iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations was founded by John Henry and Dave Kaemmer in September of 2004. Although they came from different backgrounds, Henry and Kaemmer shared a common vision: creating the world's most authentic online motorsport simulation as a source of entertainment and training for racing fans, competitors and racing game enthusiasts around the world. By using state-of-the-art technology to enable and organize real-time, online racing, Henry and Kaemmer hoped to deepen the understanding and enjoyment of the sport for novice and expert racers alike, while nurturing the development of a global online racing community.

Henry and Kaemmer brought disparate talents and experience to iRacing.com. Among the most successful investment managers in the futures industry, Henry is founder of Boca Raton, Fla.-based John W. Henry & Company which serves leading money center banks, brokerage firms, multi-national corporations and private clients worldwide. The former owner of Major League Baseball's Florida Marlins, in 2002 Henry led a group of investors in the purchase of the Boston Red Sox who, two years later, went on to win their first World Series championship in nearly a century. Henry also heads New England Sports Ventures, whose Fenway Sports Group partnered with Roush Racing to form Roush Fenway Racing, one of the most successful entrants in NASCAR.

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In addition to being a leading financier and race team owner, Henry has long-been an avid simracer. He raced virtual race cars both online and in an assortment of computer console games since the early 1990s and, shortly after acquiring the Boston Red Sox, he established the Red Sox Racing League online. Little did Henry know that in developing his simracing skills on titles such as Grand Prix Legends, NASCAR Racing and NASCAR Racing 2003, he was using many of the award-winning video games developed by his future business partner Kaemmer.

After graduating from Oberlin College in 1985 with a degree in mathematics, Kaemmer had become a pioneer in PC-based motorsports simulation and online racing. Following a stint with an educational software firm, he co-founded the Boston-based Papyrus Design Group where he developed Indianapolis 500: The Simulation. Kaemmer went on to develop a host of award-winning race simulation video game titles at Payrus including NASCAR Racing, Grand Prix Legends (one of the first multiplayer racing games), NASCAR 2002 and NASCAR Racing 2003.

Kaemmer eventually sold his company to Sierra Entertainment and, while continuing as a consultant to Sierra, pursued real world racing in the Skip Barber Racing Series which fueled his interest in developing still more authentic racing simulations.

"I always felt that video-game racing was nothing like real racing," he says. "At Skip Barber I realized that you can have a lot of fun racing, even if you're not in NASCAR or Formula One."

It was about that time that Kaemmer and Henry first met. They began exchanging e-mails discussing their perspectives about online racing, its future directions and what role they might play in that future. They soon realized that Kaemmer's technical expertise and Henry's financial savvy and resources, together with their passion for online racing, gave them the foundation for a company that could take online motorsports simulation to the next level.

Soon after forming their company (F.I.R.S.T., LLC) Kaemmer and Henry purchased the proprietary technology behind NASCAR Racing 2003 from Vivendi Universal (which had acquired Sierra Entertainment). That technology (aka the "physics engine") uses complex mathematical functions to replicate the motion-producing forces associated with moving vehicles, enabling the creation of virtual race cars that behave like "real" race cars.

As Vivendi had closed-down Papyrus, FIRST was able to recruit a number of Kaemmer's former team of software engineers. To this core group, Kaemmer and Henry added vehicle dynamics engineers with experience designing and tuning real world race cars, a group of highly-skilled illustrators and graphic artists and set about realizing their collective vision of creating the world's most authentic race simulation service.

It would take FIRST four years of development before that service -- iRacing.com --was ready to be introduced to the public. Hand-in-hand with significant improvements to the NASCAR 2003 physics engine was the ongoing process of vehicle modeling. iRacing's vehicle dynamicists worked with auto manufacturers and racecar constructors to precisely measure the mass and dimensions of vehicles and their components through CAD data, laser scanning and, in some cases, physically disassembling the cars' chassis, suspension and driveline.

However, much of the company's effort was also focused on the development and production of the system's race tracks using state-of-the-art laser scanning technology. The laser scanning produces a three dimensional profile of a track's racing surface and adjacent curbing, including not only the road camber but the cracks, undulations and patches in the pavement to an accuracy of a few millimeters. Trackside grandstands, buildings, trees and even trash cans are captured by the scanning process, enabling a near perfect virtual re-creation of any motorsport venue. As well, licensing agreements had to be negotiated with participating race tracks throughout the United States being modeled for the iRacing service.

Another area of focus was the creation and development of Web-site technology enabling thousands of online racers worldwide to compete -- simultaneously -- in different race cars on different race tracks.

