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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.

Gilliland Grabs Georgia Victory

December 8th, 2011

84
More than 1,600 iRacers answered the call at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Adam Gilliland was one of the busiest drivers during Week Four of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series (NiCCS) at the Atlanta Motor Speedway . . . and also one of the successful, as he captured the top split of the week. Gilliland is a regular at GSRacing.net and is racing to capture the NiCCS title in 2011 Season Four. Gilliland’s big win will go down as a 4767 Strength of Field (SoF) of victory in which he led just a single lap in the online racing event. Gilliland got past Kevin King on the final circuit to take the victory. Chris Overland came home in third, followed by Allen Krier and Bryan Blackford. King led the most laps (27) of any of the nine leaders, who exchanged the lead [...]

Burns Tops the Field at USA

by Tim Terry on December 8th, 2011

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Tommy Burns came out on top during Round Four of the iRacing.com Late Model Tour (iLMT) when the series visited Florida’s USA International Speedway. Burns, who hails from New York, bested 565 other sim racers from around the globe to take the victory in Week Four at the half-mile facility. Burns took home 179 points for his win on Wednesday, one of his two starts for the week. The race, rated at 2945 Strength of Field (SoF), saw Burns lead two thirds of the 45 laps en route to the win over Jeremy Hughes, Travis Powell, Tony Dugan and Todd Garren. Hughes led the first 15 laps of the race from the pole position before handing the lead over to Burns in the only lead change of the race. Burns [...]

Door-to-Door at Atlanta

by Jameson Spies on December 8th, 2011

66
Lightning-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway set the stage for fierce battles in Week Five of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series made a trip southeast for a visit to the always interesting Atlanta Motor Speedway. The aging surface at Atlanta not only provides the drivers with an utter handful of a racecar to wrestle for 110 laps, it also provides spectators with a whole lot of door-to-door, high speed racing action. For the second week in a row, Class A drivers flocked to the front of the leader board, with many NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) competitors taking the week off. Brandon Schmidt did not mind one bit that most of the NiPS drivers stayed at the shop, as he took top honors on the week with 203 championship points. Schmidt dominated his one and only race, starting from the outside of the front row [...]

Improving the Sound of iRacing

by Tony Gardner on December 7th, 2011

4,808
"'Sound improvements' could mean working on existing sounds like the noise created by crashes . . ."

Although iRacing.com is constantly adding new elements to our online racing service there are always many improvements we would like to make to our current features.  One of those features is sound, which happens to be a very broad topic. When we think of sounds in a racing game, most of us think of the cars’ engine noises, and that certainly that is a focus of our work.   We have some good ideas on how to improve those engine sounds and add more range.   Of course, our objective is to be authentic when it comes to engine sounds — or any sound for that matter.  That’s why we go to the track and record every car in iRacing, and also do things like taking sound meters to the tracks to [...]

Ottinger Class of the Field in Charlotte

by Jason Lofing on December 7th, 2011

127
Ottinger (05), King (29), Lindsey (50) and Pope (18) battle midway through last night's race.

Week Six of the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) featured the second straight night race of the season, this time with Charlotte Motor Speedway taking center stage. Nick Ottinger, fresh-off a disappointing twentieth place finish last week at Richmond, came to Charlotte with one goal in mind: dominate the race. He did just that, winning the pole and the race, leading 131 of the 175 laps. The two halves of the online race could almost be considered entirely different events. The first half was littered with wrecked cars, with seven caution flags flying in the first 75 laps of racing action. It was another case of cautions breeding cautions as the field was unable to get into a rhythm. The field did not even take the green flag before the [...]

