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5dollarpromo_160x600 Simcraft

February 2012

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M T W T F S S
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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.

Ottinger Dominates but Erlekotte Takes Point Lead

by Allen Krier on September 27th, 2011

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Ottinger (1) topped Dussett (2) in the week's top SoF event at Thompson.

The iRacing.com Street Stock Series traveled to Thompson International Speedway for the second time this season with sim racers looking to capture the season points championship. Many new drivers were looking to dethrone reigning champion Nick Ottinger (Carolina) but he would once again show everyone why he is a two-time champion. Weekly High Strength of Field Week Eight’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) race was run on Wednesday night and had a rating of 3053. Ottinger once again dominated the highest points paying race of the week by leading all 40 laps in route to a 4.8 second win over Richard Dusett (New England). Dusett is no stranger to Ottinger as they are teammates at Gale Force Racing, which got its name from Camping World Truck Series/ARCA/Late Model driver Cale [...]

Salvatore Scores (Again) at Martinsville

by Tim Terry on September 27th, 2011

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The "Mod Squad" prepares to do battle at Martinsville.

Brandon Salvatore showed no signs of slowing down on Week Seven as he continues to march towards the 2011 Season Three crown in the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified division. Salvatore captured a convincing win during Round Seven at the Martinsville Speedway to extend his point lead in the online racing series with five weeks to go. Salvatore’s race win came on Saturday during a 2948 sof race which saw the Georgia sim racer lead 69 of the 100 laps on “The Paperclip.” Ray Farlow finished in second in a race which featured four cautions, followed by David Jaques, Timothy Heard and Carl Sundberg. Salvatore bagged 184 points for this race win, which resulted him also earning the top point total of the week. Jacques (159) and Heard (147) rode the [...]

Charlotte Shuffle

by Christopher Leone on September 26th, 2011

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Charlotte Shuffle

The fifth week of the third season of the 2011 inRacingNews Challenge saw sim racers take-on the road course at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. With one third of the season in the books, the top championship contenders in both Pontiac Solstice and SpecRacer Ford have been well established, Once again, Michael Booth was the class of the Solstice field, scoring victories in both of his starts and pacing all drivers with 166 points. Chris Hughson, with nine wins in 11 starts, was second with 150, while third place went to Thomas van Bussel, who won one of his two starts to take home 133. Bryan J Miller led all Solstice drivers with 18 starts, of which he won seven. Hughson’s nine wins were the most of any driver, while he [...]

Big Weeks ‘R Us

by Christopher Leone on September 26th, 2011

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Big Weeks ‘R Us

Big weeks from Kalle Ruokola in Pontiac Solstice and Tim Bone in SpecRacer Ford defined Week Four of the third season of the 2011 inRacingNews Challenge. The sim racers convened at Lime Rock Park for the first of two rounds this season, utilizing the circuit’s full layout. Previously, this event had taken place later in the schedule, but the addition of the chicane layout as a second event prompted its placement earlier in the schedule. Ruokola earned a Solstice-best 171 points on the week by scoring wins in both of his starts, one of which came from the pole. That bested Alessandro Fior, who scored five wins in seven starts and tallied 137 points. Third place went to Corey Slade, who won in his single start from the pole to [...]

“Grand Slam” Puts Luis in Reach of iNGPS Title

by Chris Hall on September 26th, 2011

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In a dominant online racing performance, Hugo Luis powered his way to the chequered flag at the Okayama International Circuit to make it four wins in a row, and further extend his lead in the iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series with just two races remaining. Coupled with his success at Sebring earlier in the season, the My3id pilot has now secured five victories in the World Championship and is just a few steps away from taking the accolades of being the globe’s top online road racer and the accompanying cash prize of $10,500. Luis, who started the 83 lap race in second position, got away from the line ahead of pole-sitter Klaus Kivekäs to pull alongside his team-mate at the opening corner, and subsequently take the lead as the pair [...]

