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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.

Martinsville Madness Goes to Davidowitz

by Tim Terry on January 11th, 2012

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Week 10 drew an even 700 iRacers (and a packed house) to Martinsville.

While there is a battle for the championship with three weeks to go in the NASCAR iRacing.com Late Model Series (NiLMS), it was the strength of the Main Performance PC-sponsored drivers that made the story at Martinsville Speedway in Week Ten of the online racing series.  NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) driver Richie Davidowitz led the charge with a big win on Thursday to capture the overall win during Round 10 of 12 in the popular series. The win which put Davidowitz on top for the week was rated at 3263 Strength of Field (SoF) and saw the pole-sitter lead wire-to-wire en route to victory lane in the 50 lap event. Daniel Pope II placed second, nearly three seconds behind Davidowitz. Clay Jones was third, followed by Patrick Fogel and [...]

Setting the Stage

by Jason Lofing on January 11th, 2012

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Hall (30) battled his way to the front, then motored to his first NiPS win at MIS.

Michigan International Speedway played host to the penultimate race of the 2011 NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series season and, with the series championship and automatic berths in the 2012 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship still up for grabs, last night’s online race figured to set the stage for next week’s dramatic season finale.  While all eyes were on series co-points leaders Matt Whitten and Marcus Lindsey who started third and eleventh, respectively, it was Robert Hall who stole the NiPS thunder with a convincing win. Pole-winner Michael Conti took the green flag and, together with Jeremy Thornton, quickly built a sizable gap on the field. The two ran nose-to-tail for the initial fuel run, with Conti leading all but one of the first 37 laps before finally giving way to Thornton, [...]

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Sim Racing Meets Real World Racing

by Katier Scott on January 10th, 2012

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Sim Racing Meets Real World Racing

This weekend features one of the most eagerly-anticipated shows on the motor sport calender as Autosport International opens its doors at the NEC Birmingham.  Covering over one million sq ft of floor space, Autosport International is widely regarded as Europe’s largest motorsport exhibition. The event opens to the members of the motorsports trade for two days on 12th and 13th January before the public get the chance to enjoy the wide range of exhibitors on the weekend of the 14th and 15th. This exciting event features stands from companies as diverse as Formula 1, down to go-karting and both oval and road, national motorsport.  Amongst the hundreds of stands, and probably thousands of steel, plastic, carbon fibre and fibreglass cars, will be exhibits featuring various elements of sim racing, reflecting [...]

McLean Tops Intel GT Regional Finals

January 9th, 2012

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McLean paced the field from start to finish at Spa.

The top twenty finishers from last month’s Intel GT Africa/Asia/Australia Regional Series raced at Spa-Francorchamps this past Saturday night (9pm AEST) to determine the eight iRacers who will represent the region in the World Finals in March 2012. To nobody’s surprise, Regional Series winner Luke McLean dominated the event in his HPD ARX 01C, coming home ahead of fellow Australian sim racers Ben Cornett and Darren Marsh. The remainder of the qualifiers include Ian Travis (Australia), Dan Green (Australia), Zaahir A Essa (South Africa), Yuho Abe (Japan) and Vail Riches (Australia). These sim racers will meet in World Finals with the eight drivers who previously qualified in the North American Regional Finals, together with 16 more who will qualify through the two remaining Regional Series. Rounds Three (Europe) and Four [...]

Libeert Leads the ‘French Connection’ at Watkins Glen

by Chris Hall on January 9th, 2012

196
The start was pure chaos . . .

In a breathtaking 56 laps around the virtual Watkins Glen ‘classic boot’ configuration, Samuel Libeert took advantage of champion-elect Atze Kerkhof’s absence to register his second win in the iRacing.com Pro Series Road Racing championship. Even though the Team Radicals online racer started from the third row of the grid, Libeert cut his way through the field to take the chequered flag and lead home a French 1-2-3 at the line. As 35 iRacing Williams-Toyota FW31s — headed by Twister Racing’s Simon Crochart, who posted a qualifying time of 1:17.559 – took to the grid, no one could have predicted the chaos that was about to ensue. As the lights turned to green, the engine of Team Podium Assault’s Ian Lake decided it wasn’t going to take any further part [...]