Hudson Rolls

by Allen Krier on December 7th, 2011

86
Some 600 iRacers answered the challenge of Charlotte Motor Speedway in thei street stocks.

Charlotte Motor Speedway hosted Week Five of the iRacing.com Street Stock Series. Some 600 sim racers showed up at the North Carolina track to participate in at least one race on the ¼ mile legends oval, with 225 of them turning a lap in qualifying. Weekly High Strength of Field Last week’s high Strength of Field race had an SoF of 2546, which was one of the lowest SoF’s of the season. Cole Anderson (Midwest) started on the pole for the 50 lap race and lead every lap in route to a nine second victory. For his efforts, Anderson collected 153 points for the win. Mike Springer (California) finished in the second position and received 136 points, while third belonged to CJ LaVair (New York), who finished 9.8 seconds behind [...]

Broekman Rising

by Patrick Atherton on December 6th, 2011

187
Broekman storms off

The real-world V8 Supercar series was run and won on the weekend past, but the online series is just hotting up. Not quite at the halfway point, and even long before that, the saga was developing into a slugfest between two former series winners- Trans Tasman Racing’s Madison Down and Tatts.com Racing’s  Mitchell McLeod. But the heat is not confined to those two. Now a veteran of the predominantly Aussie series, The Hague’s Rens Broekman has taken the fight to Down and McLeod, relying on more than just a hiccup in his rivals’ game. He has now hauled himself into second place on the series’ ladder. The see-sawing fortunes between the two former series winners and these other top runners has been the stuff of fables. The colonials descended upon [...]

The Dutchman Flies at Philip Island

by Chris Hall on December 5th, 2011

149
Kerkhof jumped into the lead and was never headed en route to his fifth straight iPSRR triumph.

Continuing his seemingly unstoppable charge towards the iRacing.com Pro Series Road Racing title and entry into the 2012 iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series, Atze Kerkhof put on another flawless display of online-racing at the digital rendition of Australia’s Philip Island on Saturday. With five victories from as many starts, the ‘Flying Dutchman’ has maximum points to his name, led 263 of the Championship’s 329 laps raced so far, and now holds a 107 digit advantage in the series standings table. A time of 1:06.141 in the two-lap qualifying session placed Team Redline’s Kerkhof at the front of the grid for the third time this season, a position he maintained at the drop of the green flag, despite a strong challenge from Martin Krönke through the opening corners. With a clear [...]

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Salvatore Takes Iowa

by Tim Terry on December 5th, 2011

84
Nearly 300 sim racers challenged Iowa Speedway in their Tour Modifieds.

Brandon Salvatore continued his march to the 2011 Season Four NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series (NiTMS) title during Round Four of the series as he edged-out the weekly win at the Iowa Speedway. Salvatore’s win was good for just one more point than the race which was taken down by Jamie Collier when it came to looking at the strength of fields (sof), which locked-down the win for the Georgia sim racer. Salvatore’s win came on  Thursday’s 3246 sof online race. The 100-lap race was slowed by four cautions and Salvatore led the most laps (71) of any of the three leaders. Herb Engelhart finished in Salvatore’s tire-tracks in second, followed by Jerold John, Kevin Walker and Derrick Cormier2. The win garnered Salvatore 202 points, which was tops on the [...]

Tillmann 2 for 2 at RSR

by Ed Sutcliff and Les Turner on December 4th, 2011

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001

Christine Marie Tillmann is a perfect 2-0 in her first two weeks with the Red Sox Racing League.  A late comer to the league’s 2011 F1 Season Three lineup, Tillman doubled up with her second win in a row at the “Elkhart Lake F1 GP at Road America”.  The tenth race of the season was held at the fourteen turn, 4.08 mile road course in Elkhart, Wisconsin. Fifteen drivers made the trip to Road America in the hopes of improving their positions in the overall championship.  Brad Vincent looked like the driver to beat during pre-race practice and qualifying.  His qualifying effort of 1:37.007 was a full half second faster than his nearest competitor.  Christine secured 2nd place on the grid with a lap time of 1:37.612.  Tillmann and Vincent [...]

