 18th, 2011

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iRacer-Profile

Brian Heiland is moving on up, iRacing-wise.  After taking Division Seven SpecRacer Ford honors in the inaugural inRacingNews Challenge in Season Four of 2010, the Lancaster, Pennsylvania resident is focusing on the Skip Barber Series in 2011 Season One where is currently ranked 64th in Division Two with six top five finishes in 15 starts and a couple of podiums of late at Mid-Ohio and Spa-Francorchamps. A long-time sim-racer, Heiland followed the virtual path to iRacing from Grand Prix Legends.  But as you’ll also learn, he and Helio Castroneves have something in common . . . Q:   How long have you been sim racing? A:  Indianapolis 500 the simulation on the Amiga Platform was the first race sim that I ever raced. Just happens to be a simulation programmed by [...]

Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come

by Tony Rickard on March 18th, 2011

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Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come

1998 and I am racing online in a Lotus 49 at Monza. Grand Prix Legends is the simulator, whilst a clever third party utility known as VROC (Virtual Racers’ Online Connection) allows drivers from all around the world to join races together.  After an intense race I exit the Lesmos for the last time, in the lead with a small gap to second.  I just need to hold it together through Parabolica one last time to record my first ever online win. Heart races and tension mounts. I cross the line and, as sad as it may seem to those who would view it as just a computer game, I punch the air! That moment was unique.  With experience a one-off race with a random group of guys without any [...]

iRacer Profile: Chris Hughson

by David Phillips on March 12th, 2011

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iRacer Profile: Chris Hughson

It would be easy to characterize Chris Hughson as the king of the inRacingNews Challenge.  After all, in the inaugural season of the iRNC, Hughson came close to running the table, winning the Pontiac Solstice class and finishing third to Daniel López and Gaston Taberner in SpecRacer Ford . . . this after compiling a jaw-dropping record of 100 wins and 128 top five finishes in 128 starts in the Solstice and a mind-numbing 198 wins and 247 top fives in 247 starts in SRF. The Elmira Heights, NY resident is trying for the iRNC double again in 2011 Season One.  He currently leads the Solstice class and runs second to Gabriel Tobar in SRF on the strength of 33 wins in 48 starts in the Pontiac and 86 wins [...]

A Wise Voice for iRacing

by David Phillips on March 10th, 2011

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A Wise Voice for iRacing

NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Josh Wise is the latest pro racer to tout the benefits of iRacing.com, both for the fun factor and as a serious tool for helping him improve his “game.”  The youngest champion in USAC history, Wise caught the eye of another USAC champion – Tony Stewart – who helped him break into stock car racing in ARCA and, later, NASCAR where he drove in the Camping World Truck and Nationwide Series for Michael Waltrip Racing, Fitz Motorsports and Darrell Waltrip Motorsports.  The California-native joined JR Motorsports this season and will split time with Danica Patrick in the #7 Chevrolet in Nationwide Series competition. See what Josh has to say about iRacing (and a few other things) here: http://www.jrmracing.com/news/2011/03/09/get-to-know-josh-wise While you’re at it, check-out an impressive JR [...]

Legends, Lost and Found

by Ray Bryden on March 5th, 2011

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Legends, Lost and Found

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to be in Paris in the early 1920′s and by chance wind up at a party at 27 Rue De Fleurus suddenly in the company of Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and the rest of the artists, writers, and poets who socialized together and were known as the “Lost Generation.” Or to find oneself on the ‘Festival Express’ train traveling across the Canadian prairies in 1970 listening to hours of jam sessions with The Band, The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. In my line of work, I had a few opportunities at conferences to rub elbows with the legends of my narrow field of expertise; people from across the globe who stand out as the world’s leaders in my [...]

iRacer Gets His Shot at Real World Racing – With a Little Help from His Friends

by Steve Potter on March 3rd, 2011

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iRacer Gets His Shot at Real World Racing – With a Little Help from His Friends

Like a lot of people who would like to go racing, Tyler Hudson found that after he put all the money he had into buying an entry-level race car, he didn’t have anything left to run it.  So he turned to racing in the virtual world with iRacing.com and now his friends and competitors there have helped the 25-year-old Mississippian get his racing career back on track in the real world. Late last year Hudson, one of the top drivers in the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, successfully tested a Super Truck for Mooresville, NC-based Lee Faulk Racing and Development.  But without the necessary funding he’d have been sitting on the real-world sidelines when the green flag dropped for the 2011 season.  So Hudson, a two-time leukemia survivor, turned to [...]