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Cormier Corners Concord Win; Salvatore Mighty at Milwaukee

by Tim Terry on January 9th, 2012

71
Week Eight brought the Tour Mods to tri-cornered Concord Speedway.

The Week Eight story in the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series (NiTMS) turned into the strength of performances by two sim racers looking to move up the ladder in the Modified ranks. While Derrick Cormier2 scored the overall win of the week, it was Brett Osborn who took the top split race of the week. The story behind the two though was that they both made a half dozen starts or more each on the tricky Concord Speedway triangle configuration! Osborn’s big win out of his eight starts during Round Eight came on Thursday’s 2774 Strength of Field (SoF) race. Osborn led just over a quarter of the 100-laps in the online race, which featured four cautions and saw two lead changes. Modified veteran Paul Wisniewski was second, followed by [...]

iRacer Profile – Alan Binder

by David Phillips on January 7th, 2012

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motorsports simulation

iRacers can be forgiven if they automatically associate the name “Alan Binder” with the words “Sprint” and “Car.”  After all, along with competitors/friends Vinnie Sansone and PJ Stergios, the Dayton, Ohio resident is one of the stalwarts of the iRacing Sprint Car Cup.  And like they say, practice makes perfect.  Binder may not be perfect, but his record of 13 wins in 18 starts was plenty good enough to earn him the 2011 Season 3 Sprint Cup title — an honor he is well on the way to successfully defending in Season 4, having already collected 15 wins in 18 starts to lead Sansone and Finland’s Petteri Kotovaara in the standings. There’s more to Alan Binder than Sprint Cars and, believe it or not, iRacing.  The proud father of four [...]

Mulligan Time

by Christopher Leone on January 7th, 2012

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Mulligan Time

The ninth week of the inRacingNews Challenge season saw the series’ second visit to Lime Rock Park of the championship. This time around, however, the Pontiac Solstice and SpecRacer Ford drivers would be utilizing the chicane layout, rather than the full circuit. With championship points settled for most of the top sim racers, the last four weeks offer an opportunity for minor improvements, or the opportunity to turn one bad week into a mulligan. For Kalle Ruokola in Solstice and Mogar DG Filho in SRF, Week Nine will go down among the highlights of the season, as both led their respective classes in points. Ruokola took one win in two starts to score 208 points, while Filho scored 199 points on two wins from the pole in two starts. With [...]

700 and Counting

by Katier Scott on January 7th, 2012

289
The SR8 drivers faced new challenges at Oulton Park in Week 7 of the Radical Racing Challenge.

From the undulations of Mosport Park to the new challenges of Oulton Park a record number of drivers have taken to the tracks in iRacing’s Radical Racing Challenge during a season which has seen the V8-powered Class C car’s popularity soar. This popularity has seen 700 drivers take part in events, the first time ever that the online racing series featuring nimble little Radical SR8 has seen that many drivers in one season. The racing is as exciting and intense as ever, typified by some amazingly close finishes at the undulating Mid-Ohio race track in Week Nine. The narrowest escape, probably went to Kalle Ruokola who was leading comfortably towards the end of the race. He took the sensible choice not to lap the fourth- and fifth-placed battle as Katier [...]

Turning Point

January 6th, 2012

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Turning Point

Week Eight of the inRacingNews Challenge season is a turning point in the standings for most drivers. With only eight of 12 race weeks counting in the standings, the rankings in both Pontiac Solstice and SpecRacer Ford are unlikely to change in the coming weeks unless drivers significantly improve their performance. With that in mind, a strong performance this week at famed Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca would be key to the top drivers’ title runs. As he did last year, Michael Booth topped all Solstice drivers, but this time he shared the lead with Wim Bries as both sim racers tallied 130 points on the week. There was no dispute at the top of the SRF ranks, however, as Sergio Roda Junior convincingly claimed the top spot with 206 points. [...]

