User:Mr.C

Chapter 1: Introduction

Section 1: Who is Mr. C ?

My name is Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan, Romanian at origin and everything else by soul. I was born in Romania at Vaslui city on 22nd of May 1984 and probably like most of us loved cars and everything related since I was a small child, actually I loved speed as I was doing everything at speed, I was eating fast, running fast, writing fast and later on in life I was driving fast and I also was fast in…well you get it so it was only logical to play racing games on the computer since karting was nonexistent in that part of Romania when I grew up. I was skipping so much school days so only I can improve my time on The Pyrenees’ track in Need For Speed Porsche at one point at that internet café I was so confident in my time that I put one month allowance as a prize for the driver that sets a faster time then me, luckily nobody could manage it. I continued the saga of internet café games during university also and was playing like crazy on keyboard Colin McRae rally 2 and at one point on Code Masters site I was ranked 18th on a particular stage, I was over the moon with that (too bad that they don’t show it any more L ) but soon real life kicked in for the first time and had to be serious and take a second university, yes I have two university degrees ,one for University of Education of Sports and one for Public Administration. Well I was all grown up and finally my parents bought a pc at home and starting racing on it from all the Need For Speed franchise to Colin McRae, Nascar and Grand Prix 4 but nothing got me more thrilled that Need For Speed Porsche where you could change a few settings and such, until a friend of mine told me “hey moron why don’t you race online with others “I was like – “online you say? Are there more like me?” – he – “retards?, off course the world is full of them “ so soon I discovered SimBin race07 and www.c-online.cc my first racing community. At the beginning I was still on keyboard and was baffled of the speed that everyone else had on me, more intense practice and I was still 1.5sec down so I got myself a wheel from Thrustmaster, don’t even remember what type it was, but was crap. A bit later on in life i was working at a Town Hall with a monthly pay of baffling 650RON(about 150euros)the Logitech g27 appeared and I think I was among first in Romania to get one(yes I got a loan )and I was purely amazed of the precise feeling and didn’t want to go to work I just wanted to get faster and faster. My First championship was at C-online with L.Jo Motorsport and I was battling for top 10’s constantly but still lacked the racing experience and it showed. Race Department, the great the only RD, in 2009 I discover it and it was epic, another level of talent and again I was more than 1sec behind remember that my first word “impossible” towards David Zafiu but again turning up to every club event and practicing and at one point in 2010 I was in top 10 in old ranking system and first Romanian on leaderboardJ. XenoRacing I meat thru Remco de Wildt and Dave Sthepheson and had a great time with them in RDLMS, then I moved solo in ATCC my first TouringProSeries League and it was a blast, even do it was at 4am in the morning in Romania. You can see some videos of this period of my simracing career at my youtube channel; I have some nice reviews of races and some other clips. Real life kick in number two, since pay was horrible in Romania I decided that I need to make a change and went as a truck driver for Ginis Transport in Belgium, yes that meant quit simracing, in all honesty it was more though that I imagined it will be but I was driving seeing the great things of other countries and such so that kept me occupied and I still was keeping tabs on forums and such until I decided that me and my girlfriend want to live together(after an accident in Romania and a 3month driving ban in France) so we went to Denmark where luckily I started simracing again with a brand new g27. AJR Motorsport – since Xeno was not active anymore I applied as a driver for several teams – including THR, 05Motorsport and a few others but no positive feedback until mr. Alexander Rhodes decided to take me in and get into the Virtual Clio Series at TouringProSeries what followed was…..

Section 2: The Idea

What I call “The idea” was a team idea that initially I hatched it up for Mr. Keith Barick. Team Name – don’t know exactly how it hatched into my head but I love “underdogs” and I never saw Keith in ATCC as a main title contender (no offense there mate) I always was picturing in my head some hidden practice offline and then when race day comes he will blast the field he will be so good that he will not have to use his full speed he will be Walking past them in the race, so Walk Racing. Also loved the combination that can be done and livery designs and I kept that idea alongside with some Google pictures in a folder on pc until… Well AJR was great I did learn allot but some unprofessional move from me and some unfulfilled team aspects from AJR saw me leaving /dismissed from the team, immediately I searched the old folder and Walk Racing was born.

