Wayne Keeber, driver of the Landsail Toyota Soarer, gives us a run down of his weekend at Round 4 of the British Drift Championship.
With the repairs done from the cars previous outing we headed to Lydden Hill via GBH Motorsport to give the car a final check over before the competition starts. Once all of the checks were done we loaded the car back on the trailer and carried on down to Lydden Hill. We arrived before dark and unloaded the car and set up the pit.
Practice on Saturday didn’t start till 1:30pm so it was a relaxed morning watching the Pro-Am class practice and qualify with some very impressive driving on show. When their sessions were over it was time for our practice session and the temperature had reached around 30 degrees. We made our way onto the track and round to the start line, the track was made up of 7 clipping points of which 5 were rear clips and the rest front clips.
The first lap was used as a sighting lap and to warm the car before upping the pace. On my second run I experienced the same issue that I had at Teesside. A trip back to the pits to have a look over the car to see if there was any obvious problems with it. Without being able to find anything wrong I headed back to the track and drove around the problem the best I could for it not to be too much of an issue. At the end of practice there was just enough time to refuel the car and fit a new set of tyres ready for qualifying.
Running order for this round meant I was at the front of the queue which doesn’t bother me but because of the car problem I knew I would struggle on a section of the track. My first run felt tidy but not fantastic so I was as happy as I could be with it, on my second run I was slightly off line which meant the problem with the car affected this run more than the first run. At the end of qualifying we was told the results and I had qualified 27th which meant I was into the battles but frustrated with the car having issues.
Saturday evening we looked over the car in more detail but still couldn’t find anything that suggests the cause of the problems. Sunday morning was the Pro-Am top 32 battles which were taking place in warm and dry conditions, ideal for twinning battles. When the time came for us to start heading out for our top 32 the clouds were starting to gather and as we got to the holding area it was raining so there was lots of tyre pressure adjustments going on. The rain then eased a bit and as the battles commenced the track looked like it was drying on the line but another short rain shower made sure it didn’t get to dry.
Time to battle, I was up against Shane O’Sullivan and he was to lead on the first run. With a practice run first Shane was relatively cautious on initiation which caught me out slightly but only being a practice it didn’t matter. Knowing the grip levels we set off for the first judged run, I was able to stick with Shane for the first half of the course but the grip level of his car meant he was able to pull a gap before the end of the run.
Second judged run all I could really hope for after the first run was for Shane to make a pretty big mistake but it’s very rare he does so I just put in the best run I could but he stuck with me and took the win. Disappointing that I couldn’t put up more of a fight I was happy at least to have made it to battles with a car that didn’t want to play.
We’ve got a few weeks before the final round of the British Drift Championship to find and cure whatever the problem is with the car. As always I would like to thank my team, GBH Motorsport for their continued support. Landsail for a great feeling and consistent tyres, Also Huxley Motorsport, EverythingDrift, Wolfbitz and Pipercross Air Filters, all for being awesome sponsors.