Hudson Takes GSR.net Chase Opener

by Tim Terry on January 6th, 2012

47
gives chase to last night at Dover in the

One of the all time leaders in wins on the GSRacing.net Truck Series notched his 13th series victory on Thursday when Tyler Hudson took the checkered flag first in the Fastrac Sports Marketing 125 at Dover International Speedway. This was the first victory at the one-mile Delaware oval for Hudson and the AdaSignWraps.com Chevrolet in the Truck Series. The NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship driver took the lead from Richmond winner Jason Karlavige with 15 laps remaining in the 125 lap online racing event and held on from there for the win in the first “Chase to the GSRacing.net Truck Series Championship” race of the 2011-12 season. Karlavige eventually finished second after a scuffle on the back straightaway with Kevin King saw the latter plummet from third to 14th in [...]

Janiak, Weatherly Tops at nosreffeJ

by Christopher Leone on January 6th, 2012

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Janiak, Weatherly Tops at nosreffeJ

After reaching the halfway mark of the inRacingNews Challenge season, the Pontiac Solstices and SpecRacer Fords visited West Virginia’s Summit Point Raceway once again in Week Seven. The third round (of four) at Summit Point this season featured the circuit’s Jefferson layout, but unlike the Week Three visit, the sim racers contested the circuit in reverse. If the circuit seemed topsy-turvy to the drivers, so did the names atop the standings: in Solstice, it was Ralf Janiak with 127 points, while SRF was led by Mitch Weatherly’s 177 point effort. Janiak won three of four races on the week, starting from the pole each time, but failing to complete the last lap of the fourth. Weatherly, meanwhile, started second in his lone event and led 16 laps against a tough [...]

Smith Tops Talladega; Daley Real Deal at Marty

by Tim Terry on January 6th, 2012

74
The lead changes quickly and frequently when the NiCCS travels to 'Dega.

Thomas D Smith danced with the draft all the way to the top of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series at Talladega Superspeedway during Week Eight competition at the popular track. Over 2,200 sim racers tried their hand at the unique breed of online oval racing and when the dust settled and the points were tallied, it was the 2011 Season Three runner-up who stood tall over all who dared to tackle the 2.66-mile tri-oval. Smith’s win came in a 4565 Strength of Field (SoF) race on Tuesday in which he led 17 of 50 lap en route to the win. Pole sitter Adrian Duncan was second in the event, followed by Dylan Duval, Rodney Harris and David Rattler. NASCAR iRacing Pro Series driver Matt Whitten led the most laps [...]

Racing the Plan

by David Allen on January 6th, 2012

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motorsports simulations

I get up every morning just like most people and I have a plan.  That plan is carried-out based on the events of the day, what I have to do and when I have to have it done. Now, I can see that funny look on your face already, one that says “What does this have to do with iRacing?” What this has to do with iRacing is this: It’s all about management.  We manage tasks in our daily lives.  We know when to give a task everything we have and when giving a task a little less is enough. Sim racing is no different. iRacing has advanced in so many ways that we are now forced to manage our resources during a race.  We have to think about when [...]

O’Keefe, Gilliland Conquer Charlotte

by Allen Krier on January 5th, 2012

105
O'Keefe leads the street stocks into Turn One at Charlotte.

Week Nine of the iRacing.com Street Stock Series (iSSS) saw sim racers travel to the center of American stock car racing, Charlotte Motor Speedway. Charlotte is home to many of NASCAR’s top drivers as well as the NASCAR Hall of Fame (complete with its . Last week, 1522 drivers attempted a race at the 1.5 mile oval, with 743 of them turning a lap in qualifying. With defending champ Nick Ottinger (Carolina) fighting for a NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS)  championship, a new driver may find himself on the top of the standings when the season is over and Maxime Paquette (Eastern Canada) is poised to be that driver. Weekly High Strength of Field Last week’s high Strength of Field (SoF) race had rating of 3925 and saw NiPS driver [...]