Chapter 2: Past

Section 1: Start-up

Since I was in the middle of some championships I had to make haste and build up the team very fast. I asked around (Danny Asbury, Keith Barick, Robert Wiesenmuller and others) what they thought about the idea and the overall idea was not looking good, some even making fun of the name but I stoke with it and moved on, I knew I had something. Needed a logo and pictures that I had in old folder just where not up to scratch so went in brain storming by myself and with some help of Robert Wiesenmuller we did a slightly modified picture of Jonnie Walker Man and added the perfect motto “ why race when we can walk by you” instant hit. Next, drivers, the idea in my head was, bring utterly fast drivers make a hit then slow down and drivers will come to me after the “hit, boom” it was a good plan but poor managerial skills and some poor driver choices hit me a bit. I found/went to Alexander Lauritzen who I knew and raced with him at RaceDeparment and C-online we kept in touch so I asked him if he is willing, he said yes and he brought alongside Lasse Sorensen, Simon Kilov and Chris Shephard and I had a mega alien setup for all the leagues to follow. American Touring Car championship was our first league entrance with World Supertech Series and Virtual Mini Challenge soon to follow. Since from the beginning I wanted to be professional like the biggest teams in Simracing, Precision, Twister and so on I was willing to pay my drivers for good results and made contracts with necessary details with the above drivers but that was not enough to prepare me for ….

Section 2: First fall down

First fall down of Walk, drivers where not happy that I can’t provide them with setups from thin air, I tried to explain to them that TouringProSeries is a very professional and competitive league I can’t just go to another team and ask for setups, I won’t get any, they must work for it, they did not agree one of them even saying “be like Alonso manager, get us setups “ trying calmly to explain that Fernando Alonso goes on track ,does laps and talks with engineer to create a setup no manager of his goes to McLaren and gets setups. What followed was utterly disappointing from several perspectives. I have missed a day or so from internet do to work and when I did came back all drivers except Chris Shephard left Walk for good searching other teams, the most hurting is that Alexander was the start of it and that long friend Danny Asbury took him at Twister without even asking witch for me was a really low blow but after the anger has passed and words flew from my side mostly I was determined that Walk will not go down and as motivation I said to myself “ if I can’t salvage Walk I will go down with the ship and won’t race again” probably the scare of that thought got me searching heavily for drivers, and managed to get Peter Duivelaar and Stoffel Vandoorne for WorldSupertech Series, I had a lonely Chris Shephard in American Touring Car Championship and for Virtual Mini Challenge I had David Zafiu, Dinca Andrei, Ariciuc Razvan, myself, Dan Allinson, Jimi Hughes and Gabriel Bechtold so I bounced back decent enough. The year went by very fast and with ups and downs I was satisfied with Walk Racing, but had much bigger greater plans for it, for me but soon I had …..

Section 3 : Second fall down

Second fall down, and this was in real life (yet again) was a big one and I don’t feel comfortable talking about it but I had to go to Romania urgently where I stayed for one month or so and after that was forced to go truck driving again, in this time I did not have time for internet or very little so when I left I was trying to leave someone in charge but that did not happened so I was hoping drivers will stick around but I was wrong, all most all drivers from all series left/quitted Walk Racing except two outstanding ones, Jimi Hughes and Arciuc Razvan witch I thank them allot from the bottom of my heart and soul. This was a huge blow and when I did come back to the internet did not know what to expect but Jimi was kind enough to provide some details of it and that brings us to the ….

Chapter 3: Present

Section 1: Start-up number two

Present and start-up number two of Walk Racing, well to keep you updated currently I am still a truck driver from summer 2013 in Scandinavia(mostly Norway and Sweden) and managed to buy myself an internet data simcard for my smartphone and get back into the nutty gritty of simracing and get back to a part of my life, and important part of my life, as I said it countless times and I will say it yet again, if it wasn’t for simracing to distract me from my real life and to get me involved so much in it ,it would have been far more difficult, it’s my sanity line and I cherish ,love it and put all my soul and passion in it so if you join Walk Racing try to not disrespect me, disappoint me or take me for a crazy man that I put so much effort in it. As I was catching up with the latest news, gossip and such about TouringProSeries and RaceDeparment I soon find out about winter series leagues and decided in a blink of an eye that it’s no better whey to revamp Walk Racing but needed a different approach, no more fast unreliable drivers, no more…this time slow and steady is the game, build it up slow and good and it all started with Virtual Mini Challenge where I have Season 2 champion Peter Duivelaar who is becoming a regular for Walk Racing with non-other than mr. Ryan Callan as team mate, which I can’t thank him enough as it brought that boom sign-up that Walk had in the past so it was a bit of the old Walk but with allot more reliable driver, Razvan wanted to race in it so off course he got a spot and finally our newest addition Nico Schweinzer ( world indoor karting runner-up) and someone called Mike Bell. Soon I had a request for a drive in Virtual Carrera Cup from Daniele Brambila deciding that it was a good whey to show that Walk is still around I offered him that chance, no goals in mind just to be there in that championship. At RaceDepartment the StockCar Championship was getting ready to start and I wanted to make a comeback there also and at start there was a rumor about Robert Wiesenmuller joining that unfortunately did not happen but luck stroke me and I found a ….

