Proud.

I have started writing this four or five times, and I just can't seem to get a right starting spot. I tried over
here.

Over here.

EVEN HERE.

But nothing seems to work, so I'm just going to ramble in a hope it'll get things in motion. 

I'm now going use the phrase I hate. The most over-used, cringe-worthy phrase that exists in every politician's speech, every TV program and behind-the-scenes story.

This is my journey to AOR.

A few years ago, I was scouring the YouTube, and I stumbled upon a video called Overtakes of the week, published by RyanL83 (F1 YouTuber), I looked through his back-catalogue and found a co-op series he'd done, with another F1 YouTuber, FisiFan91. I watched part of the Brazil race on F1 2012 and subsequently went to check out Fisi's channel, where I was blown away. I quickly started watching the Offical ARL Highlights of the Xbox 360 F1 leagues, I was immensly impressed at how well the videos were made, the great commentary by xMattyG1 and the racing that was being shown, despite Noble2909 winning nearly everything. 

I began following a lot of the Xbox 360 F1 drivers on Twitter and one day, early 2014, one night in particular, I remember Fisi, getting very confused why people were asking him what had happened to the site. Having never previously visited the site, it didn't mean much to me but the fact that so many people were raising concerns surprised me. 

Having been on and off the newly reformed and renamed site, AOR, I joined the site as a general member in August 2014 and despite not actively racing in the leagues, I still enjoyed my time on the site. It had all the F1 news posted there, a general chat section and a motorsport specific area, where I spent a lot of my time. The community were great and I enjoyed going through the league threads and reading up on how peoples races were going. The quality of the site always surprised me, everything worked, it was more alive, than sites like BBC and SKY, who only did news. So to have a community based website was rather different. It also amazed me to see how many staff members they had, including FisiFan91, who was basically the guy who owned it all. 

At the start of February, I decided that AOR was so good, that I would start donating my money to the site, to enable it to continue running. I upgraded my membership and became a Premium Member.

At a similar time, I started running social events on Forza Motorsport 4 in the SEAT Leon SuperCup, it was a single make race with no upgrades/tuning. A purely driver focused series. Over a few weeks they grew and started gathering a bit of momentum, I made highlights for a while to promote them and at one point even considered turning the into a league, I laid down all the ground-work on a 4 page Google Doc, I had help from a friend and we planned to run the league together. 

Unfortunately, after our 7th event and what was planned to be the final social before the league was set to start, the level of driving that was being produced was not at the high standard I was expecting. So I pulled the plug on the leagues, I didn't want to do it but I wasn't willing to put the work into a championship where the drivers in question can't respect simple rules.

The socials stopped and I just went back to being a quiet member on the site. Until Project CARS came a long. Interest and momentum gathered quickly on the site. One night, about 11pm, Fisi started a thread asking people to message him if they thought they had all the necessary requirements and fancied becoming a member of the Project CARS team, planning the upcoming leagues for the game and then helping run them.

I looked at it and thought, "... well, why not?"

I put forward my 'application' so to speak, and within a week I was one of three new staff members on AOR, Project CARS coordinator for Xbox One.

Over the past few weeks, I cannot express how much I have enjoyed my time as a staff member on AOR. It's been mad, we've planned, put into place and are almost running the leagues now. I was off work last week, and I devoted 90% of my time to AOR, even now I'm back at work, I check AOR in the morning, and as soon as I get home I'm back on it. The enjoyment I get out of doing AOR stuff is unparalleled.

There is such a sense of working as a team. And an even larger feeling of doing a good job. Everyone pulls their weight and everyone works hard. The effort that is put into the leagues and the site in general is just on different level. I have never worked so hard in my life, which is funny, because it doesn't feel like work. I get my enjoyment from 'working' for free on a website than I do in my actual job, where I get paid, which I've openly said before is a job I like.

However, I have already decided that if I were to win the lottery or come into considerable money, then I would quit my actual job, devote a few thousand to AOR to cement it's future and pay for any
extra stuff that would crop up and devote my time 100% to AOR.

I have never been a proud man, especially when I answer questions on Ask.fm and I just get angry or depressed, but right now, as a member of the AOR community, I am proud.