The Road to Europe…
When main land Europe drift series, King of Europe, announced they were holding a round in the UK this year, it was an opportunity that I didn’t want to miss. As a driver I always strive to push myself and go up against someone better and with some 1000+BHP cars on track driven by some of the best driver’s in Europe, this definitely was going to make me push hard with my 400bhp S14.
Saturday was a warm sunny day at Lydden Hill Circuit and with two hours and forty-five minutes of free practice throughout the day, it gave me chance to really dial the car in. With the new upgrades to the suspension and now back using sticky track tires, it gave me a lot more confidence to push the car and by the end of the practice session I felt good going into qualifying.
In King of Europe they use a telemetry box which they attach to the rear of the car. It measures speed and angle through out the course and then all the information is live fed to a computer. It works out your initiation speed, initiation attack angle as well as your average speed / angle throughout the course. With 60% of the overall judged score down to the telemetry system, the two runs in qualifying were going to be tough.
With this in mind you had to bring your A game to the table or you would be out of the show. With a score of 75.65 I bagged 19th spot. This meant I was going up against fellow countryman Matt Campling in the top 32 battles.
Show Time
Overnight rain had set in for the early part of Sunday morning, washing the track of all the freshly laid rubber. With top 32 practice about to get underway it provided an extra challenge to get the car redialled into the track. It was quite slippery to start especially on initiation but by the end of practice the weather had cleared and the track was completely dry. With a few adjustments to the suspension throughout practice the car once more felt good going in to the battles.
Going into battles Matt had the lead run. My spotter briefed me on how Matt was going throughout the weekend, he was throwing large angles going into turn one and running quite a tight line on exit. The plan was to give Matt an extra car length on initiation to allow for the larger angles and then regain proximity after turn one and get on the door for the rest of the course.
As expected Matt through massive angle on entry, I came at him a little quicker than expected and had to really slow the car down to avoid contact. At this point I had good proximity, it was right where I wanted to be, however when I started to pick up the throttle the revs had dropped below the power band and I was greeted with turbo lag. GREAT !! Kicking the clutch to regain power, it caused a slight straighten on the exit of turn one, which in turn made me lose some proximity with Matt. Throughout the rest of the course the gap stayed about the same, it was going to be a close call.
On my lead run I knew I had to give it my all. I initiated a lot faster going into turn one creating a gap of 1-2 car length. With a good run hitting all the clips I was hoping I had done enough to get a one more time. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to make up for the straightening on the chase run and Matt went through to the Top 16.
Overall the weekend was great, we had a lot of positives that the team can take away to help us improve. The quality of the paddock and cars were certainly an eye opener for us all, and we are looking forward to doing some more KOE events in the future. I would like to say a massive thanks to all the KOE staff for making us feel welcome, the team for all their hard work in making the weekend run smoothly also to all our team sponsors and fans for their continued support.
I’m now looking forward to getting back in the hot seat, for Round 3 of Maxxis British Drift Championship at Teesside. BRING IT ON!!