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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.
Ray Bryden
Technical contributorRay 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 WriterPatrick 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 WriterTim 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 WriterNorth 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 WriterAllen 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.
Round Three: SSCA – Grand American Championship presented by O’Neil PC Systems
by Colin MacLean on September 4th, 2010
Round Three of the Simulate Sport Car Association’s Grand American Championship (GAC) presented by O’Neil PC Systems was held in the picturesque surroundings of Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. A fabulous venue to visit in real life, Barber presents the sim-racer with a highly technical and challenging race track. Visiting this track for the first time in SSCA competition, drivers not only had to learn the track but new setups were developed to tackle the tight, twisting course. It was anyone’s guess who would drive their racing machines home victorious and indeed this incident-filled online race would crown two first-time winners.
Mixed class racing at its best: SCCA Grand American Championship at Barber Motorsports Park.
Qualifying on pole in the Inside Sim Racing/Podium Assault Corvette C6.R was Marc Payne with a 1:19.5 firmly establishing himself as the favorite for the race. The winner of the first round at Daytona, Mike Young, was the first Daytona Prototype on the grid with a 1.19.9 followed closely by Road Atlanta winner Colin MacLean with a 1:20.0. General wisdom at Barber is that a solid qualifying run is the key to the race. It would not turn out that way this day.
As the green flag dropped Payne retained the lead while MacLean slotted into second place past Young into Turn One. Payne quickly established a gap at the front only to drop-out before Lap 10 with a missed shift and hard contact with the retaining wall. MacLean inherited the lead with Chris Damron Jr. and Young in pursuit.
As the race progressed the relentless nature of the track started to take its toll on the competitors. Corvette class leader Damron Jr. lost control of his car while applying pressure on Young for second place overall.
“At this point I pretty much had a class win in the bag, but my competitive side told me to go for an overall win. So I started pushing harder trying to get around Mike,” said Damron, Jr.
I took the rollercoaster chicane a bit fast and I came out too tight, got up on the curb and just looped it.”
Inheriting the lead in the Corvette class was the hard-charging Daniel Graulty who had been battling a determined Chuck Chambliss the entire race. Graulty finally passed Chambliss following a pressure-induced mistake in the chicane. Graulty would go on to take the class win with a six second cushion over Damron Jr with Alex Ulleri rounding out the podium in third.
“With about fifteen laps left, I just tried to make sure I maintained a solid pace, didn’t make any mistakes, and keep the class win intact,” said Graulty.
I didn’t expect this weekend to go this well, but I’m thrilled to bring home the Augusta Valve & Automation Corvette with a class win.”
In the Daytona Prototype class, MacLean was holding a comfortable lead when a problem in the final turn sent his car into the inside wall. Limping home in second place, MacLean was happy to salvage the valuable points. The battle for the third spot was down to an intense battle between Young and series regular David Boden. Crossing the finish line only one tenth of a second ahead of Boden, Young was delighted to secure the final place on the podium.
First overall and taking the Daytona Prototype class victory went to first-time winner Jaymz Mynes after a solid, mistake-free performance. Working his way up to first place Mynes made no mistake in holding off a charging Graulty for the overall win.
At that point, the heart rate went up and the gas pedal went down.
“The next eight – nine laps were nerve-racking and took FOREVER!” said the winner. “In the end though I can only assume the chasing C6.R had worn out tires and just settled for the win in his class.”
The following week the series headed to historic Mosport in Canada. Stay tuned to inRacingNews for the race report coming soon!
Visit www.sscarace.com for information on how to join the series.