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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.
Ray Bryden
Technical contributorRay 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 WriterPatrick 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 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.
Interview with Ken Block
March 6th, 2010
After a fine first day in the Monster World Rally Team yesterday, American driver Ken Block retired from Rally Mexico when he went off the road on the first stage this morning.
He talked AUTOSPORT through his debut in a Ford Focus RS WRC.
Q. What happened this morning?
Ken Block: Basically, it was a novice note-making error. I had a corner that was pretty quick into a much tighter hairpin. The transition between the two corners was a steep decline and the grip on that decline changed; there was really loose gravel. I was moving and things were going well, and I did all I could to get the car turned into that corner, but we couldn’t make it and the car ran wide into a bank.
Q. What broke on the car?
KB: A front wheel and the control arm. It wasn’t a really bad impact, but we just couldn’t keep going.
Q. Could you actually move the car?
KB: Nah, believe me I tried! I burned out the clutch trying. The thing is that this car’s so fast, it’s taking me a little while to understand what I need to do with my notes. I have simplified the information which Alex [Gelsomino, co-driver] is delivering. Instead of saying: ‘Stay in’, we’re just using ‘in’. And before we had ‘small cut’, ‘cut’ and ‘big cut’ and now we just have ‘cut’. Things come so much faster in this car and Alex has to make sure that he’s getting everything out in time.
This just happened to be a corner that the exit speed from the corner before was higher than I had realised on the recce. It was just a really tricky situation. I should have cautioned it, but I didn’t. For me, it’s part of the process of learning this car. It’s unfortunate, but I’ve got to come away from here taking it as a learning lesson and be smart about it. I’ve learned a lot this weekend and that’s just one more thing.
It’s really unfortunate that it happened on the first stage of the day, on the biggest day of the rally. I’m missing out on a lot of miles, but there’s nothing I can do about it. When I went out, after 23 kilometres, I was only six seconds off Jari-Matti [Latvala], so I’m really happy with that and the speed I’m getting up to in the car. I have the rest of the season to work on that speed. But I’m more than happy with where I am in terms of speed right now.
Q. Are you surprised how quickly you’ve got to grips with the car?
KB: Yes I am. But the thing is, I love speed in rally. It’s what I enjoy and that stage [SS10] had a lot of quicker stuff in it. I don’t have any problem with a lot of commitment on most types of stages, that’s what’s really fun for me. I knew in general, with the faster car and the type of set-up, I knew it would work for me, I just didn’t know at what level. And so I was able to learn the car faster than I thought, but it’s these little things – like driving on the loose on the hard tyres – that I have to learn.
Q. Turkey is your next event: it’s going to be much narrower and twistier. Given your commitment in the high-speed corners how will you fare in the technical stuff?
KB: I think it will be tough. Obviously I don’t know the roads, they’ve never been used before. But that’s one of the areas where I am struggling most right now, is getting the braking right in the tighter stuff and getting the car to rotate exactly how I want on the tighter stuff.
I felt a lot better today than yesterday. I’m still coming from the Group N car with the active diffs, where you keep your foot flat on the gas and then modulate with the steering and the brake. Trying to do that with this car, it doesn’t work. I’ve felt better today, adjusting my style, but I’m still not 100 per cent comfortable.
The biggest problem for me is being patient exiting the corner. I want to carry speed into the corner and get on the throttle early, but this car has so much torque that it’s spinning the wheels so fast. I’ve been timid learning that, but today is better.
Q. Do you have a test before Turkey?
KB: We’re not sure. We’re still trying to figure that out. I hope so, but if we don’t I know we have several other tests through the year. We expected a good test before this event and then a good amount of time in the car here and that would help us flow into the year. We might have to re-evaluate that now.
Q. What’s your next big test in the WRC?
KB: Getting ready for the tarmac.
Q. Have you ever competed on asphalt?
KB: Yeah, we have two rallies in America on tarmac. I’ve done one of them twice and won it both times. The competition on this event is lower than Rally America. I felt pretty comfortable on that event, but I know the margin for error is a lot smaller on tarmac, so I’m definitely going to be easing into my first tarmac rally.
Q. Are any of the other drivers helping you out?
KB: Jari-Matti [Latvala] has been probably the most helpful, Matthew [Wilson] as well. In fact, Matthew sat with me at my only test in the UK. Those guys have been really helpful, I think everybody has been very happy to see me here and helped me a lot.
Q. How did you sleep on Thursday night?
KB: I was nervous! My first time in a World Rally Car at this level, I was nervous. But, luckily, the way I had set this deal up, I knew my future did not depend on this event, so there wasn’t so much pressure on me that I have to perform on this event. This is a development year and we’re working into the speed.
Yesterday worked out pretty well and I had a pretty good day. I was sitting eighth for a while, but then we hit the rock in the middle of the road and the engine died. I was pushing every button I could think of and in the end I reset the master switch and it fired up, but we lost a minute. That was really disappointing because our times was one tenth of a second off Matthew on the stage before and that stage was going really well, so I was disappointed. But, you know what, hey this event has gone better than I expected – I thought I would be in last place!