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David Phillips
Editor and ChiefDavid Phillips is a long-time contributor to print and electronic publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Racer, Autosport, AutoWeek, Motor Sport and SPEEDtv.com, oversees the daily updating of news stories and assigns, edits and contributes feature material for inRacingNews.com.
Chris Hall
iRacing.com Series WriterChris Hall has been writing since the nineties and moved into motorsports reporting in 2005, covering series such as ALMS, British GT, FIA GT, Le Mans and 2CV racing for Full Throttle magazine, Motorsport.com, The-Paddock.net, GTGateway.com, L' Endurance and, of course, inRacingNews. During 2008 and 2009, he worked with the RSS Performance Porsche Carrera Cup Team (and former British GT(C) champions) as a data engineer for a variety of drivers and models of 997s.
Jameson Spies
Contributing Writer19 years old, Jameson Spies lives in Quartz Hill, California. He grew-up surrounded by racing. His mother raced late models throughout Southern California while his father built and setup the car. Not surprisingly, Jameson began racing go-karts at the age of 13, and is now racing Spec Trucks at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. He has a passion about all forms of racing and hopes to make a career out of it.
Jason Lofing
iRacing.com Series WriterJason is 21 years old and was born and raised in Elk Grove. California. A big time NASCAR fan, he hasn’t missed a race on Sunday in years. Lofing is also a huge San Fransisco Giants fan and tries to take in at least a couple games a year. Other than sim racing, his biggest (and far more expensive!) hobby is photography. Although he is rather new to sim racing, Lofing has already accomplished some pretty impressive results, qualifying for the 2011 iRacing Oval Pro Series in Season 1, 2011, winning the inaugural Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge and finishing runner-up in the second one.
Tim Terry
Contributing WriterTim Terry, aka the voice of Maritime stock car racing, fell in love with sim racing in 2004 after he joined the Sim Racing Network crew as a pit reporter. From October 2004 to SRNtv’s closure in June 2007, he’s covered prestigious races and leagues such as the Online 500, FLM Fall 400, Real Racing Online and the DMP Racing League – each as the lead broadcaster for the company. At the same time the wheels started to turn in another direction as he began announcing stock car racing locally. Terry became the assistant announcer at Scotia Speedworld in May 2007 and took over full duties in May 2009 when long-time voice Mike Kaplan retired from the track. Terry also became the series voice of the Parts For Trucks Pro Stock Tour in ’09 and continues to hold down both posts in 2011. He has also announced races for the Pro All Stars Series, Atlantic Open Wheel and Maritime League of Legends tours and has called races at six different Atlantic Canadian tracks. Terry can be heard online at WebRacingNetwork.com, RLMtv.com and OLRtv.com covering sim races. He also makes occasional appearances on PSRtv.com. In addition to inRacingNews, his articles and columns can be read on ScotiaSpeedworld.ca, MaritimeProStockTour.com and his own website at timterryonline.com.
David Allen
Contributing WriterNorth Carolina born and raised with over 15 years of computer/IT experience, I combine two of my biggest hobbies -- racing and technology -- here at inRacingNews. In my spare time I run a Nascar fan site and cure my own need for speed riding atvs. If it involves technology or racing I'll be there, but combine the two and I'll be looking a front row seat. Stop by and say hello anytime!
Allen Krier
Contributing WriterAllen was born in West Palm Beach, Florida but grew up in Atlanta and attended Georgia College and State University where he received a BS in Information Systems. Currently a resident of Albany, GA, he started sim racing in 2008 while in college when iRacing was first released to the public. Since then, Krier has been a two time iRacing Pro Series driver (2009 and 2010), picking up one Pro Series win at Daytona in ‘09. Besides sim racing, Allen’s other hobbies include RC Car racing as well as “attending and watching any sporting event that I can including going to the local dirt track.
Chris Cunningham
Contributing WriterChris is 20 years old, and recently moved to Charlotte, NC during his sophomore year in college to feed his need for speed. More than just an auto racing enthusiast, Cunningham has risen through the ranks of BMX Racing, Sailboat Racing, and Cycling. Cunningham recently took up go karting, and qualified as an alternate for the 2011 Red Bull Kart Fight at the PRI expo. Aside from racing, Cunningham has recently picked up the hobby of competitive eating (Ranked #7 Collegiate Eater in the country!), and competes all over the east coast in various contests. Chris also enjoys sim racing, writing, playing the drums, and enjoying college at UNC Charlotte.
Tim Doyle
Contributing WriterI've been a race fan since before I can remember, going to dirt tracks around the Washington, DC area since the early 70's with my parents. I got away from racing during my school years but in 1989 a friend and I went to a race in Hagerstown, MD and from there my life was all about racing. I currently live in Winchester, VA and while Dirt Late Models is my favorite form of racing, I also enjoy many other forms such as F1, IndyCar, 410 sprint cars on dirt and (probably more than anything) sim racing. My favorite driver is Ayrton Senna.