Blackford’s Brickyard Ballad

by Tim Terry on December 3rd, 2011

50
Blackford’s Brickyard Ballad

Bryan Blackford (Seminole, FL) outlasted an altercation on the final restart of the Mason Baker Designs 150 on Thursday night at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to take his first win of the GSRacing.net Truck Series season. The two time and defending Truck Series titlist and Jeremy Allen (Indinapolis, IN) slammed into each other on the final restart of the event, triggering a multi-truck wreck that ended the event under the race’s eighth caution flag. Josh Berry (Mooresville, NC) dodged the trucks to finish second in the event with Nick Ottinger (Claremont, NC), Patrick Fogel (Hughesville, PA) and Danny Hansen (Amherst, WI) rounding-out the top five. The 60-lap, 150 mile race took one hour, 35 minutes to complete. Eight lead changes between eight drivers set the pace for the race. A [...]

iRacer Profile: John Schweickart

by David Phillips on December 3rd, 2011

134
motorsport simulation

When it comes to iRacing, John Schweickart is on movin’ on up.  Although the Dayton, Ohio-based Schweickurt has been sim racing for the best part of a decade, he is only now closing-in on completing his second full year of iRacing.  And looking better and better all the time.  After finishing a rather distant (at least from the top of the score sheets) 305th in the overall NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series standings in Season 3 (95th in Division 2), he finds himself knocking on the top ten of Division 2 and the top 30 overall. It’s all a matter of focus.  Although Schweickart has run a few NASCAR iRacing.com Class C open and fixed setup events this season, he’s concentrating on the Class A series . . . with [...]

Dave Kaemmer Comes Clean on Dirt

by Nick Neben on December 2nd, 2011

5,423
Developing artist's conception of iRacing sprint car on dirt? Easy (relatively).  Developing practical model of dirt track racing for iRacing? Not so much.

Dirt: It’s that painfully slippery surface that causes most of us a 1x or a 2x at some point; a 4x if we are unlucky enough to really lose it.  It’s something that will take a perfectly fine race car and send it 180 degrees backwards into a barrier or sand trap. For most road racers dirt is evil.  Most oval racers don’t even worry about dirt while racing in their paved coliseums.   But for one group dirt is for racing.  Pavement?  It’s just for getting there.  From short, bullring dirt tracks to miles of rally stages, this group thrives on sim racing in the dirty stuff. Motorsports on dirt takes many forms across the world.  It’s best known in America for dirt oval racing, while the rest of the [...]

Showing-up Big at Bristol

by Jameson Spies on December 1st, 2011

89
Rough 'n tumble Bristol isn't everyone's cup of tea, but those who made the trip to Thunder Valley staged some great racing.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series sim racers made their way to the always tough Bristol Motor Speedway for Week Four of their season. Bristol is the first track on the schedule that has not matched the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series schedule, which translates to a bye week for many top competitors. With that being said, one of the top drivers on the iRacing.com service showed-up . . . and showed-up big. That would be inaugural NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series champion Josh Parker, who decided he wanted to take part in the rough racing Bristol has to offer. This was bad news for anyone looking to steal top honors of the week with many of the top ranked drivers taking the week off. Parker started two races, winning one of [...]

Comfort Zone

by David Phillips on November 30th, 2011

551
Elliott Skeer in his comfort zone.

Elliott Skeer’s idea of a comfort zone is traveling at 100+ mph, no matter whether the speed is real or virtual.  Either way, he’s at the wheel of a race car, be it the real Mazda MX5 in which he clinched the 2011 Teen Mazda Championship (West) at Infineon Raceway or iRacing’s virtual MX5 he used to prepare for that event. The 17 year old’s uncomfortable zone?  Presenting a sponsorship proposal to a panel of judges at the Mazda Shoot-Out with a prize valued at $75,000 — including the budget to race in the SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX5 Cup — on the line. There was more to the Mazda Shoot-Out than sponsorship proposals, of course; like wheeling a Mazda MX5 Cup car around Buttonwillow Raceway.  But Skeer says [...]

