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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.
  • David Ifeguni
    Contributing Writer
    I 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 Writer
    I 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 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.
  • Nathan Aljoe
    Contributing Writer
    Nathan'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 Writer
    Born 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 Writer
    Jordan 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 Writer
    Born 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 Writer
    Kenneth 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 Writer
    I 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 Writer
    After 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.

Darlington Too Tough For Johnson

May 10th, 2010

CRUNCHED: The Lowe's crew works on Jimmie Johnson's battered No. 48 Chevrolet after the four-time champ was involved in an incident with A.J. Allmendinger Saturday night at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. (Jason Smith/Getty Images Photo)

DARLINGTON, S.C. — During his four championship seasons, Jimmie Johnson failed to finish just seven events; the 2008 and 2009 titles came with just one DNF each. But in 11 races in 2010, Johnson has three DNFs, and his 36th-place finish in Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Showtime Southern 500 was his second in the last three races.

Johnson and his Chad Knaus-led team had rebounded from a three-car incident on lap 85 to secure the free pass under the next caution on lap 172. That sense of achievement was short lived, though, when Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet collided with the No. 43 Insignia/Best Buy Ford of A.J. Allmendinger, and then into slammed the turn-three wall hard on lap 181 just as caution waved for a struggling Kevin Conway along the backstretch.

Neither driver was injured in the violent crash, but Johnson was more than a little confused by what had transpired.

“All I know is last minute I saw a green bumper and it was a hard hit. Unfortunately, we had all kinds of issues tonight. Got caught up in all kinds of little small things, but still had a very fast race car and I think we could have salvaged a top-10, top-five finish today.
It is too bad,” Johnson said. “I’m going back to watch the video because I have no clue. I guess it was A.J. because he came and apologized to me and said his brakes failed or something. I don’t know if he was behind me or where he was, but he came in there hot and hit me hard.

“The brake rotor exploded,” Allmendinger explained. “The last 40 or 50 laps we were struggling with brake problems and just no brakes. We took all the brake cooling off and thought maybe we were gonna fix it, and when that yellow came out I went to hit the brakes to slow down and the brake rotors exploded. I’m not sure which one, but I was just trying to aim for the bottom and try to miss everybody.

“I’m sorry for Jimmie. It wasn’t his fault, but I had no brakes and couldn’t do anything about it.”

- Add Stewart-Haas Racing to the list of teams searching for sponsorship in 2011. Old Spice confirmed Sunday it will not renew its sponsorship of Tony Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet after this season.

“Based solely on a change in our marketing strategies, the Old Spice contract with Tony Stewart and Stewart-Haas Racing will expire at the end of 2010 and will not be renewed,” Mike Norton, Old Spice Brand spokesman, said in a statement. “Old Spice has enjoyed an 11-year relationship with Tony and supported him as he became a very successful team owner in NASCAR. We wish Tony and Stewart-Haas Racing continued success in the future.”

Office Depot will remain the team’s co-primary sponsor in 2011.

- Richard Childress says he is close to a contract to keep Kevin Harvick at Richard Childress Racing, but Harvick declined to address the issue on Friday. Harvick’s No. 29 team lost Shell as its sponsor for next season, but it’s strong performance so far this year — including a sixth-place finish Saturday night — should help in landing a new backer.

- Kurt Busch thinks his brother Kyle’s maturation is more simple than the “good Kyle-bad Kyle” explanation that the younger Busch has been using with the media.

“You just can’t write that was, ‘Hey, a good Kyle Busch or bad Kyle Busch’ when things happen,” the elder Busch explained. “The things that you get to write are that he’s going through life changes and he’s maturing. He’s not 22 years old anymore. (It was) the same situation with me. I was 21 and ran into everything when I was out here. Now, I’m 31 and I don’t run into as many things, but I still run into stuff.”

- Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is one of the many drivers who struggles at Darlington Raceway. Earnhardt crashed his primary car Friday and then brushed the wall with his backup.

“This place will probably be the catalyst to my retirement one day,” Earnhardt said. “I will probably come here when I am 45, run a race and say the hell with it. It’s miserable hot here during Friday. It is a difficult track to drive around. Not one of my favorites, but I’ve run all right here before, we just have to figure out how to get the car where we like it and get some luck.”

- During a Saturday afternoon “Tweetup,” Elliott Sadler, Brian Vickers and ESPN’s Marty Smith raised more than $800 for the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund for victims of flash flooding in Nashville, Tenn., earlier this month.

- J.J. Yeley made his debut in the Whitney Motorsports No. 46 and qualified 30th. It was only the fourth time in 11 races the car has qualified this season. Yeley replaced Terry Cook, who left the team earlier in the week.

- Crashing was the name of the game during Friday’s two Sprint Cup practice sessions. While frontrunners Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch were among those to have trouble, significant accidents for Casey Mears in the Tommy Baldwin Racing No. 36 Chevrolet and for owner-operator Joe Nemechek led to both failing to make the race with backup cars.

-Mike Kerchner contributed to this report.

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