“What a weekend and what a way to show off to the home crowd! Qualifying 3rd on Saturday with a 90.7, then winning the event on Sunday, this is definitely an event that will last long in the memory.

“But not without any issues that is…

“Our Top 32 saw us take a by-run due to qualifying high enough to achieve one, then the Top 16 saw us face off against Callum Allonby. Perfect driving as always from Callum putting a near perfect run in and inviting me to get nice up close and personal too his door! 

“Our Top 8 battle saw us face off against Nerijus Cickevicius in his monster of an E46! Once again putting down a lovely line for me to be able to put it to his door.”

“Then it was qualifying. Run 1 didn’t go to plan; that understeering issue I mentioned came back, with a solid entry and push through clip 1 and 2, on the transition I didn’t have the control to set me up where I wanted for clip 3, and a straighten gave me a 0.

“For run 2 – the final qualifying run – I had it all to play for! I gave it my all, with a good entry, solid through clips 1 2 and 3, slightly shallow on 4 and a bit deep on 5. The run was good, I breathed a sigh of relief and was over the moon, then it was just the wait to find the score to see how I’d done and where I sat in the qualifying order. The judges’ scores came in… an 84-point run! That was me through to the top 32, and after all the scores came in, it put me in Q14!

“Onto the top 32, my battle was against Harvey Moore. This was a bit of an unknown to me; I don’t think I’d had much time out with Harvey before and all I knew was his car had some pace and he was celebrating his birthday! We lined up, Colgate gave the nod and we were off. My entry was solid but with the grip in the car, it pushed me slightly inside on clip 2. Past the transition towards clip 3, I was on the wrong line completely and tagged the tyre bales with the front bumper, pulling my crash bar into the lead wheel jamming me on full lock and then into a spin. Harvey brushed straight past me and then had complete suspension failure.

“Harvey’s team worked some miracles and he made it back out on track for the second half of our battle. With the first run looming in my mind, I didn’t push as hard as I should, Harvey carried a brilliant pace and took the win, which spelt the end of my weekend.

“However, on the Sunday, Dave Egan of Drift Games had an unfortunate clutch failure in his Corvette, essentially knocking him out of the competition, with me being confident in the car and wanting a pro driver’s opinion of how it drove, it made sense to offer the car up to Dave, not to mention the amazing amount of publicity Drift Games gave us.

“Dave did amazingly well in a car he only had four laps in; he put in a solid qualifying run, scoring 76 points getting him the big show! Dave did really well driving the car, but his party stopped at the first battle as Charlie Hulme progressed further.�

“The top 32 battle was against Craig McLeod – the local man on his home track. Craig had been driving very well all day, qualifying fifth meaning he was the lead driver and went first.

“I knew Craig was fast, I knew he was confident and I expected him to be on-point.
So, on the start line, I was psyching myself up, thinking when I got the signal I needed to be off that line sharpish to keep with him, concentrating on the signal, focusing on pinning it straight off the line.

“I was flat-out off the line, slamming through the gears, picking up speed along the straight up towards the entry. As I was approaching the start of the scoring zone, I didn’t drop in behind craig as I was expecting him to speed up and enter just in front of me along the famous Driftland wall, however my predictions weren’t quite as I planned.

“Just as we were about to enter, Craig flicked across to the middle of the track and I was just 50cm too far forward. We made contact and I ended up coming off the track, giving Craig the advantage.

“With me in the lead, I laid down my fastest, best line of the weekend, hoping he made the mistake behind me, but unfortunately however much of a run I gave him, I’d sealed the deal with my zero on the first run, and with no mistakes from Craig, he advanced to the top 16 and my weekend ended there.

“Round 3 of The British Drift Championship is at Teesside; I’d love to see you all there!�

“The last seven weeks on the lead-up to round one have been incredibly stressful and time consuming. The team put in so much effort, working days and nights on getting the car stripped to a bare shell, welded, repaired painted, wrapped and back together running just in time for the season opener, and the results made it all worthwhile!

“Practice on the Friday went exceptionally well, with only a few minor issues to sort. By the end of the day, I was confident and comfortably running well with the other drivers.

“On Saturday, the car was faultless, running well all day with only fuel and tyre requirements getting the best of us. Qualifying saw me inside the Top 16 bracket. It wasn’t all plain sailing though; after watching 90% of the grid before me in qualifying and seeing what the judges were giving out, I put my first run in too hard and dropped wheels off track on the entry, putting my score down. On the second run, I knew I had to be sensible and put in a safer run that gained me 13^th place.

“My first battle was against young Irish talent, Dan Nolan. Scrappy runs from both of us ensued, but a huge straighten in front of me put me into the Top 16.

“Next up was Max Fleckney in his V8 Corolla. Max’s driving was on top form all weekend and his car was FAST, so I knew I had to push hard. Leaving the line, Max gained a length or two on me, then ran wide past Clip 2. I stuck to my qualifying line and ran shallower on the bank thinking Max would run too wide giving me a gap to get through, however Max managed to hang and make the hairpin and closed the door on my chase efforts.

“In the lead, I put in my best lead run of the weekend, fast and wide round the track making the A-line on all the clipping points, however Max’s chase was flawless, and he took the win.

“That finished my day leaving me sitting in 12^th place in the championship (which I’m over the moon with).

“That wasn’t the end of our day though: the Championship has prizes for 1^st to 3^rd place, as well as the ‘Hard Charger’ award and Best Presented Car award. When our team was called out at the trophy ceremony, saying we had won Best Presented Car, a rush of emotion took over, I didn’t know what to say. I was honoured to be awarded with that prize and it really showed that the hard work the team had put in the last seven weeks had paid off.

“Overall, the weekend was a staggering success, loads of comments of praise, a sense of great achievement and a proudness to be where we were.

“Up next: Japfest at Silverstone! Thanks to 91´«Ã½ for the continued support.â€�

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– 91´«Ã½ will have a stand at Japfest Silverstone on 10 April. Please come and speak to the time to find out more about our high-performance products.