John Pinder AKA SirSpats Gaming is now part of the team here at simrace247. Being a great supporter of those in the sim racing community, let’s get an insight.
You may know him as one of the great driving forces spreading the word in the Assetto Corsa community and more, John Pinder AKA SirSpats Gaming has joined our team here at simrace247.
His first blog and input to the site is a detailed assessment of the guy who has shown massive support and respect to the sim racing community. Here we get an insight into the man that took passion and made something out of it.
Having John with us and being with the team is a perfect fit for us here at simrace247. As I mentioned before, we connect on work ethics and are heavily driven people that enjoy our sim racing and motorsport.
But enough from me (Darren) here is our introduction from John.
What a brilliant way to start 2022! After speaking to Darren in December last year, I was flattered to be asked to join the SimRace247 team. Of course, I said yes right away, SimRace247 is where I already consumed most of my sim racing news and the opportunity to join was a fantastic end to a great year for my YouTube journey, and here is my first blog post!
First up, I have always loved cars, I think that’s why most of us are here in the sim racing world. The opportunity to drive cars we may never actually own around tracks or maps we may never actually see is a great pull, as well as racing with people from all around the world!
Being of a more mature generation, ahem, my gaming started with the ZX81 and then BBC micro. Playing Revs on the BBC, I would never have thought we would get to this point, VR, Motion Rigs, Sim Racing set ups and the amazing wheels and equipment to go with it.
2021 was an incredible year for my YouTube channel. Originally started in July 2020 as a way to pass time in the first lockdown in the UK, it has grown to close to 17k subscribers!
Assetto Corsa became my game of choice for two reasons, firstly the enormous amount of car and track mods from the modding community and secondly the need for tutorials and guides on how to get the best out of the experience. Sir Spats Gaming is the place to land if you want new mods, tracks, maps and CSP and Sol tutorials!
With my real life job involving coaching, this really appealed to me and 260 videos later, here we are with a community on Discord now of over 2500 racers. With the channel I also wanted it to be a place where people can share their passion in a family friendly environment, share their love for cars and make friends, which I have, meeting some great people from around the world!
And of course, we run races every week! These are hot lap events, or sprint races and sometimes free roam meet ups. The channel now has two Race Directors, Hippy from Canada and Jorg from Germany. Catch up with them on Discord and they can point you in the direction of all of our free events.
I have also now started on my Twitch journey with streams every week. The main reason for moving some content on twitch is to answer all the questions live on Assetto Corsa mods and of course to have more fun meets where supporters of the channel can race in events with me and my strictly average sim racing skills!
I said earlier that I have a passion for cars, so I thought I would share a couple of my favourites. I would say I am a bit of a car fanatic, there are so many I would like to own so tend to change quite quickly!
This year I bought a Mk2 MR2 that had a full professional Engine upgrade to a V6 by Rogue Motorsport. What an amazing car to drive! 240 BHP V6 just behind you in a light mid engine car, just awesome!
Another favourite from a number of years ago was this VX220. This was the normally aspirated version with 140 BHP. Don’t let that fool you though as 0-50 at 5.1 seconds in what is effectively a Lotus Elise Mk1 was a very fun drive. Prices are climbing on these now, definitely a future classic!
To support John visit:
- Discord: SirSpats Gaming Server
- Youtube channel: SirSpats Gaming – YouTube
In 2022, I am hoping to bring more live motorsport to the channel and get closer to the Esports and wider Sim Racing Scene. There is also a Sir Spats Gaming car project in the works!
A big thank you to Darren from SimRace247 for his support and really looking forward to sharing more of my journey and contributing to this great site.
