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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.
Kyle Busch wins Nationwide race, title
November 22nd, 2009
Kyle Busch won the Nationwide Series title in style by claiming his ninth victory of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The 24-year-old fended off Carl Edwards in the closing laps, as the Roush Fenway driver charged from eighth place on the last restart after taking on a new set of tyres for the final sprint of the race, while most of the frontrunners stayed out, led by Busch.
Edwards arrived on Busch’s bumper with two laps to go but got loose while trying to follow the leader on turn four. He would eventually lose contact with the Joe Gibbs racer, who went on to underline his superiority throughout the year with another perfect score, which brought his points’ total for the year to a record high in the series’ history.
“This was such a great year,” said Busch. “Really it’s a true testament for this team, [crew chief] Jason [Ratcliff], Joe [Gibbs] and JD [Gibbs], all the guys that work so hard at Joe Gibbs Racing in order to make this possible.
“For us to come out here and win the final race of the season and really put the icing on the cake for our year and our championship, it really means a lot. It hasn’t been done in a long time, so you know how hard I guess it is to do it, that somebody comes out here and win the final race of the year, but that’s what we set out to do.”
“At the end of the race with Carl coming through on tyres it was such a fun deal, fun to watch and fun to be a part of. Glad that we were able to hold him off and come out here and win this thing.”
Besides his points total, Busch also set a number of records during his championship campaign. He led the most laps over a single season with 2698 up front, posted a record 11 runner-up finishes, and became the first driver to win two national series races in the same day when he won in the Nationwide and Truck Series at Fontana in February.
He also gave Joe Gibbs a second consecutive owners’ title, and became Toyota’s first driver to win a championship in the second-tier series.
Edwards got the runner-up spot in the championship for the second year in a row with his second-place finish. Starting from pole position he later recovered well from an unscheduled stop in the early going to fix damage to the front end of his car caused by debris.
Before the final caution came out he had been on the receiving end of the wrong tyre strategy as he stayed out while others pitted with 41 laps to go, only to see Busch fly past by him six laps later.
The former Nationwide Series champion tried to make the same move work for him in the end, but he couldn’t quite make it pay off.
“We needed a couple of more laps,” said Edwards. “We got off sequence; we had those tyres. I’ve got to say congrats to Kyle and those guys. We finished second to them in the championship, but those guys have really been a classic deal. I was just telling them that I didn’t have the heart to run into them. It was the only way I was going to get by them by the finish line.
“I dove down there and got a good look at it, and I was thinking right about here, ‘No, I better not.’ But that’s racing. We had a good time racing with these guys.”
Jeff Burton finished third after leading the race for 49 laps and looked like the top contender to beat Busch at one stage. Behind him Joey Logano was fourth, who also led the race and looked strong in the first half of the race.
Denny Hamlin finished fifth and got payback on Brad Keselowski for previous run-ins. The Joe Gibbs driver pushed Keselowski into a spin on lap 35 coming out of turn four while racing among the top-ten. NASCAR parked him for a lap as a penalty, but Hamlin said it was worth taking.
“I wasn’t feeling too bad about it,” said Hamlin about the penalty. “I knew we could come back from it and our car was still in one piece. That’s the thing, I wouldn’t try to cause harm to anyone and I knew spinning him at the point that I wasn’t going to get hurt and his car wasn’t going to get hurt. I just wanted to make his day a little tougher.”
Keselowski didn’t get to enjoy a good farewell from JR Motorsports, finishing 12th and breaking a 16-race string of consecutive top-ten finishes. He first spun on lap 9, causing damage to his car, charged back from 38th place to move up to tenth as soon as lap 30, before Hamlin ran into him.
“He spun me out and didn’t even tear it up,” said Keselowski. “I think it’s cool, I’m alright. I’m ready to move on.
“Just wanted to finish up with a stronger run than what we did today. But I put it in the fence early on in the race and tore the car up and took a bunch of speed out of it. That was my fault.”
While Brendan Gaughan was the highest finishing rookie of the race, Penske’s Justin Allgaier took Rookie of the Year honours.
Pos Driver Car Laps 1. Kyle Busch Toyota 200 2. Carl Edwards Ford 200 3. Jeff Burton Chevrolet 200 4. Joey Logano Toyota 200 5. Denny Hamlin Toyota 200 6. David Reutimann Toyota 200 7. Ryan Newman Chevrolet 200 8. Steve Wallace Chevrolet 200 9. Scott Speed Toyota 200 10. Matt Kenseth Ford 200 11. Brendan Gaughan Chevrolet 200 12. Brad Keselowski Chevrolet 200 13. Jason Keller Ford 200 14. Paul Menard Ford 200 15. Mike Wallace Chevrolet 200 16. Mike Bliss Chevrolet 200 17. Kenny Wallace Chevrolet 200 18. Jason Leffler Toyota 200 19. Scott Wimmer Chevrolet 199 20. Justin Allgaier Dodge 199 21. Michael Annett Toyota 199 22. Kevin Conway Chevrolet 199 23. Tony Raines Chevrolet 199 24. John Wes Townley Ford 198 25. Parker Kligerman Dodge 198 26. Mark Green Chevrolet 198 27. Ken Butler III Chevrolet 198 28. Eric McClure Ford 198 29. Kelly Bires Chevrolet 198 30. Tim Andrews Chevrolet 197 31. Erik Darnell Ford 197 32. Justin Marks Toyota 196 33. Shelby Howard Chevrolet 196 34. Blake Koch Dodge 189 35. Danny O'Quinn Jr Chevrolet 52 36. Joe Nemechek Chevrolet 47 37. Chase Miller Toyota 26 38. Kenny Hendrick Ford 15 39. Mark Day Chevrolet 11 40. Terry Cook Chevrolet 7 41. Dennis Setzer Dodge 5 42. Johnny Chapman Chevrolet 4 43. Kevin Hamlin Ford 3