AMR DANI3L keeps the sim racing community posted with his upcoming community races and streams. Check him out and join in with the fun!
AMR DANI3L is a great community sim racer that enjoys racing, challenges and more. Dan likes to take part in league races, but also has fun with friends and like minded sim racers from the gaming community. Make sure you visit his socials and Youtube channel and subscribe, sign up and join in.
Hello one and all. Welcome to the eighth blog of 2022. Hard to believe that it’s been that many that I’ve created already. But I do hope that you’ve all enjoyed the previous 7 that I’ve written as well? And thank you for taking the time to read blog number 8.
Speaking of my previous blog, I mentioned the possibility of switching platforms for the purposes of streaming as well as trying to expand and grow my brand. The reasoning behind this was the frustrations of trying to stream regularly as well as creating video content on Youtube. After doing this now for the past 2 years and 10 months, I thought it would be time for a change. To take a risk and see what happens.
You can find out what decision I have concluded in this quick little channel update video I created. Also, as a bonus, you’ll get to see the rare appearance of my pet cat, Molly, in the video as well.
With my future in content creating now revealed, let’s talk you through all of my live streams from this past week on Youtube. Starting with the most important one, with the sixth and penultimate round of the BoA eSports GT3 Championship from the circuit of Snetterton.
The reason why this event was so important, is because there was the possibility that I could clinch the PRO Driver’s Championship in this race. With 46 points on offer for a win, I was 36 points in the lead of the series from the McLaren of Miles Hemming.
But the gap between first and second in every event is only 9 points. So ideally, I would have needed to win the race with Hemming finishing 3rd or lower in the PRO class for myself to claim the title at this event. And knowing how strong the McLaren 720’s have been in this series, I wasn’t convinced that it was going to happen at Snetterton.
However, with dynamic weather install for the race meeting, that form could literally be turned upside down. And sure enough, I was in luck! Because the entire event would turn out to be typically British with it being a damp one. I knew after the dominant result I had last time around at Paul Ricard in the rain, I could potentially be on for another great result in the slippery conditions.
After first practise, it looked very encouraging as I was only 2 tenths off the fastest time set by Graeme Kerr in his BMW. Crucially though, I was running with race fuel in the session rather than a lighter load.
Going into qualifying, my hopes were high, but there was also a little bit of pressure to do well. Not only to get ahead of my main opposition of Kerr and Hemming, but the conditions were evolving into heavier rain, 10 minutes into the 15-minute session. So, whilst the weather was at its best at the start of the session, there was only that small window of opportunity to produce a good lap in time before the track conditions got even worse.
It all worked out just fine though and I managed to secure pole position for the main race, but only by 2 tenths of a second from the BMW of Kerr. More surprisingly, my nearest championship rival, Hemming, was only able to qualify in 5th position, a massive 1.4 seconds off my pole position lap.
Mercifully, the 60-minute race was also a wet affair which I was thankful for. It made the crucial job of strategies so much easier. My plan for the event was to go as long as possible in the first stint before pitting, and then having a much shorter second stint, so I could pull away even further in the latter portion of the race.
Thankfully, everything went according to plan. The only issues I endured in the race was the fact I ran slightly wide at turn one at the very start, where I almost cost myself the race lead to Kerr’s BMW. It was very close but I just about go away with it.
And then, 30 minutes into the race, I was consulting my sheet of notes where I had written all of the tire pressures I needed for every condition on the back straight in time for my scheduled pitstop. By the time I finished reading exactly what I needed, the braking zone had arrived. I was just a touch too late on the brake pedal, missed the entry point for Brundle (left hander after the back straight) and had to resort to cutting the inside of the next right-handed corner called Nelson. It was only a minor incident, and I was laughing at the fact I missed the corner due to reading my notes.
So, the 60-minute race had elapsed, and I managed to produce a trouble-free run to take the chequered flag & win my third event of the championship, and the second wet race in a row. After I crossed the finish line, I didn’t celebrate too much as I was waiting in anticipation to see what happened behind me. The moment I saw on the scoreboard that the BMW of Graeme Kerr finished in second place, the celebrations started to kick in.
My nearest rival, Hemming, was only able to finish 4th overall and 3rd in the PRO class. Which meant, I had done it! I was the new BoA eSports GT3 PRO Drivers Champion! I honestly couldn’t believe it because this has been the most difficult series that I’ve competed into date. So, I was absolutely delighted to have won the championship.
With only one round to go, we can take a more relaxed approach heading to one of my favourite circuits in Assetto Corsa Competizione. The dangerously fast but wonderful circuit of Imola. Can we achieve another victory in this fantastic championship campaign? I’ll give it my best as always.
Wednesday’s stream was a slight change in format from my normal scheduling. For one week only, the “What If Multi-Muliclass Racing Competed Here?” series had taken a bit of a back burner.
Last weekend hosted one of Nascar’s most famous races with the Daytona 500. So, I thought what better way to celebrate the upcoming event, especially for my North American audience, than to host a special live stream in Assetto Corsa.
