Darren Blythe
SimHQ Motosports Editor

Born in Yorkshire, England in 1972. Darren was introduced to computers at an early age by his older brother in law. Constant nagging to parents resulted in an over excited ten year old receiving a Sinclair Spectrum for Christmas 1982.

Fuelled by his fathers love of motorsport it was no surprise that he was drawn to racing games, and in-between being dragged around the country to watch rallying and banger racing he could be found careering round a crude virtual Monza on Psion Software’s Chequered Flag.

As the years passed the technology changed but Darren’s passion for racing games did not. Pocket money was spent in arcades, on titles such as Super Sprint, Pole Position, Outrun, Daytona and Sega Rally. He would eagerly await lacklustre home computer conversions but enjoy them with equal gusto.

Having decided on a career in computing, he was involved with the development of Lombard RAC Rally on the Atart ST/Amiga alongside working at a local computer shop when Papyrus released Indy 500 on the PC. That was the moment everything changed. This was no longer playing games, but sim racing!

Darren went on to enjoy titles such as Geoff Crammond’s GP and Grand Pix Legends but it wasn’t until Simbin’s ground breaking GTR game that he found his true calling in high powered virtual tin-tops and organized multiplayer races. This continued through GTR2, the Race series, and into rFactor where he enjoys making modifications and community content as much as racing in high profile events around the world.

His technical ability and love of motorsport lead to a brief involvement with the BTCC before he moved to London in 2001 where he went on to run a Dell service centre before starting his own computer hardware company from 2008-present.

He is a long standing member of the Average Drivers Club, the Founder of Fairplay Racing and joined SimHQ in 2010 where he found a very welcoming and enjoyable atmosphere to put his driving and development skills to good use.

As well as sim racing, Darren sometimes likes to relax with a good single player FPS or RPG when time permits (which is very rare!)

He lives with his long term sim-suffering girlfriend and two spoiled cats, one of which is also a sim addict and loves to "help" during the most important races!

Here’s Darren and Tabby preparing for a shakedown at Spa. A woolly hat is essential equipment when your co-driver has claws!

Darren is also been a keen cyclist and has enjoyed success in downhill and cross country mountain biking, as well as road racing, including cycling a stage of the Tour de France in 2009.

He keeps tropical fish and also grows chili plants, once having over 100 plants spanning 30 varieties and giving rise to several homebrew recipes for distilled weapons grade hot sauce.

It goes without saying he also has a passion for those two other English delicacies — spicy Indian food washed down with a few pints of real ale. Yumm!

Send Darren a SimHQ private message.

Darren competes in the SimHQ SCES 2012 Endurance Series