I was introduced to sim racing in 1989 when a friend turned me onto Indy 500 The Sim by Papyrus. It took me a few years to own my own PC but once I did, all I wanted to do was sim race. I tried to race my friends as much as possible via modem racing back in the 90's before joining TEN in 1998. From there I devoted a lot of time to online racing enjoying every minute of it. I was able to meet a lot of my competitors from all over the world at LAN events and races I went to. Being able to call some real world drivers friends as a result of sim racing is probably the neatest part of this whole deal!
David Roberts
Contributing WriterDavid lives in Brisbane and is a former Australian National Formula Ford Champion who now owns his own marketing and design company. After racing in Europe, David returned down under to swap a career behind the wheel for a career in the creative department. He now has three children, an ongoing love affair with the good ol’ days of motor racing, and just enough spare time left to enjoy a bit of sim-racing with a few of his old mates.
Ben Rothberg
Contributing WriterI was born and raised in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne where I still am situated. I am currently at University studying for a Certificate in Motorsport and hoping I will be able to achieve my top goal and become a part of a race team. In the sim-racing world, I won an rFactor V8 Supercar season and also was awarded with Best & Fairest award. I am now situated with the best simulation in the world (iRacing.com!) and love every minute of it. I currently race in the V8 Supercar Online Series and finished 16th overall in 2012 Season 1.
Dylan Sharman
Contributing WriterI was born in Adelaide and we moved-out for Angle Vale for a few years until I was about 7 years old, when we moved to the Barossa Valley where I live now. I'm 19 years old and currently traveling back and forth weekly as I’m studying for a Diploma of Furniture Design and Technology.
I’ve always had a love for racing as my close family did some racing and we were always out at the local dirt track. I joined iRacing back in 2010 and slowly but surely got the hang of it as this is my first experience with sim racing and am loving it each time I race. I’ve won two SK Modified titles (almost had three in a row but finished P2 in 2011 S4), an inRacingNews Challenge championship (2012 S1 Mazda) and was also an AustralAsian Intel GT Series Finalist.
Stewart: IndyCar criticism unfair
October 22nd, 2011
Tony Stewart has defended the IndyCar Series and says the criticism its officials are receiving following the death of Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas last weekend is unfair.
Stewart won the 1997 title in what was then known as the Indy Racing League, and believes many have voiced emotional opinions after 33-year-old Wheldon died from injuries sustained in a multi-car incident early in the series finale last Sunday.
He underlined that despite racing now being safer than ever, danger will always be a part of the sport and is something drivers have always lived with.
Stewart does not believe anyone should be held responsible for what happened last Sunday as such incidents are part of the sport.
“[IndyCar chief] Randy Bernard has been getting beat up over it and he shouldn’t,” said Stewart. “It’s part of racing, it’s part of what can happen.
“Everybody is a back chair quarterback going ‘no we should do this or shouldn’t do that’. It’s racing; I mean it’s always been racing. Auto racing as a whole is safer than it’s ever been.
“It still boils down to the people that are steering the cars around. It’s not that the cars are unsafe, there’s still people that tell the cars where to go so we’ve got to take responsibility. There is no reason for anybody to point fault anywhere. There’s no fault in it. It’s racing.
“Racing has always been dangerous. That’s why people come to watch races because there is an element of danger involved. You’re never going to get it all out but like we said it’s safer than it’s ever been. It’s a freak thing that happened and it can happen every race.
“I think everybody has got to take a deep breath and let the emotions settle down. Everybody is obviously thinking about Dan and his family, his wife and two children, there’s a lot of great charity stuff coming up to help them out which we are really proud to be a part of but I think everybody has to take a step back from it and realise this is auto racing.
“It’s always been dangerous but everybody still does it. If it was so bad none of us would want to do this but we still love doing this every week and it’s just part of the sport unfortunately. It’s never going to be 100 per cent safe.”
The two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion believes IndyCar racing has been gaining momentum recently and he remains a fan of the series competing on ovals – which formed the entire schedule in Stewart’s IRL days.
Earlier this week his NASCAR colleague Jimmie Johnson said IndyCar should not race on ovals, although he later clarified he was referring to high-banked ovals like Las Vegas and Texas.
“They had 34 cars at Vegas, that’s an incredible field,” said Stewart about Sunday’s race. “That’s the biggest field I’ve seen in years.
“I think that’s a sign that they’re gaining a little bit and I hope they are. I’m a big fan of IndyCar racing. I always have been and I always will. I prefer to watch them on the ovals versus the road courses. I’ve always been a fan of it.”
Stewart said the reasons for him not racing an IndyCar again since he last competed in the Indianapolis 500 in 2001 are not related with any safety concerns he may have but more with how the competitive nature of the series has evolved over the last decade, making it harder to have any successful one-off attempts for non-regulars.
“The hard thing is that series has got really competitive,” said Stewart. “You aren’t just going to go show up and drop in one and be up to speed right away. That’s why it makes it so hard to go do something like that. It would be like trying to go run a top fuel dragster next week. I’ve never done it and it’s going to take you a while to get used to something like that.
“The reason we don’t do it isn’t even remotely safety issue-wise, it’s just time-wise and if you’re going to do it you want to be competitive doing it. You want to make sure when you show up at a race you’re competitive and ready to go.”
Stewart and Johnson will donate their helmets from this weekend’s race at Talladega for auction in benefit of the Wheldon Family Trust.