In today’s Community Spotlight, we will be learning more about one of the ‘oldest’ hosts at The SimGrid, DC-SimRacing.
The Dutch community was founded back in 2017 and started its affiliation with us in 2021. With a huge level of experience in the organisation of champions and events, they are an important part of our platform and a proud component of the Road to Grand Finals.
A Dutch-based community
Menno van der Molen is one of the many admins at DC-SimRacing. He shared some words with us about his community, starting from the origins. “DC-SimRacing was founded in 2017 by some Dutch friends. Menno told us, “DC actually stands for Dutch Community. We were one of the first if not the first simracing community in the Netherlands”.
In the first few years of its life, DC was a Dutch-talking community only. But they have come a long way since their beginnings – the meeting with SimGrid, in the summer of 2021, became the perfect opportunity to switch to an “international” English-speaking community.
The success of DC-SimRacing is made possible by a great group of dedicated admins. “They do whatever it takes to get the best out of this community,” Menno said. “The key factor is that I am able to count on them and they never let me down. To be honest we are actually looking to expand the team to cover more variety of sims, especially for PlayStation”.
Road to Grand Finals – The Dutch Way
Could a long-time trusted affiliate be excluded from the Road to Grand Finals project? Surely not! DC-SimRacing hosted their own pre-qualifying event, Road to Grand Finals – The Dutch Way, a five-round championship that visited staple European circuits such as Imola, a legendary American circuit in Watkins Glen and the iconic Suzuka, which hosted a 4-hour endurance race to round out the season.
A definitive success, the championship was a hit amongst drivers on the SimGrid platform, one of 10 Grand Finals series hosted by our communities. But, no event is ever without its hitches.
“This problem [of a participation drop near the end of the season] might refer to some teams already qualified at other communities in the meantime, while other teams dropped out when feeling not being able to qualify anymore,” Menno explained. All a part of the growing process though, the competition helped to attract high-level Sim Racers, raising the profile of DC-SimRacing as a prized location for all.
Present and future events
Aside from the Road to Grand Finals qualifying championship, activities at DC-SimRacing never really stop. During the summer, they have been hosting smaller events mainly for fun.
But they are soon going to be turning up the heat: “We host quarterly competitions for KNAF Digital, the sim racing branch of the Royal Dutch Autosport Federation,” Menno explained. Although mainly a Dutch affair with a Dutch broadcast, DC-SimRacing will also be offering a parallel competition designed for racers from all over the world, with a commentary setup for a broadcast in English.
Looking further ahead, in October, DC-SimRacing will host an endurance championship, drawing on the popularity of longer-form competition. Plus, there is the aforementioned expansion towards other Sim Racing titles and consoles on the horizon.
Last, but definitely not least, towards the end of the year a new edition of Race for Wishes will be hosted – a 24-hour race with the purpose of raising money for the Make-A-Wish foundation. The first edition, held in 2022, raised 5000 dollars, a great example of how Sim Racing can help those in need.
Make sure to follow DC-SimRacing on The SimGrid website to keep up to date with all of their future events.