Section 2: Great People

Great bunch of people starting with Mr. Jon Turner as Wise man, driver, website developer, setup engineer, livery designer, and professional photograph, Guus Verver as Lazy man and fast driver, then Lewis Travis as Rooky Boy, fast driver, livery designer and recently g27 owner and ever learning Ariciuc Razvan ho wanted to get more racing experience by moving on to rwd cars. I can’t thank this guy’s enough, as via our Skype Group we talk each day and for the first time there is a team aspect, a team interest and team practice and setup development that I searched so much and it feels great, me and Jon working on the site(mostly Jon, I just come up with the impossible ideas for the site and he makes them possible), Lew and G. Man doing testing with dif. mods for dif. Leagues that Walk Racing is interested and Razvan attending the Virtual Mini Challenge alongside Peter Duivelaar,Nico Schweinzer and Ryan Callan. The Walk Racing team is coming along nicely from all aspects and after such a long read we reach where we are ….

Section 3: Now

Now, should be 18.02.2014 four days from my weeding and last round of Virtual Mini Challenge where I will be racing with the new design livery of Mini Challenge Mini Cooper with the new Logo of Walk Racing that we have copyright on, the site should be live starting tonight and I should be fighting for top 10 at least so NOW is a great time for me and for Walk Racing but for the ….

Chapter 4: Future

Section 1: 2014

Future it will be even greater, for 2014 Walk Racing got accepted in GrandPrix Virtual World Championship in Formula Challenge league where we want to do a decent result, Top Step Racing league was born and we want to show our liveries around there also, RaceDepartment promises some leagues so will have that in our sight but our main focus will be TouringProSeries, where we were born, raised and entertained.

Section 2: Beyond the greater highest

Beyond everything and in the far future we will see, ideas are born, new leagues are coming, new step in real life will come and all in all will be the far future but one thing is for sure, in some whey or another Walk Racing will be part of me, of my life and I will do my best to keep it alive what is Beyond the greater highest only God can see….. The history of the Walk Racing logo can be seen the following 2 Videos Walk Racing Logo Story

Walk Racing Logo History Well after some thrashing of brains we finally got the new Logo designed, and i for one think it is rather special. Enjoy these two small videos

Thank you :

I must give thanks to a ton of people and I will try to remember them all but if by mistake I forget you, please do tell.

Thank you Dumitrita Moisa for putting up with me and my passion; Thank you Remco de Wildt,Dave Sthepheson, Bram Hengeveld, Marco Bjil for showing me how to be serious and committed to a community; Thank you Ryan Callan and Keith Barick for the great memories, from racing only in my socks, to my ATCC podium, to my VCS pole-position and much more; Thank you Ryan Callan for great help, suggestions and racing under Walk Racing, you are allot more than you show to people; Thank you all the drivers that races under Walk Racing, as for sure I learned something from every one of you, from Danish boys drafting practice technique and never trust young banned drivers, from Stoffel talent counts allot in simracing, from Peter dedication is a must to be taken serious, from Lewis, Guus, Nico, Razvan and Daniele that practice makes perfect, from Peter Dyrelund that GameStockCar car version of Nords is more accurate then Simbin one, from all Iracing guys that team work is great, from Jimi that keeping your word is important in simracing too, from Lew, Guus and Jon that sometimes is good to be a cunt J , and all those that I did not mentioned; Thank you Robert Wiesenmuller for all the great liveries, that sadly did not see many races, for meeting up with me, for all the good chat that we have sometimes; Thank you Danny Asbury for the chat and gossip that we do and that you show me how not to be with deadlinesJ. Thank you Jon Turner for putting up with me and my exaggerated demands; Thank you Florian, Daniele,Koda Factory and all other people that made Walk Racing liveries and sorry if they did not see much airtime; Thank you Toby Davis and THR for showing me what I want to achieve; Thank you Jimi Hughes and Arciuc Razvan for keeping Walk alive; Thank you Jesper Taulborg for amazing photos that you did for Walk; Thank you TouringProSeries for showing me what a truly professional simulation racing leagues is and to be part of it; Thank you C-online for all of my firsts – first race – first crash – first win- first team, thank you; Like in a recent broadcast Ryan and Scott where giving thanks to the man who build the track to the universe and finally Thank you God for creating everything.

Thank you all!

With utter most respect

Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan – a.k.a – Mr.C