Lydden Hill Round 1 saw me return to the British Drift Championship after racing at grassroots level with my rebuilt 1JZ powered Chaser. With very little shakedown time for the car before the event and on untested tyres, the weekend began with the practice session being used to sort any problems with the car and test the grip level on a very damp track.
Straight from the first practice run the 1JZ engine with the Syvec ECU and iPad controller was performing perfectly, so with the car starting to get dialled in, my confidence began to grow and I started to commit to the first corner entries.
Qualifying went really well but with a really soft brake pedal, car control became a little erratic but drove around the problem and hit all the clipping points in my three runs to qualify 13th, and draw Boss Motorsport team mate Ollie Elmore who had finished 4th.
Back in the pits work began to fix the brake problem with the team and sort out some bodywork repairs from all the hard charging earlier in the day.
Sunday began with the whole team pumped up for a good day as all three cars got through to the top 16 battles. Lining up at the start against Ollie for our top 16 battle the Chaser kept stalling. It caused me to lose power on my first run corner entry but re-engaged and powered round the rest of the course.
The second run was faultless but because of the problem in the first run and some stunning driving from my teammate I was knocked out and Ollie went on to the Final of the Semi Pro class, narrowly missing out to Matt Stevenson in his 350Z.
Overall the weekend was a great success for myself and the team and I am looking forward to round 2 at the awesome Knockhill circuit in Scotland, when I will come back stronger with more upgrades to the Chaser.
Thank you to all the sponsors for supporting the team and all staff involved in the hard work that goes into running the BDC events.