If I’m honest, Nascar isn’t my specialty in terms of motorsport interest or knowledge. So, I felt completely clueless and wasn’t sure if the stream was going to work out. To my amazement though, it turned out to be one of the most fun streams that I hosted this past week. It was surprisingly enjoyable to be on an oval circuit. Not only in terms of keeping control of the big V8 beasts, but also the amount of carnage it caused. There were quite a few spectacular crashes (mostly involving the A.I), which was absolutely hilarious.
As you’ll see in this photograph, just for this special occasion, I decided to dress the part as well by turning a normal, English West-Midlander into an American Cowboy. YEE HAW! The only part that I needed to purchase was the hat. Luckily, I had the shirt, jeans & boots to match what I had visioned in my mind. To my amazement though, this look actually suits me. What do you folks think?
Thursday hosted the second event of the Mastercup series around the fast & demanding stages of New England. This was the second consecutive day that I was in the USA. Only difference this time, was that the conditions were going to be slightly…dirtier. We all like that though, don’t we? Depending on the context of course! Ha Ha!
Anyway, back on topic. Even though the rally was going to be contested in the slowest vehicles available in DiRT Rally 2.0, I wasn’t going to take anything for granted. And it’s a great job that I didn’t, as I shall explain as briefly, and as painless as possible.
For the 12 stages around New England, I decided to select the very pretty Lancia Fulvia HF as it was the strongest & quickest vehicle available in the H1 class compared to the Mini Cooper S and the Citroen DS (or as I call it, a “Cruise Ship”).
After the first four stages, I was leading the rally by over half a minute, and I honestly thought that if I could keep this good momentum going, I could be on for producing a very strong result. However, after repairing the car and fitting a new set of tires, it was then time to tackle stage number 5. And WOW! My bad luck started to grow exponentially.
I don’t know why, but to try and reduce a bit of weight in the car, I went with the strategy of carrying one spare tire instead of the usual 2. A decision I instantly regretted. About halfway through the fifth stage, I went into a 3rd gear, right-handed turn way too quickly, understeered off the road into a bank caused the car to roll. By the time I recovered and drove on from the accident, I discovered that I had 2 punctures on the left side of the car.
And of course, being very intelligent in my decision making, I only had one spare tire available. And when I stopped to change one of those tires, the game thought it would be a great idea to attach the spare tire on the rear, which in a front wheel drive car, is an absolutely terrible idea.
What this effectively meant was that I had to complete 3 and a half stages with one wheel drive only. To show you the scale of the agony and how much it cost me, by the time I limped to the end of the eighth stage, I had lost over 11 minutes in those group of stages.
I went from a 35 second lead to a 10 minute & 45 second deficit. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it. But the best way to cope with situations like this is to try and smile as much as possible. That’s exactly what I did.
I somehow managed to complete the rest of the rally, but I’m not going to mention where I will finish in this one. Let’s face facts, I know for certain that I’ll be near the very bottom of the leaderboard. I still had great fun though, so it wasn’t a big loss. But I’ll try to do a lot better in the next upcoming event in March.
Finally, to conclude a very enjoyable week of streaming, I hosted another one of my Friday Night convoys in Forza Horizon 5. It wasn’t a grand turn out in terms of the number of drivers who joined me this time around, but I still had immense fun driving and racing around the picturesque landscape of Mexico. A massive thank you to Rhydian (ShogunNoire), Toby & Joshua Vanstone for joining the convoy with me.
What made this live stream particularly special was the wonderful conversations I had with my awesome subscribers. It’s not very often I get the opportunity to socialise with people, but when I do, it’s always an absolute pleasure and very enjoyable. This is just one of the reasons why I love being a content creator, the interaction I have with everyone that’s watching me. Thank you to all who tuned into the stream for making this stream a special one.
Let’s talk you through all the upcoming streams I have planned for this week. Starting with Monday where we have the final round of the BoA eSports GT3 Championship from the awesome circuit of Imola.
Now that the championship has been sealed, we can approach this race with a more relaxed approach to it. However, this is my favourite track in ACC, so I’ll still be attempting to try and succeed in this one. Can I claim the victory and finish the series in fine style?
This Wednesday will see the fifth episode of my “What If Multi-Multiclass Racing Competed Here?” series. This time, we’ll be trialling out another Formula One Grand Prix venue which is hosted in North America, around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada.
Whilst some street circuits of the world are much narrower than this, the nature of the Montreal circuit with the high average speed it produces, can make racing of this calibre very challenging. Will this experiment be vastly more successful than the previous around Goodwood? Or will be very chaotic and full of incidents? The only way to find out is by tuning into this upcoming stream.
Thursday will see the third episode of my WRC 10 Rally Career. After the disastrous event that I had endured around Portugal, we still have 2 stages to complete of that rally before we can finally move onto the next rally. Can I struggle to the very end of Portugal and redeem myself as I continue my ambitions of climbing to the very top of the WRC ladder?
Finally, to celebrate the arrival of another weekend, I’ll be hosting my Forza Horizon 5 Community convoys. There will be more fun install for us as we’ll be tackling the seasonal events and many other races besides. After all the enjoyment from last weeks stream, I cannot wait to host this once again.
If you want, please be sure to subscribe to my Youtube & Twitch channels. You can follow me on Instagram as well as join our DiRT Rally 2.0 club.
That’s about wraps things up for this week’s blog. Thank you so much for taking the time to read. Take care, stay safe & happy sim racing!!
