Round 1 of the British Drift Championship saw a return to Lydden Hill, this time the traditional start of season would be met with plenty of changes.
Gone is the Semi-Pro class, drivers are now separated into Pro-Am & Pro classes, with both classes getting a dedicated day at each event. This results in more seat time for the drivers and more exciting battles as a Top-32 will be a feature of every weekend.
Drivers have had to raise their game in order to stay competative, many of them have used the off season to refine their cars or build new cars to keep up with the ever increasing horsepower. Some of the most eagerly awaited of the new builds were absent for round 1, Simon Perry’s R35 wouldn’t see any action and his ‘Pink Lady’ R34 would hold off its retirement. Shane Lynch also didn’t run his new Nissan 370z and instead opted to use the spare Japspeed Altezza.
Steve Moore is running his trusty S14 with a few modifications to the geometry whilst building a fresh S14 that will debut later this year.
Some of the notable new cars that made it to Round 1 were Steven Donnelly’s RX7, this is running 640HP for around 600KGs. Setting up the new car proved difficult but we are sure once its sorted it will be an absolute weapon.
Michael Marshall’s BMW E92 made a big impression, its 2JZ sounds amazing and it looks great as the sun glimmers off its dark purple Liberty Walk bodykit.
Slide Motorsport managed to get their new E92 to the track but teething issues prevented them from competing, their weekend would get worse as Adam Simmons ran the wall and damaged his R33. The initial impression was that a reshell was needed but after closer inspection they will get away with straightening the car on a jig.
The Pro-Am class ran on the kicked off the first day with a 2 hour 45 minute practice session, this would give the drivers plenty of time to get themselves accustomed to the challenging line.
The judges wanted to see the cars run a wide line around the first corner before a rear clip against the wall on the entry to the hairpin. Once at the hairpin the drivers would have to cut back to the inside and then run a long wide line before climbing the hill and through two more clips on the right hander to finish.
Many drivers struggled with the wide line through the first turn and took short trips through the gravel.
Once practice was over the drivers would like up for their two qualifying runs, this year the pressure would be on with one less run and more drivers trying to get through to the Top-32.
Callum Craddy would put his Learn2Drift S14 in the top spot during qualifying, he dropped out during the battles in style while trying to keep the car wheels down.
The stars of the Pro-Am battles were James Roberts and Mike Lardner, they would meet in the final but not without a tough set of runs.
During the final James ran his car wide at the first turn and ended in the gravel with Mike following him in. A OMT was called and Mike managed to gain an advantage and take the win in his Team Voodoo R33.
Some of you may have recognised James Roberts AE86, this was David Garvey’s car last season in the Irish Drift Championship. James had his work cut out and spent the evening repairing his car as the top 4 get to qualify the next day in the Pro class. Other stand out performances in the Pro-Am class were Louis Geldart who appeared to have the throttle flat to the floor all day making huge plumes of smoke and Neil Bamford. Neil won the DriftCup championship last year, qualified at Round 1 and defeated number 2 qualifier David Egan.
The next day the Pro’s took to the track for their practice session, a noticeable driver missing was Jack Shanahan. After spending the winter building a new car, a teething issue would keep them off the track for most of the day. The rest of the drivers would head out to make the most of this session to dial in the car setups.
At times during practice the drivers were released in 10 car trains, we have no idea how the drivers manage to drive into this whiteout but it looks good from the side of the track.
Once practice was over the drivers would swap tyres, adjust their setups and go all out for their two qualifying runs. Phil Morrison put his car on the top spot early on in the session and held that until the end.
Jack Shanahan would make it out onto the track before the session ended giving him a chance to qualify. On the first run he threw the car in with a huge sideways entry, unfortunately this would end in the gravel.
It wasn’t looking good for Jack to compete, everyone was hoping he would qualify after putting in so many hours before the event and at the track to get this car running. On his second run he came in just as fast but this time he ran a great line, it left all of us speechless as we knew we had just seen how talented this 15 year old is. 7th place would be the reward for all of that work, Jack would get his chance to shine at round 1.
Jack went on to have some great battles on his way to the final, Danny Eyles was one of the drivers that put up a challenge on his way to third place on the podium.
The final would be a battle between Jack and his new team boss, Phil Morrison and his DW86. Phil lead the way with Jack right on his door during the first run.
They swapped over and it looked like it was still there for the taking, one small mistake would mean missing out on the top step of the podium. Phil chased jack through clip 1 & 2 and closed up on the run into the hairpin.
Phil Morrison spun as they transitioned into the hairpin, handing the win to Jack Shanahan, if you look closely you can see Phil’s car is just starting to lose grip.
Jack would finish out the run perfectly whilst Phil put on a show for the crowd, his team were first and second on the podum after all.
We highly recommend seeing the action yourself, the next round of the British Drift Championship is at Knockhill, Scotland on the weekend of June 13th/14th. We will leave you with plenty more photos from the event.
