AMR DANI3L joins the sim racing blog roster here at simrace247.com. We welcome Dan joining and keeping the sim racing community posted on his events and more.
Yet more great people wanting to join the simrace247 blog roster for sim racing, AMR DANI3L is a growing community sim racer that hosts fun races, events and more.
Make no doubt about it, Dan is a hard worker that enjoys his sim racing and motorsport, it is with great pleasure to welcome him to simrace247 and the growing roster of people who write blogs and more.
Welcome DANI3L
Hello one and all! Welcome to the first of my weekly blogs. This is a very exciting opportunity for me to talk about my activities in sim racing and with my Youtube channel.
Before I proceed with the rest of this introductory blog, I would like to personally thank Darren from SimRace247 for this great partnership and for providing me with a platform which enables myself and other sim racers to express themselves & share our own personal experiences in sim racing with the world.
I cannot wait to post more about my journey each and every week. Whether I’ll be talking about the races I participate in or the fun content I create on the channel.
My name is Daniel Austins. I also go by my YT channel name which is “AMR DANI3L”. I’m 35 years of age and I live in the county of Shropshire in the United Kingdom. I’ve been playing racing games since Gran Turismo 1 when I was a young teenager.
But I’ve been participating in online competitive sim racing for just over 13 years now. WOW! Where has the time flown by?! Only feels like yesterday since it all started.
My sim racing journey began way back in 2008 on the good old XBOX 360 with Forza Motorsport 2. The first league that started it all off was with a group called TORA (The Online Racing Association) who hosted many championships using the Forza Motorsport franchise.
All motorsport disciplines were covered including single seaters, GT’s, Sportscars & touring cars. Those who read this who were part of TORA might remember my old XBOX Gamertag which was “ATR DAN”. I was a member of the community for 8 years and achieved a lot of success along the way.
But in 2016, my adventure stopped for a little while. I made the decision to take an early retirement from competitive sim racing due to the severe struggles I was enduring with my mental health (which I’ve been suffering with for the past 15 years).
I honestly thought at that time, with everything I was going through, that I would never pick up this wonderful hobby again! However, a couple of years later, I came across a certain streamer on Youtube by the name of Jimmy Broadbent.
You might have heard of him? After discovering his channel and learning all about his own battles with mental health, it was amazing to follow his progress to see how he had developed over time. And where he is today is truly incredible. I found it very inspiring. It gave me the strong hope and possibility that if he could conquer his personal struggles and be successful, so could I.
So, I made the decision to try and save as much money as I could for all the parts needed to build my very first gaming PC. Considering this was something I had never done before, it was a daunting first experience!
I can remember all those hours it had taken me to build the PC and the amount of sweat I produced during. Not a pleasant sight! Ha Ha! Thankfully, it all worked out so I’m not complaining one bit. All of the effort involved was definitely worth it!
And here we are at this present day, I’ve been live streaming and creating video content on my Youtube channel for just over 2 years. I’m still not 100% in myself but since starting this venture, I’m already feeling that my self-esteem and confidence have grown astronomically.
At the time of writing, I have just over 800 subscribers which I’m really proud of. Never would have imagined that I could achieve that when I first started all this back in 2019. I wouldn’t feel comfortable at all if I didn’t mention my subscribers for which this wouldn’t have been possible. So, I would like to thank everyone who has subbed to me.
Without your support and encouragement, I wouldn’t have found the motivation to carry on doing what I love most. I’m always extremely grateful to you all. I would also like to thank the wonderful people I’ve met and got to know personally.
Some of whom I’ve helped with their sim racing ventures and some I’ve teamed up with. You have been amazing and have always believed in me. It has been a privilege to know you all and to have shared so many incredible memories. I cannot wait for more!
Admittedly, 2021 was a very difficult year personally for all kinds of reasons. There were some very tough times along the way. Don’t get me wrong though! It wasn’t an entirely terrible one! There were still some great moments that I experienced as well.
Competing in various one-off Sim Grid races, the many hilarious accidents I endured on stream in DiRT Rally 2.0 whilst trying to perform in the Mastercup series, finding new communities to race with including RDC (Rapid Drivers Club) & also participating in a couple of endurance races.
But best of all, having the amazing opportunity of being a team mate to a fellow Youtube content creator & absolutely wonderful person called Deb (Andie The Lab) in The Sim Grid More Female Racers Championship (#316 Strix Racing).
At the end of last year, I stopped streaming for a little while for personal reasons. I completely lost my motivation and decided to take a little bit of a break to try & look after my family as well as gather my thoughts together.
But now, just like a Phoenix, I’m attempting to rise from the ashes and return much stronger than ever. I’m very determined that 2022 will be a vastly better year compared to the previous one.
I’ll be attempting to stream as much as I possibly can. The titles which I play on stream with the channel include Assetto Corsa Competizione, DiRT Rally 2.0, Assetto Corsa, WRC 10 and the Forza Horizon franchise.
All of my competitive sim racing will mainly be in ACC! However, those plans might change as the year goes on. Also, I want to start venturing back into or trying out other titles including Automobilista 2, GT Legends (if I can get my wheel to work with the game), the F1 franchise and many others.
Also, if you love rallying, then I will be hosting monthly events in DiRT Rally 2.0 & WRC 10. I will post all of the event details and results in my upcoming blogs as well on social media. So, if you would like to participate, then simply search for “AMR DANI3L’s Club” in WRC 10 and the link for my DiRT Rally club can be found below:
This week will be mainly spent preparing for my return to streaming. January 10th will see me returning to competition with the first round of the BOA eSports GT3 Series. It will be nerve wrecking to go back to streaming for sure because it’s been around 2 months since I last went live on the YT channel.
I will be a little rusty to begin with. But it’ll be a case of adapting as best as I can and getting into the groove again nice and slowly. But I have really missed live streaming and interacting with my awesome subscribers I feel very fortunate to have. I honestly cannot wait to get going again!
You can subscribe to my Youtube channel as well as follow me on Twitter & Instagram (all of the links below).
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this first blog. Really appreciate it a lot. I cannot wait to produce the next one for you all to read very soon!! Take care, stay safe & happy sim racing!!
You can follow me here on:
- Youtube: AMRDANI3L
- Instagram: Instagram AMR_DANI3L
- Twitter: Twitter AMR_DANI3L