PJ Tames the Monster

by Jameson Spies on January 5th, 2012

355
"Miles" grabbed more than one NiCAS competitor last week.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series looked into the eye of the monster for Week Nine of their twelve week season. Dover International Speedway was the venue as drivers took on the “Monster Mile” and, as to be expected, NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) drivers flocked to the top of the charts. Dover’s concrete surface is a rarity on the iRacing.com service, and this would challenge setup builders in entirely new ways. As if the concrete surface wasn’t enough of a curve ball to throw at competitors, Dover also offers high banks, lightning quick speeds and turns that narrow-up in a hurry. Current NiPS driver PJ Stergios enjoyed success in his only start at the Monster Mile, earning a win from his second place starting position, and 248 points to [...]

Kerkhof Takes It To The Max

by Chris Hall on January 4th, 2012

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Kerkhof was relegated to the second row of the grid, but wasted little time in moving to his accustomed spot at the front of the field.

By securing his eighth victory in the iRacing.com Pro Series Road Racing at Oulton Park, Atze Kerkhof stands as the 2011 champion with a maximum 400 points to his name. In a dominant 71 laps around the chicane-less version of the 2.7 mile Cheshire circuit, the ‘Flying Dutchman’ blasted his way to the front, before collecting victory with seven-seconds in his pocket. Although Kerkhof was ousted from the front-row of the grid by Martin Krönke and Samuel Libeert, the TeamRedline sim-racer got a perfect getaway as the lights went out, to storm into the lead by the first corner.Whilst there was little Radical Racings’ Libeert could do to stop the newly-crowned champion slipping past, My3id’s Krönke seemed to be caught napping, leaving a door wide open for Kerkhof to step through intoTurn [...]

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Alfalla, Luvender Named iRacers of the Year

January 4th, 2012

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iracers-of-the-year-winners-inrn

The members of iRacing.com have named 2011 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Champion (NiSWC) Ray Alfalla and Trading Paints’ Steve Luvender iRacers of the Year.  The members selected Alfalla (Driver of the Year) and Luvender (Member of the Year) from an outstanding field of nominees during voting between December 15 and 31, 2011. Alfalla scored three wins and eight more top five finishes en route to the 2011 NiSWC, clinching the title with one race remaining in the season.  In addition, he enhanced his reputation as a fine all ‘round sim racer by taking a pair of top five finishes en route to fifteenth in the NVIDIA Grand Prix Series (NGPS). “First I’d like to thank all of the iRacers who voted for me. This is the icing on the cake [...]

Warren Wins Vegas on Last Lap Pass

by Jason Lofing on January 4th, 2012

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Warren (82) motored past Conti (8) and Baldwin (52) in the final laps to take the win at Vegas.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series visited Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the tenth week of twelve in the season. With time running out to secure a spot in the 2012 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship, Vegas was expected to be a hotly contested online race, and it lived-up to expectations as Alex Warren beat Patrick Baldwin in a thrilling late race battle that featured some of the best racing of the whole 2011 NiPS season. Mitchell Hunt started on pole and jumped out to about a half-second lead shortly after the green flag flew.  However, it quickly became obvious that the whole field of sim racers was very evenly matched; so evenly matched in fact that drivers who normally run very strong, such as Nick Ottinger, were mired back in [...]

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Wilsey Tops Thompson; Moriarity Rolls at Richmond

by Tim Terry on January 3rd, 2012

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More than 700 Late Model sim racers tackled Thompson's unique challenges.

Division Two point leader Mark Wilsey entered Week Eight of the iRacing.com Late Model Tour in the top five overall. When he left Thompson International Speedway (TIS) after seven days of online racing, he had himself an overall weekly win, second place in overall points to his credit and the satisfaction of knowing he had established the fact that he can contend for the top prize in short track racing on the iRacing service. Wilsey’s big win came on Christmas Eve during a 2812 Strength of Field (SoF) race. Wilsey led all 50 laps from the pole position on the Connecticut high banks and came home nearly three seconds up on second place driver Sandro Vitelli. Late Model and sim racing veteran Jeff Conover was third, followed by Matt Bussa [...]