Ryan McConkey

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Ryan McConkey
Ryan McConkey helmet.png
Superleague Career
Nationality United States American
Active Years 8
Team(s) MMC Racing
Synergetic Motorsports
Woods Racing
Constant Racing
Stealth Grand Prix
SCUM
Molotov F1
Grand Prix 34
Championships 0
Wins 0
Podium finishes    0
Pole positions 3
Fastest laps 2
First Grand Prix 2003 Australian Grand Prix
First Win
Last Win
Last Grand Prix 2009 Dutch Grand Prix

Ryan McConkey (born September 27, 1985 in Missoula, Montana, United States) is an American sim-racing driver and long-standing member of the GPVWC. He has competed in all of the leagues competitive series since 2003. He is currently test/reserve driver with Synergetic Motorsports in the Superleague, and owner/driver for MMC Racing in the Masters Series.


Sim-Racing Beginnings

McConkey began his sim-racing career during the summer of 2002. Previously only running Nascar Racing, and EA Sports F1 titles, he began racing with Grand Prix 4 upon its release in Summer 2002. Online Leagues for Grand Prix 4 were fairly sparse at the time, but McConkey joined one titled GP4League. Upon entering the league he joined the MolotovF1 team owned by Mariano Malisani. He raced in the last few events of the season and made somewhat of a splash with the league admin over whether the admin himself was cheating or not. McConkey only took part in a handful of races, but apparently made an impression on the track as well. Malisani was looking to put a team into GPVWC when it switched to GP4, therefore he asked McConkey if he wanted to drive for him there. Ryan accepted the offer, but only raced in one grand prix for MolotovF1. GPVWC collapsed soon after this and most of the teams disappeared. McConkey was without a drive, so he went to race at GPChampionship and SFO league. He soon got a job managing the Stealth entry in SFO, and gained valuable managing experience. However, the driving aspect in Ryan's career had been on hold for too long. He left the managing position at Stealth and entered his own team MMC Racing, having co-founded it with Matt Maple. The two drove together before in GPChampionship and had become good friends at the time. The team did fairly well in SFO, and by the time of September 2003 GPVWC had come back, except with the name F1VWC. McConkey heard there were slots still open for new teams and decided he'd enter MMC Racing into the league. This venture proved to be the correct move, as the SFO league collapsed at the end of the 2003 season.

F1VWC

2003

Ryan had entered MMC Racing into F1VWC in September 2003 in time for the United States Grand Prix. Teamed with driver Paul Sleight, the pair didn't score any points, but impressed for such a young team with an underpowered Mugen-Honda engine. The 2003 season finale at Suzuka proved to be one of McConkey's shining moments when he qualified 5th on the grid in a car with at least 50 horsepower less than the rest of the field. He ended up finishing 7th overall in the race thereby scoring MMC's first ever points in just it's 2nd race in the league.

2004

The 2004 campaign for Ryan and his team MMC Racing proved to be the most complete and best on average over the course of his presence in the F1VWC/GPVWC Superleague. Ryan was able to secure 3 consecutive pole positions during the course of the Belgian Grand Prix, Italian Grand Prix, and the French Grand Prix. Unfortunately, he was never able to secure a podium or win during the year, but his team secured their one and only Superleague victory at the Japanese Grand Prix.

2005

2005 proved to be a difficult year for McConkey and his team. Lack of motivation and also a lack of financial stability within the team posed many problems before the season had even got underway. Ryan decided to withdraw his team and himself as a driver on July 18th, 2005. He would eventually return again, however, 1 month later to help Ted Cragg after he took over the SCUM entry, with plans to re-brand it as his Stealth Grand Prix team for the 2006 season. His attention was mostly directed toward the F2VWC as co-admin and also as race driver for Stealth's entry.

2006

The American took up the position of test/reserve driver for Stealth Grand Prix in F1VWC and again at race driver position partnering with Kari Koski in the F2VWC. While achieving decent results in the F2VWC, Ryan only took part in 3 grands prix for Stealth in F1VWC and unfortunately all of them amounted to DNF's. The end of the 2006 season marked the beginning of a 2 year hiatus for McConkey from the GPVWC as it went through admin changes and even renaming back from F1VWC to the GPVWC moniker from years past.

F2VWC

2005

2006

GPVWC Superleague

2009

2011

Masters Series

Ryan McConkey
Masters-2010-McConkey.jpg
Masters Series Career
Nationality United States American
Active Years 2
Team(s) MMC Racing
Races 18
Championships 0
Wins 1
Podium finishes    8
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 3
First Race 2009 Laguna Seca

2009

McConkey's 2009 Android livery debut at Laguna Seca.

After working with Adam Rouse during the late Spring of 2009 to get a touring car series into the GPVWC, the inaugural Masters Series finally began on July 26th 2009. Unfortunately for McConkey he never took the grid for the very first round, having just missed it by only a few seconds. He was able to start the 2nd sprint race near the front however, so he lead for most of the race, but Rouse overtook him for the lead in the closing laps. Still, McConkey was happy with the outcome of the series, and had a great feeling about the remaining events.

The feeling proved correct, as McConkey achieved his first race win in a GPVWC event, albeit on a technicality, and he would eventually take home 3rd place in the points. His team MMC Racing also won the championship quite easily with such a strong 3 car team. It was the best result he had in any of the GPVWC series as a driver or team owner.

2010

The 2010 Masters campaign for McConkey ended up being very short-lived. Due to commitments elsewhere, he was only able to enter a lone event that took place around Cadwell Park.


2011

Ryan is eagerly awaiting the start of the 2011 edition of the Masters series. It will see the return of the original trio of MMC Racing in the form of Cullen, Rouse, and McConkey. A lethal combination during the 2009 campaign, the team will hopefully be able to repeat it's dominance of that year, and perhaps achieve even greater results.

Racing Career Results

Community Involvement

Upon joining the GPVWC community, McConkey has enjoyed several different positions within the league and helped establish the support series Supercup and Masters Series. He was briefly a forum admin, and for several seasons was a lap/file checker when the league still used GP4 and a TL-Code system.

In 2005, along with F1VWC Admin Kari Koski, William Ponissi and Ted Cragg, he helped form the F2VWC which would eventually become the Supercup series that is currently active. In 2006, McConkey took care of almost all admin duties of F2VWC. When F1VWC transformed back to GPVWC after the 2006 season, the F2VWC medium was put on hold.

After a 2 year hiatus, McConkey rejoined the GPVWC community in late 2008 to early 2009. By late Spring 2009 he began working with Adam Rouse on bringing a touring car series to the GPVWC. This would ultimately become the Masters Series which is still currently active. Ryan was the primary admin for the series during the inaugural campaign in 2009, but left it after the season concluded.

External Links