After breaking the car in our top 16 battle at Round 2 of Driftcup we had a little bit of work to do ahead of Round 3 at Rockingham. We replaced both the drive shafts that we snapped as well as the rear wheel bearing that exploded and slightly modified our custom rear hub set up to overcome the weak point we found which lead to us snapping the driveshaft. With that now all fixed it was the usual oil change, map check/tweak, bolt check and wheel alignment before we were finally ready!
Come Sunday morning we arrived at Rockingham Motor Speedway, unloaded the car, set up our pit and we were ready to head out for practice.
Half way through the practice session the car was feeling really good and we were starting to dial in the qualifying line, I was informed by my spotters that I was running slightly shallow when transitioning onto clip 6, a few more runs later and I found giving it a little clutch kick helped me get out deeper into clip 6.
Practice was over and qualifying now upon us, before my first qualifying run was up I had been told that a lot of drivers were missing/shallow on Clip 1 which effects your score massively. So I made it my aim to make sure I got all the way out too Clip 1 which I managed to do, I was slightly shallow on Clip 5 but the rest of the run felt really good.
Onto qualifying run 2 and I decided to try and flick it into Clip 1 a little harder but unfortunately it didn’t go to plan and I had a little wobble/correction between clips 1 and 2, the rest of the run went okay.
Qualifying results were in and too my surprise I ended up 2nd scoring 84.3!! I am very happy with that result and it’s the highest I’ve qualified in Skybaru to date.
In the Top 32 battle I was against Darren Huxley in his S13, as the higher qualifier I was to lead first. As I flicked the car into Clip 1 I washed too wide and had to make some corrections with the rest of the run being okay I managed to pull a slight gap away from Darren, thinking I had thrown the battle away on my entry I had to try and get close on my chase run, Darren flicked it in and I initiated behind him, just as I was about to put the power down to get a little closer, Darren dialled on a little too much angle as he washed too wide and put him into a spin, giving me the win and advancing into Top 16.
For my Top 16 battle I was against Chris Wright in his 350z again as the higher qualifier I was again set to lead first, after I initiated the car understeered between clips 1 and 2 and I had to make a few adjustments to correct it. I started to pull a slight gap between us as I clutch kicked on a transition pushing back out too clip 6 the car made a couple of loud bangs and suddenly straighten up with loss of drive.
Chris narrowly avoiding hitting me from the rear I pull off and coasted to the finish line, with what I suspected was a broken drive shaft again I called my 5 minute rule and managed to slowly creep the car back to the pits with minimal drive and very loud banging from the rear.
After getting the car jacked up in the air we quickly realised that both drive shafts were intact and that I had managed to blow the diff to pieces.
Unfortunately that put an end to my weekend of driving and lost my Top 16 battle due to another mechanical failure but still came away with a successful weekend in my eyes, I managed to qualify 2nd and ended up finishing 9th overall which is also my best finishing position in Skybaru to date and it felt like the best I had ever driven the car.
After getting the car back to the workshop we took the diff apart and found 3 – 4 teeth stripped from the pinion, Garage-D are now working their magic on a new diff for us ready for Round 4 at Teesside in a few weeks’ time.
I would like to say a huge thank you too TFS Racing, Autoextreme, Fusion Motorsport, Garage-D, and all my family and friends for all their continued support and making sure the cars ready for every round.
Also thank you to everyone at Drift cup for putting on such an incredible event as always regardless of the car breaking it was my most enjoyable event so far, if you’re yet to experience it you’re truly missing out! Get yourself down to Round 4 of Driftcup at Teesside on the 15th of July and find out for yourself!