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February 2012

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iRacing TV

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The Team

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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.
  • Ray Bryden
    Technical contributor
    Ray 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 Writer
    Patrick 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 Writer
    Tim 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 Writer
    North 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 Writer
    Allen 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.

Lime Rock with a Twist

by Christopher Leone on October 13th, 2011

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Lime Rock with a Twist

Season Three of the 2011 inRacingNews Challenge hit its three-quarters point with Week 9 at Connecticut’s historic Lime Rock Park.  However this was Lime Rock with a twist, rather a chicane, as the Pontiac Solstice and SpecRacer Ford sim racers used  the chicane layout during their week in the valley of the virtual Housatonic. In what has become a common occurrence in Solstice competition, Michael Booth was the class’s top performer. Unlike last week at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, he competed in multiple races.  And just as he did in his solo appearance at Laguna,  Booth came out of Lime Rock with a 100% winning percentage. His four for four performance was good for 174 points, topping David Benedict (four starts, three wins, 145 points) and Wim Bries (12 starts, [...]

Classic inRacingNews Challenge

by Christopher Leone on October 13th, 2011

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Classic inRacingNews Challenge

Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, one of America’s few truly classic road courses, provided the setting for Week Eight of the third season of the 2011 inRacingNews Challenge. With only eight of 12 weeks counting in the end of season standings, Pontiac Solstice and SpecRacer Ford drivers used the week to set their points benchmarks for the season, trying to top their worst weeks with the final four events of the season. After an off-week in Week Seven, Michael Booth returned to Solstice competition with a vengeance, scoring 195 points by winning his lone online racing start. Second place Chris Hughson (nine starts, seven wins) and third place Laszlo Miskolczi (three starts, two wins), weren’t even close, at 152 and 149 points respectively. Dale Farmer dominated most statistical categories, with 19 [...]

Schuett, Ruokola Pace iRNC at Summit Point

by Christopher Leone on October 13th, 2011

41
A roll-hoop's eye-view of some of the SRF action at Summit Point.

The second half of the 2011 Season 3 inRacingNews Challenge opened just as the first half did: with a visit to the Summit Point Raceway. This time, though, instead of the full layout, the drivers would compete in their Pontiac Solstices and SpecRacer Fords on the Jefferson Reverse section of the course. Tim Schuett paced the Solstice field with 146 points, scoring a win and two top fives in his two starts. That was good enough to beat second place Wim Bries, who took six victories in eight starts for a total of 130 points, and third place Nenad Matijevic, who scored 129 points by winning four out of six online races. Carlos Tavares started the most races of any Solstice driver with 13, winning four. Bries’ six wins topped [...]

Miller’s Charlotte Statement

by Tim Terry on October 13th, 2011

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The green flag waves on some of the 1,700+ iRacers to run their Silverados at CMS during Week 10.

Ashley Miller took one big step forward in his bid to win the 2011 Season 3 NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) title this past week. Miller took the overall victory of the week at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Week Ten and outscored his nearest competitor in the championship chase, Thomas D Smith, by 61 points. Miller’s 251 point total came from the top split race of the week on Tuesday. Miller led all but five of the 90 laps in the 4023 sof race en route to the win over John Highside, Jesse James, Parker Kligerman and Tanner Stoops. Twenty drivers started the race, which featured six cautions and just two lead changes. In fact, the field was so strong in this single race that Highside (237), James [...]

Turner back in Victory Lane at Mosport

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on October 13th, 2011

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018_Mosport

After watching three different drivers take top spot in the first three events of the Red Sox Racing League’s 2011 Season 3 schedule, defending league champion Les Turner returned to winning form when the series visited his favorite track for the “Fall Festival F1 GP at Mosport”.  Mosport has always been a great home track for the talented Canadian and this week was no different.  Turner has always been fast and clean at the hilly road course located in Bowmanville, Ontario Canada.  Mosport’s 2.45 mile layout includes several severe elevation changes and ten corners with varying degrees of difficulty.  Repaved in 2003, the track was widened to allow for more side-by-side racing and additional passing zones for the daring.  The track has hosted a variety of series since racing began [...]

