Rick Stratton

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Born in upstate NY, 1963. Short subsequent stints in Alabama and Maryland, then back to the Catskill Mountains of New York State for my formative years (1972 - 1981). The winter of 1982 found me travelling to South Florida, which I have called home since. Originally an Art major, I gravitated toward Photography and found myself most at home inside the darkroom. As that technology slowly ebbed and dissappeared, I migrated toward digital photogrpahy, digital video, computers and data management. I currently work helping integrate various digital imaging systems into an EMR environment. Married to my wife and best friend for over 20 years, we have been blessed with two wonderful kids, both of whom are away studying in college.

Considered myself a "car nut" for as long as I can remember, lived and died for the sporatic magazine articles (usually months out of date) of anything coming from Europe; Formula One, LeMans, anything. Got a chance to see my first (and as it turned out only) F1 race at Watkins Glen as a young lad. Walking from the parking lot to trackside, I was overcome by the sound of Lauda's boxer 12 screaming down the front straight... I was hooked! I can still remember my heart pounding in my chest at the sound of it.

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Simracing

Computer gaming for me had been aviation sims, until some one handed me a copy of Microprose World Circuit. I toyed with other sims but my computer(s) were always woefully underpowered to actually play them. GPL hit the shelves and I struggled for nearly a year to raise enough money to get a PC at home capable of running it! Good things come to those who wait I suppose, by the time I had the PC, GPL was online and rolling, VROC made it all so easy and I felt like I was in heaven! My league racing experience started when I met up with the boys from TCC [Team Cooper Cup], a Cooper-only spec league. TCC evolved into COBRHA [Cooper-BRM-Honda league] and the fun lasted several years. As GPL started showing it's age, I bounced around with whatever the latest was; GTR, GTL, rFactor, GTP but never found the commoradorie that I had with COBRHA. Eventually I retired the wheel and stepped away from simracing, occasionally checking on the net to see what was new. When I saw v2 of the GP1979 mod was released, I thought I would give it a try. I did not like v1, I felt the cars were unrealistically "skiddish" and was pleasantly surprised to see they had addressed the issue, and that eventually lead me to Legends League. Glad to have found the group, glad to be back behind the wheel and glad to be back into competitive racing. Still feeling a bit rusty on race day, but enjoying every minute.