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Terrell Takes BBR Okayama 100

by Vincent Sciuto on September 26th, 2011

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Terrell Takes BBR Okayama 100

A total of 26 Dallara IndyCars laid-down practice times prior to the Big Red Racing’s BBR Okayama 100, with all but one taking the green flag on the tough11 turn,  2.3 mile road course located in Japan. The night started with eventual winner Courtney Terrell taking pole position with a time of 1:18.136, two tenths faster than second place qualifier Danny Roberts. Congrats Courtney! When the green flag dropped, Roberts didn’t get a good launch, and as a result, the cars on the inside line who had qualified in third and fifth, driven by newcomer David Sockrider and reigning series champ Tim Doyle, respectively, moved into second and third coming out of Turn 1. They would stay this way through the majority of the race. Further back in the field, [...]

Madison’s Pacific Solution

by Patrick Atherton on September 26th, 2011

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The field blasts off, Down already in charge

Week 8 of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport turned Japanese, as the V8 sim racers faced off at Okayama International Circuit. The title has hotted up. NFinity Esports’ Mitchell McLeod’s lead had evaporated under the heat from Madison Down’s charge and, to make matters worse for McLeod, he was absent from this round. Down kept the pressure on with pole at Okayama. This time V8 Supercar star Shane Van Gisbergen took up the challenge of trying to spoil Down, lining up alongside him on the front row. The ever-present Rens Broekman was in third, from Joshua Muggleton, who can no longer be described as an impressive top-split up-and-comer, but an established front runner in the series. Graduating from the lower splits was Paul Larkin with fifth place [...]

Humpe Heads to the Top at Iowa

by Tim Terry on September 26th, 2011

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There was Class C action aplenty at Iowa Speedway.

A new stop on the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series was just what the doctor ordered for Kenny Humpe. The former Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge champion fought his way to the front from his eighth place starting position in the top split of the week to take the overall victory at Iowa Speedway to keep himself well within the championship picture after seven rounds of truck racing. Humpe took home 220 points in Saturday’s 3520 sof race on at the 7/8-mile oval. The field of 16 trucks produced six cautions and the lead was exchanged 14 times with Humpe leading 61 of the 100 circuits in the event. Finishing second was Kevin McAdams with Michael Guest, Steven ORourke and Alex Ciambrone completing the top five in the event. Second for [...]

iRacer Profile – David Burnett

by David Phillips on September 24th, 2011

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racing games

When it comes to sim racing, Club England’s David Burnett is far from a one trick pony.  Although he is most active in the the Classic Lotus GP series, he owns a very, er, catholic collection of iRacing wheels, from his Lotus 79, Dallara IndyCar and Star Mazda to HPD ARX01, Chevrolet Impala Class B and Corvette C6.R as well as a virtual fleet Fords (or is that a fleet of virtual Fords?): Ford GT, Ford Mustang FR500S and Ford Falcon FG01 V8. But when it comes to road course v oval, there’s no denying that Burnett is a dyed in the wool road racer.  In more than two years of iRacing, Burnett has nearly 360 official race starts to his credit, four (4) of which have been on ovals.  [...]

Brad Vincent wins at Silverstone

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on September 23rd, 2011

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016_SilvGP_BV_takes_checkers

Members of the Red Sox Racing League returned to Silverstone for the first race of the 2011 F1 Season 3 schedule.  Located in Towcester, Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom, the historic Grand Prix Circuit at Silverstone is a lightning fast 3.142 mile layout consisting of sixteen corners.  Twenty-one drivers braved the trip to the UK to participate in the “F1 Silverstone Grand Prix”. Defending five time RSR league champion, Les Turner, sounded confident about his chances for another championship during pre-race festivities.  “TeamDraft is ready to defend the title in Season 3.” Unfortunately, Turner’s competition must not have gotten the memo!  Several drivers served notice with blistering lap times during practice and qualifying that Turner’s strangle hold on the championship might be coming to an end.  Newcomer Patrick Guerin led [...]

