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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.
  • 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.
  • Chris Cunningham
    Contributing Writer
    Chris is 20 years old, and recently moved to Charlotte, NC during his sophomore year in college to feed his need for speed. More than just an auto racing enthusiast, Cunningham has risen through the ranks of BMX Racing, Sailboat Racing, and Cycling. Cunningham recently took up go karting, and qualified as an alternate for the 2011 Red Bull Kart Fight at the PRI expo. Aside from racing, Cunningham has recently picked up the hobby of competitive eating (Ranked #7 Collegiate Eater in the country!), and competes all over the east coast in various contests. Chris also enjoys sim racing, writing, playing the drums, and enjoying college at UNC Charlotte.
  • Tim Doyle
    Contributing Writer
    I've been a race fan since before I can remember, going to dirt tracks around the Washington, DC area since the early 70's with my parents.  I got away from racing during my school years but in 1989 a friend and I went to a race in Hagerstown, MD and from there my life was all about racing.  I currently live in Winchester, VA and while Dirt Late Models is my favorite form of racing, I also enjoy many other forms such as F1, IndyCar, 410 sprint cars on dirt and (probably more than anything) sim racing.  My favorite driver is Ayrton Senna.
    I was introduced to sim racing in 1989 when a friend turned me onto Indy 500 The Sim by Papyrus.  It took me a few years to own my own PC but once I did, all I wanted to do was sim race. I tried to race my friends as much as possible via modem racing back in the 90's before joining TEN in 1998.  From there I devoted a lot of time to online racing enjoying every minute of it.  I was able to meet a lot of my competitors from all over the world at LAN events and races I went to.  Being able to call some real world drivers friends as a result of sim racing is probably the neatest part of this whole deal!
  • David Roberts
    Contributing Writer
    David lives in Brisbane and is a former Australian National Formula Ford Champion who now owns his own marketing and design company. After racing in Europe, David returned down under to swap a career behind the wheel for a career in the creative department. He now has three children, an ongoing love affair with the good ol’ days of motor racing, and just enough spare time left to enjoy a bit of sim-racing with a few of his old mates.
  • Ben Rothberg
    Contributing Writer
    I was born and raised in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne where I still am situated. I am currently at University studying for a Certificate in Motorsport and hoping I will be able to achieve my top goal and become a part of a race team. In the sim-racing world, I won an rFactor V8 Supercar season and also was awarded with Best & Fairest award. I am now situated with the best simulation in the world (iRacing.com!) and love every minute of it. I currently race in the V8 Supercar Online Series and finished 16th overall in 2012 Season 1.
  • Dylan Sharman
    Contributing Writer
    I was born in Adelaide and we moved-out for Angle Vale for a few years until I was about 7 years old, when we moved to the Barossa Valley where I live now. I'm 19 years old and currently traveling back and forth weekly as I’m studying for a Diploma of Furniture Design and Technology.

    I’ve always had a love for racing as my close family did some racing and we were always out at the local dirt track. I joined iRacing back in 2010 and slowly but surely got the hang of it as this is my first experience with sim racing and am loving it each time I race. I’ve won two SK Modified titles (almost had three in a row but finished P2 in 2011 S4), an inRacingNews Challenge championship (2012 S1 Mazda) and was also an AustralAsian Intel GT Series Finalist.

iRacer Profile: James Kirkham

by James Kirkham on April 16th, 2011

James Kirkham is fortunate to have what many fellow iRacers would consider a dream job: working in the motorsports arena.  Not long after relocating to Charlotte from Oregon Kirkham landed a job with Motorsports Management International which represents many of NASCAR’s  top drivers including Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray and Tony Stewart — to name a few.  Trouble is, Kirkham wants to be on the other side of the equation as a successful race driver in his own right.  He’s willing to make the sacrifices to make it happen, witnesss the fact that the former real estate salesman/successful SCCA club racer and his wife moved to Charlotte to be in the midst of the American motorsports scene.  Currently, Kirkham is putting is sales and marketing savvy by, among other things, posting a series of videos on YouTube and his own web site www.indieGoGo.com/Racing in a support of his efforts to secure financial backing for a front line ride for the upcoming GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge even at Virginia International Raceway on May 13-14.  But Kirkham isn’t overly choosy — in the even the budget isn’t there for VIR he’ll refocus on Lime Rock on Memorial Day, Watkins Glen in June and so on.

And when he takes time a break from the ongoing search for sponsorship, Kirkham keeps his racing skills sharp on iRacing, racing everything from NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series and Late Models to the NVIDIA Cup, with several wins to his credit of late at Concord Speedway and Lime Rock.

Q:      How long have you been sim racing?
A:     I’m fairly new to sim racing. I started shortly after moving to Race City, USA (aka: Charlotte, NC) to chase the racing dream…so about a year and a half ago.

Q:     What attracted you to iRacing?
A:     We had a SimCraft simulator up at MMI (Motorsports Management International), when I had just started circle-track racing. It allowed me to get some hands-on training, not only from running iRacing on the sim, but also from the other talented stock-car drivers and spotters who would come through MMI to use the sim. This quickly turned into on-going battles between drivers to see who could post the best times. You should see our wall of fame…or shame for some people. haha

Q:     What are favourite iRacing cars/tracks?
A:     Hmm…that’s tough. They are all fun for different reasons. I’ve just recently gotten into running hosted races. There are always guys running trucks at Talledega, we all know that’s fun. I just got Phillip Island, the Nationwide car is a good challenge there. Really… they are all fun!

Q:      What do you like most about iRacing?
A:     The fact that I can study tracks is pretty huge. I also love that I can jump on at 2 am and get my racing fix in!

Q:     What would you change about iRacing
A:     I would add my home track, Portland International Raceway. :-)

Q:     How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A:     I better not say.

Q:      Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s)
A:     All white, nice and clean… and incognito.

Q:      What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Tourismo, etc.) do you do?
A:     I have GT-5 when I want something easy to waste my time on… I mean… something fun to play.

Q:     What are your favourite video games? Other hobbies?
A:     I don’t really play video games other than iRacing. I love anything active, outdoors preferably. Cycling, surfing, snowboarding…. RACING. :-)

Q:     What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A:     Probably my first truck win at Darlington, that was intense. Saved that replay!

Q:     What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A:     Anytime I wreck anybody, that sucks. Same goes for real-life. I like to play clean.

Q:     What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A:     Portland! Porsche! Lets get a Cup car on here, come on!

Q:      What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A:     Probably my Dad. He sacrificed everything and worked a job he hated to support his family and to make sure we were happy. Before he passed away, he made me promise I would never settle for a job I didn’t love.

Q:     What’s your favourite real world racing series?
A:     LMS, GRAND-AM, DTM, F1, NASCAR – I like them all for different reasons, I can’t pick just one.

Q:     Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A:    As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. I come from the mind-set that any of us have the ability to do WHATEVER we want in our lives and long as we can convince ourselves to truly believe in it. This book reminds me of that. It’s really short, everyone should own a copy of it.

Q:     Name of your favourite movie/TV show.
A:    I don’t really have favorites. I just saw The Fighter, man that was cool. I see myself as the Micky Ward of racing. Gotta love a good underdog story. As for TV, Modern Family has been really funny to me lately, but again, I don’t watch much TV.

Q:     How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A:    Close friends… not many actually. A lot of guys I race with are though.

Q:      Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A:     Perhaps, a little. It’s definitely cool to interact with people in different countries. We are all so different, but  we also have a lot in common at the same time. It’s nice to have something like iRacing to share our commonalities.

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