Howdy folks,
I was thinking of a blog report to share with you guys that will be different from what you may find on deankearney.com already so I bring to you an exclusive day with me at the Prodrift Academy in Mondello Park from last saturday, August 15th. I’ve been asked a lot of times “what do you do at the Academy on an average day?” etc etc so here goes!
On this particular weekend I was asked to do a two day stint, 1 being a complete on the road PR session with the new Monster Energy Prodrift Academy car, it involved going around Dublin and the surrounding area’s getting exposure for the Academy and Monster Energy by handing out samples of Monster Energy drink and Prodrift Academy flyers. Pretty handy day spent with my other Prodrift Academy sidekick Sarah who was keeping close tabs on me incase my foot got a bit heavy while drif…..driving the Academy 180sx 🙂
Its at this point I just realized its not a DAY with me at all because come Friday evening I returned to Mondello to drop off “Blackie Connors” the Monster Energy Academy car above and get some much needed sleep for the Academy the following morning – Im sure you are wondering “who the hell is Blackie Connors?” at this moment so i shall explain, Each Academy car has a name given to it because 4 of the Acdemy fleet are Nissan S Bodies and its a pain trying to tell the difference to 20+ students!! So say hello to Blackie Connors 🙂
We were summonsed by the powers above to be on track for 8am sharp for a meeting so after a nights stay over in Dublin at Ian Bergin’s we were en route to Mondello at 7:30am. There was 4 instructors on this particular day with 5 students per instructor…. until 2 guys phoned in to say that their flight from Ibiza was cancelled so they couldn’t make it! James “JD” Deane, Peden “Sweden” Nielson, Ian “The Captain” Bergin and yours truly were the masters of the day.
Peden conducted the drivers briefing on what we will be teaching throughout the day while we were given the task of meeting our loyal subjects for the day and to come up with a Team Name for each! This was something new to us all and we were NOT briefed about it beforehand…..ohh thats because we actually didnt leave til 7:45am and arrived late so no meeting!! Sorry guys.
So after about ten minutes chatting with our new Prodigys it was time to introduce to to the other teams and the machinery that they will be getting to grips with for the day. James Deane was first up with his tremendous well thought out name – Team Blank! They couldnt think of a single name between them so they left the page blank and called themselves Team Blank. haha…
Next up was Peden “Sweden” Nielson with his students and they took the conservative approach and clearly named after Pedans driving and ehhh you can guess what else – Team Slowly but Sidewayz!
Ian Bergin left it to his guys to come up with a name and after leaving them to their own devices it was clear they didnt listen to the instructions of NO RUDE NAMES OR PROFANITYS!! Hahaa….so a last minute change was in order and they settled on – Team SIN.
I was last to hand out my name for our team name, I simply took the bull by the horns on this one after spotting one of my team members was obviously attacked by a female (i presume) which led me to our quite self explanatory name – Team Lovebite!!
We were all ready for action to get underway and once I showed all the lads around the different cars and told them the differences they may feel in each car we were ready to hit the track. It was clear from the start that the guys loved the new look Monster Academy cars and also loved the power from Blackie Connors more powerful sister – Silvia.
Now as an instructor we have a bit of a competitive grudge amongst each of the other instructors, we all want our own group to do the best and we all look out for an individual who shines among the rest of them. We call this person “Yoshimura”. And on this particular day I was sure i had Yoshimura in my group!! Stephen being his real name needed very little tuition on entry speed, his initiation or steering/throttle control. I was on to a clear winner. The fact was that my whole group was pretty dam good leaving the others with a lot of work and catching up to do!! haha….I just thought of something, maybe i should have said they were all terrible and thanks to my expert tuition I had they all like potential “Yoshimura” after a few runs 🙂
As the day came to a close, each driver gets 5 judged runs by two of the instructors and all the scores from the team are added up and averaged to see who is the best team of the day. we also check out who the top 3 individuals are so i was quietly confident! When the results came out for the best individual I was shocked, my very own Yoshimura didnt win but it was a Team SIN member thought by Ian Bergin. The 2nd and 3rd place on the podium was taken up by Team Lovebite though and a Slowy but Sidewayz team driver taking up the rear with 4th.
With two drivers on the podium I was eagerly awaiting the results from the combined team score and without fail Team Lovebite romped home with a clear win! 2nd and 3rd were tied on the same points but since Yoshimura was from Team SIN the second place fell to Team SIN with Slowly but Sidewayz in 3rd and James Deane’s Team Blank fired home blanks in 4th place. haha
So i managed to win an event with no fires, keeping all my bumpers on and no drama……maybe these guys can teach me a thing or two ey!! Or should i simply say that Team Karnage is an advanced driving course 🙂
Hope you enjoyed this post, something different from the norm and stay tuned for my latest report from my 2nd place finish last weekend at Prodrift Super Series Round 3 in the UK on www.deankearney.com
Dean Karnage.
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