Warren’s Richmond Surprise

by Jason Lofing on November 30th, 2011

151
It doesn't get any better than 43 Class A Impalas under the lights at RIR.

The NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series went under the lights at Richmond International Raceway for Week Five and fireworks flew from start to finish with Alex Warren playing his strategy just right to come away with his first series win. The caution waved early and often with 15 yellows slowing the action for 75 of the 200 laps and, in the absence of long green flag runs, pit strategy and track position proved more important than ever. Joshua Laughton put down an impressive qualifying lap, taking his first pole position of the 2011 season with a run of 20.551s to best Michael Conti (20.608s). Some tough competition lined-up behind the front row-sitters including Nick Ottinger, who started third, and teammates Marcus Lindsey and Kevin King, who started fourth and fifth respectively. [...]

Ottinger Back On Top At Lanier

by Allen Krier on November 29th, 2011

90
Nearly 1000 iRacers challenged Lanier in their Street Stocks.

The iRacing.com Street Stock Series made its way to Braselton, GA, home of Lanier National Speedway as well as Road Atlanta. 922 sim racers attempted a race at the 3/8th mile oval and a familiar name made its way to the top. Weekly High Strength of Field Last week’s high Strength of Field race had an SoF of 3207 and paid 195 points to win. Maxime Paquette (Eastern Canada) started on the pole and led 19 laps but would not be able to bring it home as he finished second behind Brandon Atkinson (Carolina), who led 21 laps and collected 195 points for the win. Paquette earned 175 points for his runner-up finish. Rounding-out the top three was Paul McCollum, who earned 156 points, while fourth belonged to CJ LaVair [...]

Aussies play at Home

by Patrick Atherton on November 29th, 2011

140
Down heads for Bass Straight

Week Four of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport moved to the iRacing V8 spiritual home of Phillip Island. This track always brings out a blockbuster and with the added bonus of pitstops, some guaranteed drama. For the early race at 7.45, Shane Van Gisbergen trounced the field by 17 seconds from Rens Broekman and Richard Hamstead. Hamstead pitted early to attempt an undercut, but when almost everybody pitted on Lap 20, The Giz emerged in the lead and was never headed. Bigpond’s Vern Norrgard had a stellar run, finishing fourth. In the other splits, Clayton Brooks and Andrew Cooper were triumphant. But the 9.45 race was the Big One, with a field strength of over 4000. Madison Down took pole position for Trans-Tasman Racing, while Tatts.com Racing’s [...]

Four for Four for Kerkhof

by Chris Hall on November 28th, 2011

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From pole position, Kerkhof embarks on yet another winning performance at Silverstone.

In yet another dominant display of sim racing, Atze Kerkhof steered his Williams-Toyota FW31 to a fourth victory in the iRacing.com Pro Series Road Racing at the virtual Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. With maximum points to his name, the Dutchman looks set to breeze into next year’s iRacing.com NVIDIA Grand Prix Series and challenge for the 2012 title, even though there’s still two-thirds of the Pro season remaining. Starting from pole position after setting 1:18.668 lap in qualifying, Kerkhof maintained his position at the front as the pack filtered their way through Turn One aka Copse, with Jeremy Bouteloup and Samuel Libeert in close vicinity. After capitalising on a bad start for Libeert, Twister Racing’s Bouteloup couldn’t hang on to the coattails of the leader for the opening laps, as [...]

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Salvatore’s Reminder

by Tim Terry on November 28th, 2011

52
Nathan McGee (8) leads Salvatore, Engelhart (1) and Cormier2 (2) in the early going at Lanier.

Brandon Salvatore reminded the NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series (NiTMS) drivers why he is the defending champion of the series by taking the win on Week Three at the Lanier National Speedway. Salvatore topped 126 other sim racers in the short track series to take the overall win at the Georgia track. Salvatore’s 190 points came during Thursday’s 3101 Strength of Field (sof) race in which he led 67 of the 120 laps and defeated Derrick Cormier2 by one second for the win.  NiTM point leader Herb Engelhart was third in this event, which featured three cautions. Paul Wisniewski and Ray Farlow completed the top five in the 12 car field. Salvatore credited the win to a two tire change which got him out ahead of the rest of the [...]