MURRAY, Utah — official team release by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Boomtown Sim photo —
May 7 is a day that sits very fondly in the memory bank for Boomtown Sim team principal Corbin Himstreet.
It’s the day one year ago that the team he heads up came into being, and 365 days later, the veteran sim racer sat down with Race Chaser Online to share his thoughts on the team’s recent expansion, as well as offer the backstory behind the earliest sparks for the operation.
“To this day, it’s a funny story actually,” Himstreet laughed of the group’s fledgling beginnings. “It took me, Justin Wilson and Forest Schneider being kicked out of Aero Loose Racing for Boomtown to be born. They kicked us for ‘aggressive driving’ even though they couldn’t cite any actual incidents that lead to the decision.”
“Once we got kicked to the curb we decided to stick together in looking for new places to race. That’s when I bumped into Mitch Rollo at a tiny racing league of about 30 guys called 5-Star Racing. Mitch impressed me with his skill despite his relative inexperience — I knew he could be great with some coaching — so I talked to Justin and we decided to hold a practice with he and Joey English.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Rollo and Himstreet became the driving force behind Boomtown’s rise in the iRacing community, and the group’s cornerstone goal in the sim-racing world was to chase high profile league racing championships — a goal that Rollo said quickly became attainable despite his lack of time on the service.
“I had only been on iRacing for about 3 months when Corbin approached me about driving for him,” Rollo recalled. “I was definitely excited for the opportunity and what it could do for my sim racing career. The goals Corbin had in mind were ones that I thought that — given the right group of people and circumstances — we could succeed in reaching.”
The list of people who guided the team began at the NoBull Motorsport league in 2014, where the organization began to figure out how to work as a team with guidance from then-league admin, Rick Donathan. While Boomtown’s time there saw Wilson depart to focus on his real-life racing career in Florida, the group gained stalwarts Brock Hopkins and “super-spotter” turned driver, Jared Comeau, to add to their ranks — culminating their growth with the 2014 Season 3 NoBull Motorsport Cup Series championship in the fall of 2014.
“That was a big moment for us,” Himstreet said. “After we got the big prize at NoBull, we started to really go after the big boys and turned our attention to Real Sim Racing and their Full Throttle Cup Series for 2015.”
In all, Boomtown’s stat-line currently boasts the 2014 Clocks by Christopher Cup Series Teams Championship and the 2015 Doyourpart.org Truck Series title, as well as 41 league race victories across eight different iRacing leagues since the team’s formation.
But despite a less-full trophy case than one might expect, Himstreet says that the group has vastly overachieved his expectations since its humble beginnings one year ago.
“We came basically from the dirt, getting kicked out of the only league I knew, to being a top competition team in =RSR= — all in 365 days,” Himstreet smiled. “That’s pretty special, if you ask me. Now we’re on the upswing, and there’s nowhere to go but keep climbing higher.”
With Boomtown’s current focus on Real Sim Racing’s family of leagues, they have also expanded their driver roster, adding team rookies Christopher Hurlow and Anthony DeBaro first to their =RSR= Asphalt Assault XFINITY Series squad, and then to their premier =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series team with the start of the second segment in 2015. Hurlow joined the crew after being a solo pilot for most of his time on iRacing, and says that the dynamic has helped his online racing tremendously — despite having to take time off recently after being injured in a frightening car accident.
“Boomtown Sim has helped me realize that racing is much more rewarding when you have teammates to lean on for advice or to work with on or off the race track,” Hurlow said. “I have realized that I have more fun when my teammates and I all run well. I used to only care about my goals in sim racing but now I’m more focused on what’s best for the team. Being with Boomtown has made me push harder to be a better race car driver because my teammates are very talented drivers and they push me to be better every day.”
“It means the world to me that they have stuck by my side throughout my car accident and injuries and it really made me realize how blessed I am to call them my teammates and friends. I’m very fortunate to be given the opportunity to work with such a great group of guys who share the same goals that I do.”
While the team as a whole has not yet claimed an =RSR= checkered flag as of writing, they have finished second in both Full Throttle Cup (Bristol) and Outlaw Truck (Kentucky) Series action with Himstreet at the wheel, with DeBaro also posting a powerful fourth-place effort in his Kentucky start as well.
Most recently, the trio of DeBaro, Rollo and Himstreet was powering towards the front in Monday night’s FTCS stop at Talladega Superspeedway before a pair of unfortunate crashes ended their shot at the win.
But despite their recent bad luck — Himstreet is unworried about where the team is headed, and says the entire team is using it as motivation to prove they belong.
“To be totally honest, I am struggling to keep up with the growth of this team,” Himstreet admitted of Boomtown’s recent explosion of momentum. “Everyday it seems like we’re jumping by leaps and bounds. I owe Jason Swann (Steel Horse Racing team principal) for his advice helping me keep it organized and under some control.”
“This team is headed up — quickly. I couldn’t be more surprised and more thankful for where we’re going. I have to thank everyone on this team for always pushing to get us to the next step. It’s an amazing time to be apart if this great organization.”
“We’ve come this far in one year. I can’t wait to see what year two is like.”
For more information on Boomtown Sim, visit the team on Facebook.
CREDIT: Boomtown Sim
