iRacing.com's Intel GT series kicked off with the North American Regionals last week with the top 20 drivers qualifing for the regional final and a chance to win a Intel® Core™ i5 Processor, Motherboard and $50 iRacing credits, aswell as a spot in the grand final in March 2012 with the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship.
Round One of the series saw drivers running a 30min race with the HPD ARX-01C cars at the beautiful and iconic Spa-Francorchamps Circuit in Belgium, the top 20 drivers that qualified for the regional final included nfinity eSport's very own Kenneth O’Keefe from Eastern Canada. Kenneth claimed the top spot in dominating style with Lowland Lion's PJ Stergios (New England) finishing 2nd and Time Racing Club's Ken Leach (New York) just behind in 3rd place.
The other 17 drivers that Qualified was Ryan Terpstra (Michigan), George Sandman (Calfifornia), Phillip Diaz (Florida), Wyatt Gooden (Ohio), Kevin Parrish (Indiana), Andrew Slowcombe (Florida), Jake Stergios (New England), Gary Borkenhagen (MidWest), Etienne Leger (Eastern Canada), Austin Cobb (MidSouth), Kevin Riley (MidWest), Loren Bateman (Plains), Shawn Murphy (Texas), David Hudson (Virginias), Nick Neben (Plains), Chuck Johnson (MidSouth) and Sean Scott (Indiana).
The Regional Final was held on the following weekend with the top 20 qualifers all fighting for the honours and the 8 grand final spots on offer. Ken Leach took the pole spot with a time of 2:02.413 with PJ Stergios biting Ken's bumper in 2nd place with a 2:02.416, and his brother Jake Stergios in 3rd with a 2:02.575. nfinity's Kenneth O'Keefe could only manage a 2:02.634 to put him 4th place on the grid and gave himself a lot of work to do in the race.
The race got underway with Kenneth and Jake Stergios going two abreast into Eau Rouge on lap 1 which resulted in slight contact, sending Jake into the wall and kenneth sliding up Eau Rouge as he regained control of his HPD ARX. a few turns later and the leaders battled hard forcing kenneth to run off line, giving ex nfinity esports and RSR's Wyatt Gooden the chance to take 3rd from Kenneth and chase down PJ Stergios.
The top 4 then proceeded to stay calm and put some warmth into their tyres for the next few laps until Wyatt Gooden misjudged PJ Stergios's braking and rear ended his car resulting in both cars spinning off and granting Kenneth the lead of the race with a comfortable lead over the following pack.
Kenneth started to put his head down with the clean track in front and was not going to be stopped as he lead the race right to the chequered flag to claim the top step of the podium, taking home the winners prizes and a ticket to the grand final in March at the Intel Extreme Masters Championship.
Kenneth would like to thanks nfinity eSports Racing, Diabloskinz, Jakacom, Bigpond and TserverHQ for the continuing support.