iRacer Zach Veach on Wednesday’s “Today” Show

by David Phillips on March 1st, 2011

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iRacer Zach Veach on Wednesday’s “Today” Show

iRacer and Andretti Autosport driver Zach Veach will be interviewed on NBC’s Today on Wednesday morning between 10:00 and 11:00 am.  The 16 year old Veach, winner of the 2011 USF2000 Cooper Tires Winterfest Championship, will be talking about his upcoming season in the USF2000 National Championship as well as his new book 99 Things Teens Wish They Knew Before Turning 16.

iRacer Profile: Steven van Helsdingen

by David Phillips on February 26th, 2011

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iRacer Profile: Steven van Helsdingen

A member of iRacing.com since last May, Steven van Helsdingen likes his mixed class racing, witness the fact that he gets a lot of virtual seat time in the inRacingNews Challenge and the iRacing Grand Touring Cup, along with iRacing Street Stocks (Fixed).  A resident of Bossum, the Netherlands, van Helsdingen is currently fifth in Division Two SpecRacer Ford — and 19th overall — in the iRN Challenge standings. Q:      How long have you been sim racing? A:     I started sim racing 1996 with the titles “NASCAR Racing” by Papyrus and “Grand Prix 2″ at age 11.   This got me hooked so I bought all the NASCAR simulations by Papyrus as they were coming out. After “NASCAR 2003″ I didn’t find the time or the interest. I started [...]

Trevor Bayne First Drove Daytona on iRacing.com

by Steve Potter on February 23rd, 2011

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Trevor Bayne First Drove Daytona on iRacing.com

It was standing room only in the Daytona media center this past Sunday afternoon when Trevor Bayne walked in following his dramatic win in the Daytona 500.  But in the same room a year earlier, just a handful of people looked on as drove an iRacing.com-powered simulator while Michael Waltrip talked him around Daytona International Speedway. Posted on You Tube by Simcraft, builder of the Apex simulator builder, here’s a video of that day in 2010 when a former Daytona 500 champion used iRacing to coach a future one:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RkoG1MKvfU&feature=related This wasn’t Bayne’s first exposure to iRacing; in 2009 a friend bought the then aspiring NASCAR Nationwide driver a gift subscription to the iRacing service.  According to Rocky Bayne, Trevor’s dad, his son has a setup in his house, and [...]

iRacer Profile: Michael Keeton

by David Phillips on February 19th, 2011

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iRacer Profile: Michael Keeton

One of the new features we’ll be including in inRacingNews V2 are brief profiles on your fellow iRacers, some of whose names will be familiar to you, others a little less so.  Chosen (almost) entirely at random, we’ll lead off with a quick introduction to Michael Keeton.  Not the star of Batman (who spells his name Keaton), our Michael Keeton lives in Alabama not far from Talladega Superspeedway and is relatively new to sim racing.  Michael got his iRacing career off to a great start by winning his split in the 2010 World Tour of iRacing finale, the iRacing Late Model 300 at South Boston Speedway . . . a memorable event, as you’ll see. Q:    How long have you been sim racing? A:    Since November 2010. Q:    What attracted [...]

A Race Within Itself

by Chris Cunningham on February 5th, 2011

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A Race Within Itself

Registering for classes in college is a race within itself. Choosing the right classes at the right times, with the most compatible professors is a fun challenge. Not only that, but you have to wake up at 7AM and type in your course numbers quicker than thousands of the other members of your class. Always having the upper hand in any race is a strength that you can use. For instance, having an extra set of tires, conserving your fuel, are all ways that many sim-racing greats have been able to outlast their competitors. The night before registration, three of my college suitemates were discussing the quickest way possible to enter in their course numbers into the system that allows us to register for classes.  Joe, Anthony, and Pat, the [...]

Cars? Simulated. Drama? Real.

by Patrick Atherton on February 1st, 2011

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Cars?  Simulated.  Drama?  Real.

Many of us will testify that explaining our sim racing hobby to outsiders can be a bit of a chore. Eventually, the term “computer games” is the only vernacular they can understand, as much as that term makes us cringe. It’s difficult to articulate just how many real-world challenges iRacing actually simulates, and how many challenges iRacing creates in its own right. If the only vehicles in existence on planet earth were wheelbarrows, we’d race them. A two dimensional rendition of a motor car is no different. It’s a tool to allow us to express that most wonderful human trait of individuality; the desire to innovate, create, improve and better ourselves and each other.  The desire to compete. An outsider may suggest that a motorsport simulation cannot duplicate every aspect [...]

The Sweet Science . . .

by David Phillips on January 28th, 2011

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The Sweet Science . . .

Whether you’re a long-time sim racer or just got your steering wheel and pedals last night, you’re bound to enjoy Tony Johns’ reflections on his twenty years of sim racing in his alliteratively titled blog “The Sweet Science of Simulated Racing.” http://www.popoffvalve.com/2011/1/27/1960074/the-sweet-science-of-simulated-racing