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/Twitch channel and subscribe, sign up and join in.
Hello ladies and gentlemen! Boys & girls. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my fifteenth blog for SimRace247.com. I hope that you’re all feeling well and staying safe?
This past week saw my full time return to live streaming and content creating, but on a brand-new platform this time with Twitch. Going into the new week, I knew that my expectations wasn’t going to be sky high, as I’m starting from scratch (more or less) just like I did in 2019 when I started venturing into content creating on Youtube. Despite feeling nervous and not being at all confident, I’ve been enjoying this new venture on Twitch. At the time of writing this fifteenth blog, I already have 46 followers on the channel which is amazing. Don’t get me wrong, this past week hasn’t been easy, and I still have a long way to go of course, but so far, it’s been ok! Thank you so much to everyone who’s been kind enough to follow me & tuned into the streams to support me! I’m hugely grateful to everyone who’s supported and believed in me.
Without further ado, let’s talk you through every single stream which I went live within this past week!
Monday 18th April – Testing in Assetto Corsa Competizione
The first stream on Monday was a test session for an upcoming race which I was taking part in on Wednesday 20th. For the majority of the stream, I was in the Rapid Drivers Club official practise server to trial out a race setup I prepared a day earlier for the Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT3. Apart from the usual issues of the front tires wearing out by around half distance in my race simulation, the car wasn’t feeling too bad. I was fairly confident that by race day, I could have the potential to do well.
To conclude the stream, I did a 20 minute race with the A.I around the Nurburgring with a mixture of GT3’s and TCX class BMW M2 CS’s to do a quick mock race to give everyone watching an idea of what was install for Wednesday’s race.
Wednesday 20th April – Rapid Drivers Club 2point4 World
Tour: Race 1 at the Nurburgring
After all the preparation behind the scenes and during Monday’s stream, it was time to see whether all the effort was worth it as we proceeded into the first round of the RDC 2point4 World Tour series.
Just to give a summary of the format in the championship, there will be 5 rounds over 10 weeks with the race lengths being 2 hours and 24 minutes. And this is a multiclass championship with GT3 and TCX (BMW M2 CS).
The weather in the qualifying session had sprung a real surprise for everyone. It was a 20-minute session split into two with the TCX’s starting first followed by the GT3’s. The weather conditions were damp, but as the qualifying session progressed, the track conditions started to dry out. By the time the GT3’s ventured onto the circuit, it was a real lottery as to which tire was the correct one to qualify on. The wet tires were the correct choice for the majority of the session, but because of the track surface drying up, the tires were burning. It was only in the last 3 minutes that the track was ideal for dry slicks. Thankfully, no-one was able to improve on their times at the end of the session. Despite guessing the tire selection throughout, I managed to qualify third on the grid on a set of completely burned-out wet tires.
Heading into the race, we were all unaware of what the conditions would be like as we had dynamic weather install for the upcoming 2 hours and 24 minutes of racing. So, would it be a dry race, or wet, or a whole mixture of conditions? Well, to the relief of everyone, it turned out to be completely dry all throughout the duration of the event. In a way, I was kind of gutted as I know my best chance of performing well, especially in the Aston, would be in the wet. But, I was still optimistic that I could still produce a good result.
At the start, I was too slow off the line and ended up dropping down to fourth by the exit of the first corner. It could almost have been 5th but luckily, there was plenty of room on the outside to keep momentum and stay ahead of Lecky’s BMW M4 GT3.
For the majority of the first stint, I tried in vain to keep pace with Lehtinen’s Honda NSX (who started behind me in P4), but I didn’t quite have enough pace and I was incurring terrible luck when it came to lapping the slower traffic. I was catching the BMW M2’s in the wrong places which cost me lap time and also dropped me further away from the NSX which was gutting at the time.
I can’t really explain why, but after the first pitstop, the pace of the Aston had dropped dramatically in the second stint of the race. I couldn’t produce the same laptimes that I could in the first stint. I was around a second a lap slower, which meant I had dropped further and further away.
This first race of the season at the Nurburgring was certainly character building as there was other issues which contributed to my hopes dashing, as to whether I could catch the top two in the race. I was caught up in 4 incidents with the slower TCX class cars, 2 of which I caused, unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong, the race wasn’t terrible as I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Luck was definitely not on my side in this one.
After 2 hours and 24 minutes of tense action, I was able to finish P3 which was still a great result despite all the drama and misfortune in the event. But, I was a LONG way behind the top two. So, a lot of homework to do and more testing behind the scenes before tackling the next round of the championship which will be contested at the circuit of Kyalami on Wednesday May 4th.
I reuploaded the Twitch live stream onto Youtube so if you want to rewatch the event, you’re more than welcome to do so!
Series: Event 4 – Rally Germany
After completing the RDC event, it was time to take on my latest community event in DiRT Rally 2.0, around the tarmac stages of Germany in the legendary Group B 4WD machines. Normally, when I drive these powerful Group B cars, I play chicken and pilot the slowest and safest car of them all which is the MG Metro 6R4. Although, in my defense, the 6R4 does have the best engine note in DR2. I’m not sure if anyone reading this blog agrees with me on that one?
