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- iRacing.com Announces iRacing 2.0 41
- Q&A with NiCWS Winner and Pro Road Racing Champion Richard Towler 36
- The iRacing.com Protest System - May, 2012 33
- Bathurst Coming to iRacing! 30
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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.
David Ifeguni
Contributing WriterI was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1988 and moved to Midland, Michigan when I was two years old. I stayed there until third grade when I moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan and now I currently live in Naperville, IL where I'm attending Metea Valley High School as a 9th grader. In the past, I have participated in soccer and this year I plan on joining swimming or water polo. My family includes my 15 year old sister, a 7 year old sister and my mom and dad. I have been writing since 6th grade and have participated in many writing contests in my school and have received several awards for writing.
My fascination for motorsports began when I was nine. The first NASCAR race I watched on TV was the 2009 Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway, won by Kasey Kahne. My favorite NASCAR drivers are Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr, and Jimmie Johnson. I have watched all the races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series since 2010. I currently have three wins on iRacing, two of them in the Nationwide car at Daytona and one in the Street stocks at Charlotte. My favorite car and type of track on iRacing is the Nationwide Series (B Class) car and superspeedways.
Katier Scott
Contributing WriterI am a veteran sim racer who first started racing way back in 1993 on the SPRTSIMS section of Compuserve with a league who can trace themselves all the way to the present. Within that league I act as Chief Steward and try to bring the unique viewpoint that this experience gives me into my articles.
I have a BA (Hons) in Journalism and Editorial design and have been writing for seven years and currently cover the Lotus 79 CTC and Radical series alongside my freelance work. Living in the UK, as well as motorsports I love Photography, Arts and Crafts and reading.
Dylan Sharman
Contributing WriterI 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.
Nathan Aljoe
Contributing WriterNathan's passion for motorsport first began in the late 1980s, captivated by the season in which Aryton Senna won his first F1 title with McLaren. Over the years his interest widened to include the British Touring Car Championship, World Rally Championship, NASCAR and various other forms of motorsport. Nathan began sim-racing in the mid 1990s using games developed by Papyrus. He later moved onto SimBim simulations such as GTR, GTR2 and GTR Evolution and has most recently joined the iRacing community.
When he's not working or sim racing, Nathan enjoys spending time and relaxing with his family. Other hobbies include going to festivals, tinkering with his car and doing up his house.
Austin Hartenfels
Contributing WriterBorn and raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I have always had a serious passion for cars and motorsports. Hoping one day to become an automotive journalist for a magazine, I constantly crave the exciting competition that comes along with racing and sim-racing. Having participated in a mere test session in a Legends car at Old Dominion Speedway, I have not been able to get into any real-life competition . . . yet.
As a sim racer, my interests date back to "GTR Evolution." My goal is to have fun and win some races. I made it to Oval Pro in 2010, but did not become very successful. I enjoy any mixed road racing competition and love racing the Silverados around almost any track.
Jordan Hightower
Contributing WriterJordan began sim-racing in 2005 with the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season sim and then joined the iRacing community in June of 2008. He hails from Fort Smith, Arkansas where he is currently enrolled at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, after which he plans to attend the University of Arkansas to earn his MBA. Although he enjoys watching and playing basketball, most of Jordan's focus is on motorsports, particularly NASCAR: "Anything that burns gas and goes fast, I like."
Scott Kelly
Contributing WriterBorn and raised in the greater St. Louis, Missouri area, Scott Kelly has had a love for motorsports ever since his father did the right thing by introducing auto racing into his life. No longer able to quench his need for speed by spectating NASCAR races on TV and watching dirt track stars slide around local tracks, Kelly eventually picked-up sim racing in his teens, wheeling cars found in Ratbag Games' "Dirt Track Racing" and "World of Outlaws: Sprint Cars" while also becoming introduced into multiple Papyrus sim-racing series. Joining the iRacing ranks in late 2011, Kelly set his sights on the short track racing he was familiar with, focusing on the sprint car, while also driving the Legends and street stock in multiple iRacing.com leagues.
Kelly brings not just his enthusiasm for racing to the highest-rated motorsports simulation, but also his B.A. degree in English; he covers the action seen in the iRacing.com Sprint Car Series, while also placing the spotlight on various leagues within the service. Enjoying his start to a career in motorsports journalism, Kelly also doesn't mind visiting victory lane from time-to-time.
Kenneth O'Keefe
Contributing WriterKenneth was born in Smithville, Ontario on December 23, 1994. A major racing fan, he enjoys competitive kart racing in the Rotax Max category at Mosport International Karting. Kenneth also tunes into Formula One and NASCAR races on those Sundays when he is not at the kart track.
O'Keefe has been sim-racing since 2005, starting on the Live For Speed simulator. After moving to iRacing in 2008, he was able to qualify for the NASCAR iRacing Pro Series (NiPS) in both 2011 and 2012. He will continue to compete and write about the iRacing.com Skip Barber Series throughout the coming year before taking another run at the NiPS in late 2013.
Chris Owens
Contributing WriterI was born in Florence, South Carolina in 1989 and have lived here my entire life. I've been around racing since I was a young kid watching with my dad on Sundays. In 2009 and found my local track, Florence Motor Speedway and started working for them as a PR guy the same year. At the end of that season, I started writing for RACE22.com, a Late Model Stock Car news site. In 2010, I picked up my first DSLR camera and started shooting races. To this day, I've experienced some of the best races from behind the camera.