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Return to Normalcy

by Jameson Spies on September 22nd, 2011

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Bryan Blackfeord gets "crazy sideways" in the Windy City.

Coming off a week at Richmond that most NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series drivers would love to forget, teams packed-up their haulers and headed northwest to the Windy City of Chicago. The cookie cutter layout of Chicagoland Speedway was a very welcome site for most, as it was a return to the norm. While some sim racers got their seasons back on track, other drivers continued the downward spiral they started at Richmond. One driver who seems to conquer any track layout thrown his way is Nick Ottinger. This young driver from Orlando, Florida is hitting his stride, and he put up one of the biggest points totals we’ve seem all year. Ottinger dominated the highest Stregnth of Field (SoF )of the week to bring in a cool 342 points, [...]

Salvatore Sweeps to South Boston Win

by Tim Terry on September 22nd, 2011

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The "ground pounders" of the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series traveled to SoBo last week.

Brandon Salvatore continued his march towards the 2011 Season Three NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series crown with a convincing win during Week Six at the South Boston Speedway. Salvatore brought home the checkers in the top split race of the week, besting some of the who’s who names in the Tour Modified sim racing community to inch closer to that prestigious crown. Salvatore’s win in a 3449 sof race came on September 8th as he raced to the victory in 15 car field. The race featured five cautions and ended with only three cars on the lead lap. Shane Kline and Donny Moore finished on the same circuit as the leader with Mitch Miller and Brandon Munroe completing the top five. The field was so strong in this race that [...]

Full Moon over RIR

by Jameson Spies on September 21st, 2011

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Ottinger continued his pursuit of Warren and the overall NiCAS lead at RIR.

Much like their physical world counterparts, competitors in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series had a tough time fitting their arms around Richmond International Raceway. As a full moon fell over RIR, drivers put it all on the table, and let the rough side drag. For some sim racers, this proved to be the winning combination, while for others it had the making for a long night. Harrison Donovan is hitting his stride as of late, and he made his way to the top of the charts in Richmond Week Six. It only took one start for Donovan to put his name at the top, even overcoming poor track position when the green flag dropped. Donovan led thirty seven of the 140 laps en route to the 294 point victory, [...]

VIR Rewards Roberts

by Jordan Hightower on September 21st, 2011

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After two weeks in the Land of the Rising Sun, the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge returned to 'Old Virginny.'

After two weeks in Japan, Week Six in the Thrustmaster Mustang Challenge brought the Pony Car sim racers back to the United States for some action at bucolic Virginia International Raceway.  The 17-turn, 3.27-mile beast of a track, located in Alton, Virginia, and has played host to great racing since 1957 and was a major sports car racing circuit during the 1960s.  275 racers tried to make their mark as the best Mustang pilot during Week Six, but it was Christopher Roberts (New York) who ended the week on top. Weekly High Strength of Field As mentioned above, Roberts was able to take the points and run as he dominated the week’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) event.  The 2311 SoF was crushed by Roberts who came away with a [...]

Davidowitz Tops SoBo

by Allen Krier on September 21st, 2011

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Week Seven saw the iRacing.com Street Stocks travel to SoBo.

For Week Seven of the season, the iRacing.com Street Stock Series traveled back to South Boston, Virginia to the famed 4/10th mile oval known as “SoBo.”  NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver Richie Davidowitz (New York) decided to make the trip to South Boston, along with many other sim racers. Weekly High Strength of Field Week Seven’s highest Strength of Field (SoF) race took place on Monday night. Davidowitz found himself on the top of the leader board at the end of the 40 lap race, which had an SoF of 3186. For his win, Davidowitz scored 199 points. Finishing only six tenths behind Davidowitz was Maxime Paquette (Eastern Canada), who received 180 points for his efforts. Paul Kusheba (Connecticut) finished in the third position and netted 162 points. Fourth [...]

