Irish Drift Championship 2015 – Round 2: Green Glens Arena

In a country with only one permanent racing circuit, David Egan and the team behind the IDC have managed to build up one of the most respected drift championships in the world. So while it was a surprise when they announced a round on the 2015 calendar would be indoors it was in keeping with them pushing the boundaries and finding ways to give the drift fans something new and exciting. The Green Glens Arena in Millstreet Co. Cork is an equestrian centre which in its time has also hosted the Eurovision Song contest but for round 2 of IDC the horse power in the arena was going to be increasing on a huge scale.

The circuit layout was going to be tight and technical with a safety wall in place, using the type of steel barriers you would normally see on motorways when they have lanes closes for work, which looked like it wouldn’t take any prisoners if drivers made any mistakes.

Saturday morning and the rookie and semi pro classes were preparing for their qualifying and battles, and there were a few fingers crossed around the venue that everything would run to plan.

Danni Murphy decided to give the green monster a fresh lick of paint at the start of the week, and I’m not saying if that was brave or crazy but it worked out and she was there early Saturday morning and the car looked amazing.

Ear plugs were given out to everyone entering the arena and they were defiantly needed. You could feel the stand shaking from the pops and bangs as cars were bounced off their limiters.

Drivers had a lot of new conditions to deal with. Driving into the arena had the issue of coming from sunshine into a dark arena, made worse if they opened the skylights as you then had squares of bright sunshine to drive through just to really screw with your vision. The surface looked like it would be really slippy but after talking to drivers it actually was really grippy, the issue they had was due to the amount of muck and rubber falling onto the arena floor the amount of grip was constantly changing and really keeping people on their toes.

It wasn’t long due the close proximty the cars were running, along with that wall, that knocks and crashes started to occur.

By the end of Saturday there weren’t many cars without battle scars.

The outcome of the battles was accounced using green and red spotlights on the cars in the centre of the arena.

Fans in the stands were treated to one of the best views of door on door action at a drift event and it’s impossible to get across the noise and feel of these cars twinning in the closed arena

End of the day and the podium positions were
First : Anthony Galvin
Second : Kieran Casey
Third : Darren Coates
These three drivers along with forth place Neil Dunne would be going up against the Pros on Sunday.

Sunday morning and the Pros had a practice session in the morning. This didn’t go well for Lluis Lopez who clipped the wall on the fast entry leading to a hard impact and the end of his weekend

In the paddock work never stopped to keep drivers in the event in ways you would never see at your local garage.

Each of the clip points were illuminated with a white spot light which turned green if the driver hit the spot.

Jack Shanahan is probably one of the most talked about drifters at the moment due to his insane consistancy and this weekend was no difference with him scoring a perfect 100 during qualifying putting him above James Deane in the top 16 qualifiers.

No one could ever say James Deane ever needed to prove anything but that perfect 100 from Jack showed he had a fight on his hands

The top 16 parade provided a chance for the drivers to all line their cars up, say a few words while the Monster Energy girls put on an awesome fire breathing show

The battles pushed drivers to the max with some serious wall scrapping taking place…

some of the wall scrapping led to the loss of body parts.

Current champion Duane McKeever got through to the top 4 but then unfortunatly had to retire due to car issues.

Which left us with a mega final showdown between the master and apprentence. Two of the most consistant drivers going head to head in the final and everyone in the arena was eager to see if Jack could take away his teachers crown.

After the first battle with both drivers giving 100% the judges couldn’t split it and called a one more time.

One more time number 1

Not just the fans enjoyed the replays on the big screem.

Again both drivers give their everything and like their cars the judges couldn’t seperate them a second time, so after teasing the crowd saying a decision had been made, they announced the decision was another OMT!

Another incredible battle amd everyone knew that this time the judges had to pick a winner.

In the end James Deane took the top spot, both drivers battles hard and put on an amazing show for all of the fans.

Thanks to Kevin Wilson of Smokin’ Images for this article and the photos, dont forget that Global Warfare 2 is this weekend at Mondello Park.