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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.
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.
Chris Cunningham
Contributing WriterChris 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 WriterI'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 WriterDavid 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 WriterI 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 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.
Saarinen Uncorks at Laguna
by Jordan Hightower on October 14th, 2011
Week 9 in the 2011 Season 3 Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge took the sim racers to the twists and turns of the 11-turn, 2.238-mile Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the hills overlooking Monterey, California. Over 500 drivers tried to entictoryer their names into the record book as a winner at the famed California track, but after seven days of racing, Antti Saarinen3 (Finland) was able to finally carve his name into that book as the TMC’s top points-earner.
Weekly High Strength of Field
Oscar Sahlin (Scandinavia), a name now familiar in the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge series, captured the victory during the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event, cruising to an 11.326s margin of victory over runner-up Saarinen. The final podium position was earned by Texan Christopher Blocker, with Maik Peters (Benelux) and French sim-racer Yann Laprevotte completing the top five finishers.
Weekly Standings
Although Saarinen was denied a victory in the week’s highest SoF, he was able to earn the most championship points for the week, adding 137 to his season-long total. Jason Lisner (Virginias) finished-off a successful week in the second position, followed in third by Trace McRae (Great Plains). Australia/NZ club member Simon Black finished in the fourth position for Week 9, and rounding-out the top five is Maurice Dietzel (DE-AT-CH).
More than 500 TMC competitors answered the challenge of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca's Corkscrew.
Season Standings
With nine weeks down and three to go, Sahlin holds a comfortable 70 point lead in the championship standings over Ryan Field (Massachusetts). Maik Peters currently sits in the third position, just four points out of second heading into Week Ten. Samuel Collins (Australia/NZ) holds down the fourth position and completing the top five is DE-AT-CH club member Sascha Thomaszik.
Weekly Qualifying
Talk about a fast time! Christopher Roberts (New York) sat the fastest time in qualifying by almost seven tenths of a second over second place David Malenovsky (Central-Eastern Europe). Danis Richard (Central-Eastern Europe) ended the week in the third position, followed by Oscar Sahlin and Dylan Gulson (Australia/NZ).
Check back next week as the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge will head back to Japan for some action at Suzuka. As always, be sure to visit www.iracing.com to become part of the largest motorsports simulation community and www.thrustmaster.com for information on top-of-the-line equipment for both PC and console gaming.