Down the Hatch

by Patrick Atherton on September 20th, 2011

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The field tries to chase Down

Week Seven of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport travelled to the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. The Indy “club” section, with its tight, narrow confines, is a stark contrast to the wide-open, sweeping curves of the forest section. With its dramatic elevation changes and awkward cambers, it would prove to be another tyre-killer. With less than half the season to run and only three points separating series leader Mitch McLeod from the rapidly closing Madison Down, things were getting tense. McLeod did what he needed, duly taking pole from Madison Down, by 5/1000ths of a second, the story of the season. Once again, Down was the cat amongst the Nfinity pidgeons, with U’Ren and Broekman third and fourth. Richard Hamstead was an excellent fifth in his first [...]

iRacer Profile – Trent Brown

September 17th, 2011

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racing games

There’s more to Trent Brown than Sprint Cars.  After all, he owns a fair number of iRacing vehicles and holds-down P26 in Division Three of the iRacing.com GRAND-AM Online Sports Car Series in Daytona Prototypes.  He’s currently finishing his mechanical engineering degree at the University of Michigan and, as an alumni of legendary Ilmor Engineering, not surprisingly he loves race cars with big time horsepower.  Oh and, as you’ll see, he’s married to a very supportive wife, Kelly. But when it comes down to it, at least in terms of iRacing, this Wolverine is first and foremost a sprint car racer.  After finishing behind Vinnie Sansone, PJ Stergios and Kayne Hills in the 2011 Season 2 iRacing.com Sprint Car Cup, he is solidly ensconced in second place in the Season [...]

iRacing.com to create virtual McLaren MP4-12C GT3

by Kevin Bobbitt on September 14th, 2011

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Bedford, MA (September 14, 2011) – iRacing.com and McLaren Automotive today announced plans to build a virtual version of the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 race car.  Based on the groundbreaking McLaren MP4-12C road car, the first production car wholly designed and built by McLaren since the McLaren F1 – the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 marries Formula 1™ and innovative road-car technology with GT3 specification performance enhancements to create a new generation of racing car. iRacing.com will apply expertise in creating a state-of-the-art digital version of the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 that will be available to iRacing members in 2012. The McLaren MP4-12C GT3 project is the second development from iRacing.com and the McLaren Group. Earlier this year, iRacing.com incorporated McLaren Electronics’ ATLAS Express data analysis software into the iRacing service, providing the more [...]

Alfalla Wins Texas, Closes in on Championship

by Jason Lofing on September 14th, 2011

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iRacingSim 2011-09-13 22-56-38-90

With only three races remaining in the 2011 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, (NiSWC) it is do or die time, especially for those still alive in the quest for the championship. Texas Motor Speedway played host to the sixteenth race of the season and saw one man rise above the rest. Championship leader Ray Alfalla passed polesitter Josh Parker for the lead on the race’s long green flag run and led nearly all the remaining laps for his third victory of the 2011 NiSWC season. Early in the race, it appeared that it was Parker’s race to lose. He started on the pole and was quickly building a gap when a massive crash happened off of Turn Two on the second lap of the race. The wreck was sparked when [...]

The Ottinger Show

September 13th, 2011

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iRacingSim 2011-09-13 01-08-21-78

Last week saw the iRacing.com Street Stock Series make its way to Oxford Plains Speedway, a small 3/8th mile oval located in Oxford, Maine. Sim racers looked to tackle this tough little track, where you are never actually going straight, in the hopes of winning the championship. Nick Ottinger (Carolina) once again showed why he is a two time series champion and the favorite to take the title this season. Weekly High Strength of Field Ottinger, no stranger to winning, took home his seventh win of the season when he lead all 50 laps during this weeks Strength of Field (SoF) race. For his win, Ottinger added 167 points to his season total. Finishing in the second spot was Donny Moore (New England), over 15 seconds behind the race winner. [...]