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Same Story, Different Week

by Jameson Spies on October 13th, 2011

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Ottinger and Donovan trade some virtual paint in Sunday's epic battle.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series headed west from Dover for their debut at Iowa Speedway, a short track with the personality of a big track and bumps that will eat-up even the best of drivers.  Iowa’s vastly different corners made setups a pain and crew chiefs’ lives miserable.  However, Iowa’s challenges rewarded the lucky few sim racers who got their rides dialed-in and made it out of the pack into clean air. With all that said, it was a case of the same story, different week for the points battle as Nick Ottinger once again ate-up his competition. Ottinger dropped a 326 on the heads of anyone with the slightest thought of running him down in this points battle. Once again Ottinger made two starts on the week and [...]

2011 iRacing.com Japan Grand Prix

by David Phillips on October 12th, 2011

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racing simulation

Nearly 250 iRacers took advantage of last Saturday’s 2011 iRacing.com Japan Grand Prix at Suzuka International Circuit to see if they could “be like Jenson” — ie Jenson Button, who scored his third win of the 2011 World Drivers Championship at Suzuka on Sunday. Sebastian Schmalenbach (DE-AT-CH) topped the highest strength of field race of the day, leading 35 of 53 laps en route to an 8.716s victory over Rudy van Buren (Benelux) with Jake Stergios (New England) another .7s adrift of van Buren’s Williams-Toyota FW31. Istvan Balogh (Central Eastern Europe) won the closest race of the day, pipping Sergey Zakharov (Central Easter Europe) by just .103s with Jonathan Auger (Eastern Canada) in third, 4.7s back of the winner. That race also saw the lead change hands nine times, with [...]

Gorlinsky’s Homestead Win Wraps-up 2011 NiSWC Season

by Jason Lofing on October 12th, 2011

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Gorlinsky dominated the 2011 NiSWC finale and grabbed second place in the season standings.

John Gorlinsky might not be the 2011 champion of the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, but the veteran sim racer locked-up the runner-up spot in the championship with a dominating performance at Homestead-Miami Speedway last night. Gorlinsky grabbed the pole position and was never seriously challenged the whole night, leading all but a few laps during the cycle of green flag pit stops. Thomas Hazard gave a valiant effort in an attempt to hang onto the second spot in the championship, but came up just 11 points short with his eighth place effort. There were many other spots up for grabs during the final race of the season as well. The top 12 is the cutoff for championship winnings while the top 25 in the standings qualify for an automatic [...]

Q&A With the 2011 NiSWC Champion Ray Alfalla

by Jason Lofing on October 11th, 2011

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"From the win at Daytona, the season had amazing flow and I was able to bring home good finishes almost every week."

Nine months ago, fifty drivers set out with a goal: to win the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship and the title of best oval sim racer in the world, not to mention more than $10,500 worth of cash and prizes. With consistency the key, Ray Alfalla rose above the rest of the field to claim the title a fortnight ago with a run to second place at Phoenix International Raceway.  Heading into tonight’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Alfalla has not only matched Brad Davies for most wins this season (three), week-in and week-out he has kept his nose clean and constantly finished at the front of the field. I had the pleasure of sitting down for a chat with Ray after he clinched to find out more about what [...]

Huttu Untouchable as Luis Takes iNGPS Crown

by Chris Hall on October 11th, 2011

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Your 2011 iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series champion -- Hugo Luis.

