D1RC Drift Series Round 4 - Silverstone

^{Written by John Turner}

^{The 350Z Trio kickin' it out.}

I guess that, given the miserable weather we had during the week leading up to the competition, we shouldn't have expected anything other that rain on Sunday. Eddie and I left home in Essex at 4am and arrived at Silverstone, trailer in tow, shortly after 6am so that we could erect the fencing, banners, lay the track, position the rostrum, hook up the power etc before the inner paddock became busy with huge car transporters. But….it was still pouring down so we sat huddled in the misting up car until around 7.30 before it stopped and we could begin work, made all the easier by Adrian who also arrived early to help.

Brad, our usual early bird ‘assistant’ had a knee ligament operation on Wednesday so, in a wheel chair or on crutches, could not do too much but arrived late anyway after his friend’s Skyline’s turbo let go on the M1, his sister dashing up north in her KA to bring him the rest of the way! Paul was even less lucky with his ‘Citruin’ giving up the battle on route (again) but on this occasion it refused to be fixed so had to DNF before even arriving!

For the rest of us things started to come together quickly as our pit area quickly filled and the cars took to the circuit for morning practice. The track, a clockwise JT design this time, started in front of the Abbey Motorsports’ rostrum running to the left and away to the far left corner of the circuit area – a very long, lazy curve rather than a straight and with a slight off camber due to the rain run-off slope of the paddock surface. At the far corner, the track looped back towards the rostrum along a short straight and a left turn 180, the straight not always short enough to link to the 180, and then a further shorter straight and right turn 180 to the finish line, a gentle righthander connecting the finish to the start for the Time Attack circuit.

Qualifying kicked off after lunch and it was immediately obvious that the standard was going to be high, no perfect 100 score this round but no less than three 99pts from Eddie Turner, Jimmy Lam and Stuart Cave (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and two 98pts from John Turner and Brad Hurr (4th, 5th). Unfortunately Matt Cable and Adam McEwen suffered mechanical problems during practice and failed to make qualifying.

Following the D1GB qualifying, the D1RC finals kicked off with Eddie taking the first battle from Adrian Simon 7-3, 6-4,

^{Eddie getting his nose poked in.}

This followed by a 350Z battle, John’s Purple Power taking out Brad’s Sumo Power 10-0, 6-4.

^{This 350Z battle was a sight to behold.}

Next up was Jon Howell and Stuart Cave, Stu pushing through with a convincing 8-2, 8-2.

^{It was crazy how much angle these two got.}

Last up was Ritchie Hood and series leader Jimmy Lam.

^{Ritchie found it hard keeping 'The Lam' at bay.}

Jimmy powering through with a 4-6, 10-0, Ritchie unfortunately finding tiny flaw in the tarmac, leading to a kick out spin.

The first of the semis saw father John (no, he hasn't taken up the cloth!) and son Eddie on the line,

^{Eddie really used weight shifting to his advantage.}

A 10-0, 0-10 series of spins leading to a “one more time!” 7-3, 4-6 very narrow win by Eddie.

The second semi brought Stu and Jimmy to battle.

^{So close!}

This time a 7-3, 3-7 requiring a “one more time” of 5-5, 10-0 to Stu, too close for comfort!

Following a thrill a minute D1GB final, the D1RC finalists returned to the track to start the 1/10 scale battles. Apart from the CML prizes and Radio Race Car trophies, on this occasion Sumo Power had kindly arranged for one of Tim Marshall’s Z33 tyres to be signed by Tim, currently 5th in the championship, to be awarded to the D1RC winner and D1GB SVA driver Ralph Crampton, currently 8th placed, was gently press ganged into judging our finals!

The first outing was by John with his Pro4 350Z and Jimmy with his Yoke' Drift Package RX7 fighting for third place and, after yet another “one more time”

^{Jimmy's driving was supurb on the last runs.}

^{Jimmy came good and took the win.}

This just left Stu’s TA03F and Eddie’s Yoke' SSG to battle for the overall win.

^{These two were hard to pick apart.}

Eddie led off first with both drivers completing a very tidy drive through the judged section but, in the second run with Stu leading, he ran wide into turn one, allowing Eddie to creep through inside to steal the coveted 1st place.

^{Stuart Cave picking up 2nd place.}

^{Eddie Turner accepts the winner's spoils from Ralph.}

^{The Time Attack (TC spec chassis but with realistic shells/wheels, timed over 5 laps) was won by Eddie Turner, 33.41secs.}

Second and third were John Turner 36.96 and Brad Hurr 40.47, all cars coincidentally using the 19turn Money Motor.

^{Concourse winners for round 4 were Stu Cave with his modified TA03F chassis...}

^{...and Adrian Simon with his very neat pink/gold flip painted RX7.}

A special prize of a 1/24th die-cast Apex RX7 for 'Best Competitor' was generously donated by Eddie (who had won two!) and was awarded to Jack Barnes (aged 8!) who, well, was the best competitor!

D1RC would like to thank their Drift Series sponsors, D1GB, CML and Radio Race Car and Abbey Motorsports for their ‘motorised rostrum’, Sumo Power for their never ending support (and Jack) and Ralph Crampton (SVA) for assisting with the judging and presentations. Ralph, incidentally, put in a very competent show with Eddie's car after the presentations.

^{The 350Z trio, Ritchies HKS, JT's Purple Power & Brad's Sumo Power. The're no 'Shelf Queens' in the D1RC Drift Series!}

Thank You.

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Results

Drift Competition

• 1^st - Eddie Turner
• 2^nd - Stuart Cave
• 3^rd - Jimmy Lam
• 4^th - John Turner
• 5^th - Brad Hurr
• 6^th - Jon Howell
• 7^th - Ritchie Hood
• 8^th - Adrian Simon

Time Attack

• 1^st - Eddie Turner
• 2^nd - John Turner
• 3^rd - Brad Hurr

Concours

• Best Bodyshell - Adrian Simon
• Best Chassis - Stuart Cave