Still another consideration was the creation of a sanctioning body to administer and oversee the competition on iRacing.com. As Henry noted, "Cars, tracks and drivers are the building blocks of this new sport, but a centralized sanctioning body is critical to bringing them together. Organizing any global sport is a very involved, complex challenge. The best sanctioning bodies minimize that complexity for their athletes, so that they can focus on the fun part -- the competition. We aim to do the same for our members."

The resulting sanctioning body developed a comprehensive licensing system designed to discourage reckless driving in a sport that lacks the financial and physical deterrents inherent in real world racing. Additionally, a means of measuring the proficiency of the individual online racers -- the iRating -- was created, one that automatically groups drivers by skill levels for individual races and assigns them to divisions where they can compete for season-long championships.

After exhaustive testing by a cadre of veteran online racers -- together with experienced professional race drivers including NASCAR's Dale Earnhardt Jr., IndyCar's Justin Wilson and GRAND-AM's Alex Gurney to verify the authentic "feel" of the virtual cars -- iRacing.com launched its service to the public in August of 2008.

The service was made available to members for a baseline subscription price that included more than half a dozen race tracks (including the Lanier National, Oxford Plains and South Boston Speedways, the Lime Rock Park, Summit Point and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca road courses and all the different configurations of Charlotte Motor Speedway) and two cars -- the Legends Car '34 Ford and Pontiac Solstice Club Sport -- a package suited to novice simracers. More experienced online racers could add to their catalogue of cars and tracks by purchasing them for a one-time charge. And as novice simracers gained experience in the sport, they could also acquire additional tracks and cars. Although the service enables members to practice with any car on any track at any time, like the simracers themselves, the cars are graded by performance. Thus races in high-performance cars are only open to members who have shown they can race safely with others on the track.

Within the first month of public operation, iRacing.com had attracted 3,000 members, a number that reached 10,000 in less than a year and which continues to grow. iRacing has also continually expanded its offerings of race cars and tracks, and now includes a line-up of virtually every major paved oval and permanent road course in the United States, as well as road courses in Canada, England and the Netherlands with plans for additional international circuits in Europe, Australia and Japan.

iRacing's inventory of virtual race cars is equally as impressive. All the top NASCAR categories are represented with the Chevrolet Impala COT and SS (i.e. NASCAR Nationwide Series), as well as the Chevy Silverado and Chevrolet Impala Late Model. Also available are SK Modifieds and Silver Crown cars as well as a wide range of sports and formula cars including the IndyCar Dallara, the Lotus 79 (in which Mario Andretti won the 1978 World Championship), the Riley Mk XX Daytona Prototype, Corvette C6.R, Volkswagen Jetta TDI, Star Mazda and Formula Skip Barber cars. Currently on the drawing board are the Williams FW31 Formula One car and the Ford Falcon raced in the popular Australian V8 Supercar Series.

NASCAR to Formula One, Daytona International Speedway to the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit, iRacing has rapidly developed into the premier service in online racing in the United States and around the world, with some 35 geographically-based clubs from California to New England, France and Italy to South America and Australia/New Zealand. Divided into four 12-week seasons, the 2009-10 iRacing season culminated in the World Cup of iRacing, which saw simracers around the world compete on behalf of their clubs for seasonal and annual championships. The competition culminated in the inaugural World Cup of iRacing Final which was won by Club DE-AT-CH (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) over Club England and Club Ohio.

iRacing has also regularly upgraded its infrastructure and the myriad of features associated with the service. Less than a year after commencing public operations, for example, iRacing put into service a server farm in Australia featuring a Tier 1 data center with 24/7 monitoring and multiple Internet links to insure iRacers in Austral-Asia access to state-of-the-art service. And, in contrast to console games, iRacing continually updates its service with features ranging from enhanced video capture to improved physics on the cars and tires, and customizable paint schemes on iRacers' cars and helmets.

Although there will never be an end-point to the ongoing development of its services and features, under the direction of president Tony Gardner iRacing.com has already made remarkable progress in turning the original vision of Henry and Kaemmer into reality. In the process, they also confirmed the foresight of former NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. who, in the early '90s, predicted that future generations of race fans would experience the excitement and challenge of NASCAR racing using computerized race simulations.

All of those dreams took another step towards realization when, in May of 2009, NASCAR and iRacing.com announced the establishment of a multitude of NASCAR and iRacing-sanctioned online series that mirror the real world. The resulting series include SK Modifieds, Late Models, NASCAR Camping World Series trucks and NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars as well as the pinnacle of online racing, the NASCAR iRacing.com World Championship Series (NiWCS). Featuring the world's top 50 oval simracers, the NiWCS is covered on NASCAR.COM. Fittingly, the inaugural race was won by Earnhardt.