However, the MG might be the best to drive, but it doesn’t have the capabilities to be a front running car. And after my wretched luck so far in the community rallies, I decided to take a few bravery pills and drive what is arguably, the most successful Group B car of them all. The Peugeot 205 T16.
Having spent a little bit of time with the Peugeot, I was fairly confident of delivery a good result but I wasn’t 100% comfortable with how the car drove. It wasn’t anything to do with the excessive amounts of turbo-lag it produces. It was more to do with the setup. I tried for a while but I couldn’t cure the oversteer issues I was having with it. As a result, I had a little moment where I overshot a hairpin slightly, pulled the handbrake and performed a mini doughnut on the stage. I had my Gilles Panizzi moment (Rally Catalunya 2002) which was costly in terms of time, but very entertaining.
In a way, I was up against stiff opposition in this community rally in the more dominant Lancia Delta S4’s (with their supercharged and turbocharged rocket ships). So there was a little bit of pressure to have flawless stages without many mistakes. Even though I never had any punctures (for once) during this rally, small mistakes had cost me dearly. One time, I hit one of the many concrete stones (or Hinkelstein’s as they’re called) lining the roads as well as a tree (or vertical logs as my viewers & I call them).
Stage 10 was where my luck started to change in the rally. Before the start of that special stage, I was around 12 seconds behind first position. But, through pure concentration, I turned that deficit into a 3 second lead which really surprised me. By the end of stage 11, that increased further to 12 seconds.
However, the final stage was where it all went wrong. For the last set of stages, I selected the soft tire to try and overhaul the gap that I was behind, which worked a treat. But, as soon as I started the final stage, I knew I was in trouble because the rear tires had completely gone. Through the long final test, I had at least 2 costly spins. And by the end of the rally, to my dismay, I ended up finishing 2 seconds behind the Delta S4 of PeeEss! I was gutted. All that hard work to claim the lead was vanished.
At the time of writing this blog, I’m currently in P3 but the gaps at the top are very close. Less than 30 seconds separating the current leader Aldyr and myself in 3rd. You can find out in the next blog the results of rally Germany. Despite this disappointment, I really enjoyed this rally and I’ve loved piloting the Peugeot 205 T16. To have all the power it does in such a lightweight body and short wheelbase is very exciting. No wonder why it’s considered to be the golden era of rallying. I cannot wait for the next event with this car around Finland later in the year.
If you would like to participate in my community rallies, you can find a link for my club at the bottom of this blog. Here’s my Twitch stream of the community rally if you would like to rewatch my attempts in the awesome 205 T16.
Horizon 5
Then on Friday, to complete the first week back to streaming, I had my chill stream in Forza Horizon 5. It’s always a delight to play a driving game, but also to have the ability to relax with your viewers without having to worry about racing against other folks or perfecting any lines around a racetrack. So being able to do this every Friday is always very welcoming.
I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who tuned in and provided me with some company all throughout. It’s always a pleasure to have the opportunity to socialise with everyone who’s kind enough to tune into my streams.
Let’s talk you through all of the content that I have lined up for this week as I go live once more on my Twitch channel.
Monday will see the second instalment of my “What If Multi-Multiclass Racing Competed Here? series. However, for series 2, we have a different motorsport discipline instead of the Sportscars you saw in series 1. I’ll be piloting single seater cars this time around. We’ll be finding out what it’s like to combine Formula One, F2 and F3 all in the same race at the same time. And for episode 1, we’ll be trailing out the circuit of Jerez, which was last used for Formula 1 in 1997 with that controversial championship decider involving Jacque Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher.
Because I don’t have another competitive championship race for another week, Wednesday will see myself tackling a whole range of cars in Assetto Corsa Competizione (that isn’t an Aston Martin) in some random public lobbies. I haven’t done any of these for a while so this will be very interesting to see if I’ve lost my touch or not!
As part of the rallying theme that I have on my channel every Thursday, I’ll be taking on the latest Mastercup event in DiRT Rally 2.0 around the tight, slow and twisty stages of Argentina. Thankfully, the cars we’ll be driving are the R2 machines like the Opel/Vauxhall Adam, the Ford Fiesta and Peugeot 208. Very narrow and short wheel-based cars which are ideal for the narrow stages of the rally. However, I normally not very competitive in front wheel drive machines. I’ll enter the event with an open mind and give it my best, but I’m not expecting to be in contention for the rally win. But could I surprise myself and the viewers and do very well? We’ll wait and see!
Finally, on Friday, I’ll be hosting another fun night in Forza Horizon 5. I’m not sure if there will be any interest if anyone wants to join me in a convoy. If not, that’s ok. I can always go solo like I did last week. It’ll still be another fun evening chilling and spending time with the wonderful folks who watch and talk/write to me during the streams.
If you want to, please be sure to follow me on Twitch for my live streams as well as subscribe to my Youtube channel for future video projects. You can also join our DiRT Rally 2.0 club for fun, monthly rally events and see how you fair against other members of the community.
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!!
