Get to Know: Alex Warren

For this week’s article, I interviewed a fellow sim-racer from Illinois. In the three years he has been on iRacing, he has accomplished a great deal. Besides winning many races on the oval and road side, he has won several different iRacing championships, including last year’s NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series. He was able to race full time in the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship this year, where he finished in the top 25 in points. When not iRacing, he is currently attending North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. The driver I interviewed for this week is the one and only Alex Warren.

The 20 year old Warren has started nearly 900 oval races on iRacing, including the Class A, Pro and SWC series. He has visited victory lane 67 times, including 10 times this year. He is also an accomplished road racer, having started 72 races and visiting victory lane 11% of the time. That is only part of what he has done on iRacing. He won the 2011 Season 4 of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C series and finished third in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class A points standings in 2011 Season 3, which earned him a spot in the NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series, which he later went on to win. If you want to learn more about this rising driver, read on…

Q:     How long have you been sim racing?
A:     I have been sim racing for 3 years.

Q:     How did you get started in iRacing?
A:     I got started when my friends told me to get iRacing. It looked interesting, so I tried it out and the rest is history.

Q:     Which race car driver do you look up to the most?
A:     I really look up to Brad Keselowski the most. He is a driver that may not look like a typical NASCAR driver, but works his ass off each week and speaks his mind on things. He also doesn’t care what people think of him, just as long as they don’t hate him. To me, you can get anywhere in life with hard work.

Q:     What type of hobbies do you do outside of iRacing?
A:     I really enjoy sports like golf, football, and baseball. I really like to play those sports instead of watching them on TV.

Q:     What is your greatest accomplishment on iRacing?
A:     Winning the Pro Series championship earlier this year. It was a memory that I will never forget because no one thought I was a threat to win, but with great work from my teammates, crew chief/spotter and some luck, I was able to win the championship.

Q:     What is one long term goal that you hope to still accomplish in iRacing?
A:     I really hope to win the DWC championship someday. It’s going to be tough because of all the competition each year, but if you catch the lucky breaks in each race finish top 5 majority of the season, you can win. I really hope I do win it someday.

People want to race and have fun and that’s what I’m all about when I’m racing.

Q:     What type of racing do you like to watch on TV?

A:     I mostly watch NASCAR each week and I try to watch every race on Saturday or Sunday. I do follow though Indycar and F1 sometimes.

Q:     How do you think your fellow iRacers see you?
A:     I hope that they see me as a pretty respectable guy, who is clean and quiet competitor, because that’s who I am. If anything else, they are looking at the wrong guy!

Q:     Who is Alex Warren outside of iRacing?
A:     Outside of iRacing, I’m a caring, friendly, outgoing guy who never quits and never gives up on anything. Also, I always try and have fun, no matter what.

Q:     If there was one thing you could change about iRacing, what would it be?
A:     I would like iRacing to change the one lane racing every week to multi-groove racing. It would be more fun and more of a challenge in my opinion to change your racing groove.

Q:    What is one thing that you love the most about iRacing?
A:     I really love the community. People want to race and have fun and that’s what I’m all about when I’m racing. There will be the occasional idiot trying to ruin other people’s races on purpose, but the majority of this sim-racing community is awesome.

Q:     Overall, how do you rate your success on iRacing?
A:     I feel like I’m a really good driver, hopefully one day, I’ll be the best, but it’s going to be a while until that happens.

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/iracing-news/get-to-know-alex-warren

Mike Hailwood Mika Häkkinen Bruce Halford Jim Hall Duncan Hamilton