The penultimate round of the iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series brought the Williams-Toyota FW31s to a virtual-Japan for their first ever visit to the 3.6 mile Suzuka International Circuit.   And it was 2010 World Champion Greger Huttu who claimed the top step of the podium for his fourth victory of the season so far. Alas for Huttu, a second place finish for Hugo Luis saw the Brazilian sim racer secure enough points to be crowned the 2011 online road-racing World Champion. Starting from pole position, a grid slot Huttu has struggled to reach in 2011, the Team Redline pilot emerged well clear of a huge start-line shunt that saw several cars retire within seconds of the green flag dropping. Whilst Redline’s Luke McLean got off the line cleanly enough, [...]

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Ottinger Takes Point Lead At Lanier

by Allen Krier on October 11th, 2011

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The Street Stocks were in action at Lanier last week.

For Week 10 of 2011 Season 3, the iRacing.com Street Stock Series traveled to Braselton, Georgia to race at Lanier National Speedway. Lanier, which is located directly across the street from Road Atlanta, was recently put up for sale but that did not stop iRacing’s top sim racers from racing on the 3/8th mile oval. Once again, Nick Ottinger would show everyone why he is a two time champion. Weekly High Strength of Field The high Strength of Field race for Week 10 took place on Monday night. With a SoF of 3048, the race paid 190 points to win. Paul McCollum (New Jersey) would take the win in the 40 lap race, with 39 laps lead. Greg Hooks (Virginias) would finish in the second spot, 0.25 seconds behind. Hooks [...]

Sansone Leads after Bristol

October 11th, 2011

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Thursday night produced more wheel-to-wheel action between Stergios and Sansone, with Sansone taking the win.

The high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway hosted the iRacing.com Sprint Car Cup for the 10th week of racing action in 2011 Season 3. Two nights of racing proved that even with a small car count, sprint cars at Thunder Valley can always provide great online racing action. Going into the week Alan Binder led the points over PJ Stergios and Vinnie Sansone. Tuesday night Casey Malone led the field to the green with Alan Binder on the outside front row. Malone led with Sansone right on his tail for the first 28 laps until Stergios found space up against the wall to fly by the top two. A late restart would set-up a six lap battle between Stergios and Sansone for the win. Stergios used the top line to [...]

Rising Stars in Sebring Darkness

by Patrick Atherton on October 11th, 2011

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Rising Stars in Sebring Darkness

With Australia’s biggest V8 Supercar race, the Bathurst 1000, run and won in the real world the day before, the V8 iRacers were missing one or two of their real-world regulars, for obvious reasons. At Week Ten of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport, the battle was revisited under the night skies of Sebring. Unlike NASCAR, Australia’s premier race cars’ headlights are real. With daylight savings the focus, and the availability, of the competitors was divided over two evening races. For “Race 1″ of Week Ten, Rens Broekman was on pole from series leader Madison Down. Joshua Muggleton followed up his VIR podium with third grid spot here. Next was split one newbie Beau Cubis from Lewis Dodimead, Cal Whatmore, Simon Black, Richard Lock, Paul Larkin and Gavin [...]

Got Setup?

by David Allen on October 9th, 2011

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racing games

Boy, this new iRacing 2.0 is something isn’t it?  Personally, I really don’t have any complaints, but I do enjoy the depth that iRacing goes to in order to give us an accurate racing simulation.  Entering various sessions soon after the build was released all I heard was complaints  . . . which, to be honest, was somewhat expected.  Thanks to the new tire model, those super-loose or “alien” setups as referred to in the forums no longer worked effectively.  If they did work at all, it was only a few laps before the tires were virtually melted-off the car.  Human beings in general seem to resist change and having to redo testing and research to achieve a fast lap didn’t make anyone happy.  However, if you take a moment [...]

iRacer Profile: Christian Aranha

by David Phillips on October 8th, 2011

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racing games

Christian Aranha is not letting any grass grow beneath his feet when it comes to one of the newest cars on the iRacing service, the HPD ARX01.  The Floridian jumped into the sensational new LMP2 sports prototype, grabbed the lead in the iRacing.com Prototype and GT Challenge and hasn’t looked back.  With 15 wins in 28 online races (and 19 poles as well), Aranha has staked himself to a useful if not insurmountable lead in the points over rivals Klaus Ellenbrand and Ryan Murray, and it will take some doing to unseat him in the final weeks of 2011 Season 3.  He’s also currently P2 in the series Time Trial competition, as well. Not that Aranha is completely focused on the Prototype and GT Challenge.  He took time to compete [...]