I've been with the iRacing service since its public beta in 2008, back when the top oval car was the Late Model. I've been in over 500 races on the service with 70+ wins on both oval and road. My favorite car on the service is the Chevrolet Silverado. Darlington Raceway and Concord Speedway are my favorite tracks simply because everybody hates them.
George Wood
Contributing WriterAfter beginning his racing career with go-karts at age seven, George then turned wrenches on street stocks until he could finally turn the wheel. Following the successes of his friends and family, George has since retired from real-world racing, where he is now a science and mathematics faculty member for several local community colleges. When George isn't grading laboratory reports or iRacing, he is performing at bluegrass festivals in the Northeast, making fishing lures, playing golf, and rooting for his beloved Baltimore Orioles.
Ou All the Way
by Tim Doyle on April 5th, 2012
Week 9 of the 2012 iRacing.com IZOD IndyCar Series headed to Homestead-Miami Speedway. This 1.5 mile track offers fantastic racing with many elements coming into play, including tire wear, fuel mileage and pit strategy. 43 sim racers showed-up with hopes of a win or at least a good finish. The Top Split started with 22 drivers competing for 120 laps.
In qualifying, Yang Ou narrowly edged-out Chris Cahoe for pole position with a 24.731s lap — just .003s quicker than Cahoe’s best. Close behind in third was Niles Anders (24.752s), Brian Stevens fourth (24.771s) and Michael Peters just behind him with a 24.772s lap. The top ten in qualifying were separated by only 0.067s.
Ou and Cahoe head for the green flag.
The start of the race saw a lot of shuffling in the first few laps. While Stevens dropped a couple positions to sixth, Tim Doyle was making his way forward from sixth at the start. On lap two battling Anders for the third spot, the two made contact on entry to turn three, sending Anders hard into the wall and Doyle getting a tap from Peters who had nowhere to go. Both were able to continue with only Peters having minor front wing damage. Further back in the pack Matthew Lambertson’s Dallara also received front wing damage when trying to avoid the slowing car of Cary Bettenhausen.
Anders rides the Turn 3 wall as Peters gets into Doyle.
Over the next 20 laps of green there was great racing all over the track with positions swapping every lap. Jonathan Goke worked his way to fourth place with Mitch McCracken moving into the top five on lap nine. Doyle moved into second on the start dropping Cahoe to third.
On lap 22 while battling hard for 12th in a pack of seven cars, Lambertson wobbled a bit in turns 1 and 2 and drifted up into Terry Matthiensen. Neffry Aawg who was directly behind the two had nowhere to go and clipped Lambertson’s front wing and crashed hard into the wall. All three retired from the race.
With the race’s second yellow shown, this was an opportunity for the field to take tires and fuel. Ou lead the field onto pit road as well as off with the top five of Ou, Doyle, Cahoe, Goke and Peters moving past McCracken for fifth. Once back under way on lap 26, the duo of Ou and Doyle pulled away from the field leaving Cahoe and Goke to battle for third. Misfortune struck for Cahoe though on lap 35 when he made contact with Goke sending Cahoe spinning off turn four. Dave Judson, running in 10th position couldn’t avoid the spinning car of Cahoe and resulted in both of them ending their races.
With pit road open on lap 37, the entire field once again pitted for tires and fuel. The top five for the restart was now Ou, Doyle, Goke, Peters and Chris Manifold. Ou and Doyle set to build a gap on the restart and succeeded. The pair slowly pulled away on the restart and built a lead of nearly four seconds by the time the race’s fourth yellow flew on lap 73. This yellow was for an incident between the drivers of Stevens, Randy Freeman and David Sockrider. Battling for the 13th spot, Freeman’s car got loose in turn 4 and shot up the track directly into the path of Stevens. The contact sent Stevens car low into Sockrider and the two careened into the front stretch wall suffering heavy damage for the two.
Sockrider and Stevens en route to DNFs.
With fuel mileage roughly allowing 52 laps under green, this latest yellow ruined any chance of green flag pitting so now the race would need to be won off pit road during the yellow or on the track. Ou, Doyle and Goke were able to maintain first through third, but fourth place now saw Robert Bohanek moving closing to the front with Peters back in fifth. Fourth place quickly disappeared for Bohanek as McCracken got the jump and passed Bohanek and settling into fifth behind Peters.
The race remained green until lap 93 when Randy Crossno’s car got loose in turn 3 and sent him around into Freeman’s path. Both would be forced to retire just 28 laps from the end. None of the lead cars chose to pit on this yellow. On the restart, Ou and Doyle again slowly pulled away from the field and the pair cruised to a 2.7 second win over third place finisher Goke. Peters and McCracken rounded-out the top five.
Ou may have led every lap but, thanks to Doyle, he didn't an easy time of it at Homestead.
Race Stats
Laps: 120
Pole: Yang Ou
Lead changes: 0
Cautions: 5
Caution laps: 19
Lap leaders: Ou 1-120
Margin of victory: 0.062s
Hard charger: Anders (19spots)
Laps lead: Ou (120)
Fastest lap: Doyle 24.690 (Lap 85)
Top 5
1. Yang Ou
2. Tim Doyle
3. Jonathan Goke
4. Michael Peters
5. Mitch McCracken
Cars finishing: 14
DNF: Anders, Lambertson, Matthiensen, Aawg, Cahoe, Judson, Stevens, Randy Crossno, Freeman