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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
Loeb clinches Rally Mexico victory
March 7th, 2010
Sebastien Loeb has moved into the World Rally Championship lead after winning Rally Mexico for the fourth time in his career.
Petter Solberg narrowly beat Sebastien Ogier to second in a final stage shootout – just a second separating the pair at the finish – while Rally Sweden winner Mikko Hirvonen had to settle for fourth. Kimi Raikkonen’s tough rally switch also continued with an incident-packed first day ending in a multiple roll.
Loeb dominated the second half of the event, making the best of his road position on the first day to complete leg one in third, before unleashing astounding speed on Saturday to turn a 27s overnight deficit into a lead of 55s. Loeb then cruised through today’s stages at a very leisurely pace to clinch the win.
“Finally a victory and back in the lead of the championship,” he said. “It was important after Sweden to win here. It’s only the start of the championship but I’m really happy. We had a really good drive yesterday. Now it’s looking good.”
Prior to Loeb’s charge, Solberg had led the opening day ahead of Ogier. The non-works Citroen pair then battled for second in Loeb’s wake, going into the deciding superspecial with Ogier ahead by a scant 0.6s.
Ogier had been edging ever closer to Solberg since Saturday morning, but the former world champion was 1.7s quicker than his young rival on the superspecial and managed to reclaim second by a tiny 1.1s margin – to Solberg’s ecstatic, tearful, delight.
After their triumph in Sweden, Hirvonen and Ford had a miserable time in Mexico. The Finn was hampered by running first on the road on Friday, but generally lacked pace all weekend. Only late team orders allowed him to get past team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala and up to fourth.
“It was a very difficult weekend for the whole team,” Hirvonen admitted. “We never really had the speed. Lots of small mistakes on my side as well. In the end I’m glad we got the points we could and I just want to leave it behind and go on to the next rally.”
Latvala had no qualms about handing fourth to Hirvonen even though he had been the faster Ford driver all weekend.
“We are the second driver this year and that’s part of our job,” said Latvala. “Mikko needs these points more now for his title against Loeb. We want to give him as good a chance in the fight as possible.”
Henning Solberg took sixth for Stobart Ford despite brake problems, ahead of Munchi’s Ford’s Federico Villagra, as attrition hit the rest of the WRC field.
Citroen number two Dani Sordo was running ahead of the Fords in fourth until a Saturday morning error left him with broken suspension. The same stage saw both Matthew Wilson (Stobart) and debutant Ken Block (Monster Ford) crash out – although the latter had impressed with his pace on his first WRC outing, often matching Wilson.
Raikkonen’s rally went awry early on when he bent a steering arm on the opening stage then stopped for half an hour with a fuel system fault on SS2. He crashed for good five stages later.
Former Citroen WRC driver Xevi Pons announced his return to the series by winning the S2000 class after a close battle with fellow Ford driver Martin Prokop. An alternator glitch halted early leader Michal Kosciuszko, while Eyvind Brynildsen crashed on the opening morning.
There was nothing to choose between Armindo Araujo and Toshi Arai in the Production division until the latter’s brake fluid boiled and caused him to go off on a road section. He rejoined to take a distant second behind the victorious Araujo.
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Sebastien Loeb Citroen 3h42m41.7s 2. Petter Solberg Citroen + 24.2s 3. Sebastien Ogier Citroen + 25.3s 4. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 1m47.5s 5. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford + 2m15.1s 6. Henning Solberg Ford + 2m48.0s 7. Federico Villagra Ford + 10m13.4s 8. Xevi Pons Ford + 18m44.4s 9. Martin Prokop Ford + 19m02.0s 10. Armindo Araujo Mitsubishi + 21m32.5s