Five Minutes With Hugo Luis

by Chris Hall on October 7th, 2011

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racing simulations

This weekend could witness a new era in sim-racing, as Hugo Luis sets-out to claim the iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series title on Saturday in the penultimate round of the championship at the Suzuka International Circuit. In his début year of competition in online road-racing’s most prestigious series, the Brazilian has surged into a commanding 65 point lead ahead of current champion Greger Huttu (who will register a full compliment of results at Suzuka), and is on the precipice of of securing over $10,000 in prize money. As the My3id Team pilot prepared for this weekend’s crucial showdown, we tracked this relative new-comer to online sim-racing to get the insight on his championship so far. Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself Hugo… A: I born and live at [...]

Wolf Wins Wild Finish at Zandy

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on October 7th, 2011

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020_Zandy

Circuit Park Zandvoort was the location for week three of the Red Sox Racing League’s 2011 Season 3 schedule.  Always a favorite amongst drivers and fans, the track often produces some of the most competitive racing on the circuit.  This week was no different as RSR drivers gave fans one of the most exciting finishes in league history.  The track gets its character from the wide variety of speeds and skills needed to negotiate the 2.67 mile thirteen corner layout.  Located near the North Sea, north of Zandvoort, Netherlands, the historic road course is also a favorite stop for race fans looking for an exotic getaway.  RSR driver Wilbur “I race naked” Gildersleeve Jr. has even been known to skip races to take advantage of the nearby nudist beaches.   Zandvoort [...]

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Happy Birthday to Hungarian iRacing League

by Tibor Sándor on October 6th, 2011

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The first six rounds of the iRacing Triangle Series feature the Mustang FR500S.

The Hungarian iRacing League – run by iRacers.hu – started almost exactly one year ago and matches-up sim racers and even real life racers from all around the country. Participation is very good.  We currently have more than 30 permanent racers and we expect this number to go up even more during the series. The number of iRacing members doubled in Hungary in one year but for us Hungarians, it is still a relatively new thing. There are members who have been avid sim racers for a very long time and we are happy to have them in our competition. Following our summer league, the official 2011/2012 league has just started called the iRacers Triangle Cup. The “triangle” in the name represents the three cars used throughout the league. The [...]

Monster Mash

by Jameson Spies on October 6th, 2011

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The Monster Mile hosted Week of the NiCAS.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series drivers took on the Monster Mile (aka Dover International Speedway) for Week Nine of their challenging schedule. The Monster lived up to its nickname, and more, turning small mistakes into race ending crashes for more than one a sim racer. While some tried to stay behind the eye of the storm and out of harms way, others took charge of the field and took command of the race. One driver who showed no fear of the Monster was season points leader Nick Ottinger. Ottinger dominated both big point races on the week, sweeping the week and earning himself maximum points. Ottinger is putting his name among the favorites to not only make the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series, but possibly win it all. This 343 [...]

Miller Mighty at Martinsville

by Tim Terry on October 6th, 2011

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The sim racing stars of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series visited Martinsville Speedway this week for Round Nine of 12 on the series and it was Ashley Miller scoring a well-needed 211 points in his efforts to chase down the 2011 Season Three title. Miller wasn’t alone in enjoying success though, as his nearest championship rivals were nipping at his tailgate all week long at “The Paperclip.” Miller had three of his four closest championship peers behind him in a win in the top split of the week, rated at 3381 sof. Miller led 92 of the 120 laps and took the victory in the 11 caution affair over Thomas D Smith, Jesse James, Chris Overland and Jeff Vrsek. Smith, James and Overland are all chasing the 2011 Season [...]