British Drift Championship 2011 - Round 2 - Norfolk Arena

This weekend was going to be a good one. Not only was it Round 2 of the BDC but it was also the team triple drift event.
First off was a no problem practise session. As usual the car was running and performing fine. Norfolk arena track is very small, dusty, slippery at the best of times so not the best track for a soarer with its extra weight. Getting grip is always a nightmare. With practise done and dusted (excuse the pun) it was onto qualifiying.

considering what i was up against with the type of track qualifiying went really well up until the diff decided it had had enough and let go after just 2 or the 3 judged runs. The judged runs i managed to complete were enough to see me into the top 16 battles. I qualified 6th over all. Surprising what you can do when you put your mind to it.

Straight back to the pits to jack up the soarer, whip out the diff and replace it with another one that was kindly lent to me by the SATS Cosworth team. Its great that drifters help each other out when something like this happens without warning.

Thanks to help from the Mint Tyres crew including the girls, the car was back up and running in no time ready for the top 16 battles. Time to line up at the start line and wait for my battle to be called up onto the track.

On my first twin battle i got paired against Simon Perry. Simon always being one to try and syke out the competition by using his practise lap to just drive steadily round. Sadly although doing my best i was knocked out the competition by Mr Perry and finished 7th over all. which considering it was a small track, biggest and heaviest car there and no traction what so ever, i dont think i did to bad. After the days events had finished as usual everyone gathered in the pits, on came the music and out came the beers. Customary of course! It was long late night.

 Sunday morning arrived and the real fun began. Time for the team triple drift competition. Team Mint Tyres Motorsports team consisted or myself, Steve (the tyre man) Whitbread and Belinda Challis. As a team we did really well last year and came second, but this year due to unforseen events belinda was unable to compete taking our triple drift down to a double drift with just myself and Steve.Each team had to put in there qualifying runs we managed to qualify 8th. Each driver can score a certain amont of points so from the start we were at a disadvantage being one driver down. Time for us to go out on track and give it our best shot!

First Battle was against Team D3. We knew we had to perform to our best as with one driver down before even starting we could only score 2/3rds of the total points. Putting in some good angle and close driving with someone as good as steve made it easy. Sadly it was'nt quite enough. Losing to D3 by just 4 points they took the win. If we had a 3rd driver we would of gone through. Such is life.

Despite our disadvantage, myself and Steve did our best and enjoyed the track time. We'll be back for the team event next year and we'll be aiming for the top!