I’ve been waiting for this competition for so long, for me it’s THE drift event! I think I’m the biggest polish-drift fan in France, I never thought I could drift one day with the PUZ drift team, on a Touge in France! That was awesome!
We arrived Friday at Pipay, one month after the Slide Drift Team test day. I love the French Alps and it was good to be back. Saturday morning was technical inspection and then out for practice. The practice runs were difficult, the car wouldn’t do what I wanted, bad tires, bad pressure, it was not great. Around 12, we inspected the steering and realised that the front arm was broken. Luckily I saw that in the paddock, imagine if that happened on the track!
One of my friends, Rachid, found me some part the Sunday morning, and after some problem the car finally was ready, but with 0° of camber, 0°of caster and no roll bar. It was going to be difficult but we had no choice.
I just had time for one training run, I was just terrified and had no feeling with the car, I was just trying not to hit the walls. I never felt that before, I remember few minutes before in the paddock I told my brother “when the car scares you, that’s bad.”
Qualification time, I managed my first run, not really a good run, but clean and I drifted all of the course. The 2 other runs were bad, one spin and a handbrake fail…
I qualified 13th for the battles, against my friend Sebastien Blanchet with an E30 turbo. In battles I only fear the leader being slower than me as I don’t know how to drift without speed. Im sure that will improve as I gain more experience. In my chase run I spun after trying to follow him closely.
My lead run was clean and I pulled away due the extra speed. Unfortunately my spin during the first run cost me the opportunity to continue through to the top 8. Drifting is all about 2 things for me “pedal to the metal and door to door”, as polish drifters say!
That’s the game, it was an amazing Drift event, we have never seen that in France before. Thanks to Drift Challenge and Slide Drift Team for all your hard work in making this event possible!
I’ve learnt a lot this weekend and it will be the best memories of my first drift season!