I know I know...it has been ages since I blogged on here. I have been mainly concentrating on posting on
GarageLSD (
Facebook page) and have started to neglect this blog. I know it's not really an excuse considering everything but I thought I would post my thoughts on here.
2012 for me has been an amazing year. Through this year alone I have met many new friends, caught up with some old friends and followed a new Drifting Championship. I decided to make this post to summarise or to capture the moments that I remember through this year.
The first event of the year from what I remember was the
SXOC 2012 Rolling Road day. This is the first time seeing what my car could do after the forged rebuild. For me personally it laid to rest the demons that plagued me back in 2011. What a difference a year made for the car.
The car ran well which is the main reason for me doing the RR day. It didn't produce much power considering what was done to the car but neither was it mapped or anything. Hopefully in 2013 I will have everything sorted and should be running enough power.
The next event I went to was the first round of the
Northern Drift Championships which was held at
Teeside Autodrome. This championship being new to the drifting scene, I was sceptical at first as to how it would be. After attending the first round though I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Through the rest of the year I ended up attending every round.
It was this first round of NDC weekend I met a new bunch of friends. The local drift team:
Team Sunset with their vast knowledge of BMW's were competing in the Northern Drift Championships. Darren Rickaby in his BMW V8 converted E30 was one of them. He was the Novice class Northern Drift Champion and deservedly so.
Another notable car from
Team Sunset is Reggie's (Robert Wray) BMW V8 converted E30 estate driven by Pete Crown. At the start of the season it was pretty immaculate. Fresh paint and everything was running pretty perfect at the start. Pete eventually gained the "Crown" of Semi-Pro Class Champion of the Northern Drift Championships.
Team Sunset wouldn't be complete without Matty Stevenson. His BMW 4.0 Supercharged V8 Nissan Silvia PS13 looks simply amazing. You can even see the supercharger poking out of the bonnet. But due to working off shore though he could only attend certain rounds. He competed in BDC and NDC when and if he could. The sound of this car was orgasmic; I even had the pleasure of sitting in the car for one of the rounds during practise.
Dunkz from
GarageLSD managed to get his "John Deere" back on the road and also competed in the Northern Drift Championships. I followed him through the season and saw how he developed the car at each round; he was forever upgrading parts and always just before the drift weekend. Only on the last round of NDC did he manage to get the car to drive the way he wanted.
It was great following Dunkz and the rest of the drifting scene throughout the year. You see a lot of people improving as the year progressed. If you are Scottish and into the drift scene and you haven't heard about
7eam Chizfab then you should really get into the scene more. They are pretty infamous around Scotland.
I have seen Kyle from
7eam Chizfab in his BMW E36 M3 Cabriolet many times this year. At the start of the year the car was still being build. It did however have the roll cage already welded in. Kyle being a master welder himself did it all himself. The first time seeing the cage I had to touch it for some reason...and as Jeek put it "It passed the Jeff test". If you want to check out what Kyle does you can visit his website
here.
Kyle was competing in the NDC and came third overall in the Professional class. He also competed in the last round of the
British Drift Championship and made pretty amazing progress until a mechanical failure seen him having to retire. I did manage to catch him in a photo when he was using "too many rapids".
Jeek from
7eam Chizfab was competing in his BMW E39 540i through the year. An event that I remember that was a highlight of the year for me was when, in the first round of NDC in the Pro class during qualifying.
Jeek only had a few wheel nuts holding on to the driver side rear wheel. On the qualifying run he was trying for a huge last corner drift but the wheel studs shredded and the wheel came off.
These particular shots were one of my favourite of the year. Jeek mentioned it was quite surreal to see his wheel bouncing behind him as he rolled to a stop.
Stu a.k.a "The Hat" (another member of
7eam Chizfab), in his Mazda RX7 FC3S provided me with countless entertainment through the year. Not only in his bright yellow banana RX7 but also in his red Jumanji RX7.
In the yellow RX7 he competed in the NDC pro class and achieved 2nd place overall in the championships and by the end of the year it looked to have better days after constantly being abused. The red RX7 was another story as it was being driven at
Jumanji Nights.
Jumanji Nights was a new event to the drifting calendar ran by Chizfab. It is set in a stock car oval track with solid walls. The idea of the day was to help driver improve on their twinning or battling techniques, allowing everyone to hone their skills. The red RX7 was Stu's battle machine and through the year we saw it grow from a pristine example down to a shell which was due to be scrapped.
I really enjoyed
Jumanji Nights every time I was up there. It had a more relaxed atmosphere with everyone wanting to just have fun. Which they all did. With this new venue, the owners plan on building/extended an already existing kart track for drifting use. They have already named it Driftland. Hopefully with the new track it will attract more people to the venue and blossom to something huge. All local drifters are already looking forward to it.
Jumanji Nights already attract an array of drivers and cars. From beginners to seasoned veterans. This included Marcin Mucha in his Toyota Supra. Come to think of it I am pretty certain I have seen Marcin practically at every track day/event I went to. It's not a bad thing by any means as I always enjoyed seeing the smoke billow out of the rear wheels of his car. At
Jumanji Nights, you pretty much only had opportunity of one lap of him going around the track before there was too much smoke to take the picture.
In the last round of the BDC at Knockhill, he came in a well deserved second place in the Semi-Pro class. Rumour has it that he is working on something special for the next season. What the project is, I guess you will have to wait and see.
In BDC this year, I only attended three of the rounds. Two of which were held at Teesside Autodrome and the Final Knockhill round. Each round that I was present at, I was greatly impressed by the skills of which the drivers were drifting at. It seems that all the drivers stepped up a level and the competition seems a lot more serious than that of the previous years.
The Scots were represented this year by David Waterworth (Roacher) in the Super Pro class and Steven Donnelly in the Semi-Pro class. David was in his V10 Viper engined Nissan Silvia S15 and Steven in his Toyota Soarer.
David was unfortunately knocked out in the last round of Knockhill after a collision with James Fuller; but news have filtered back that the car will be fine again for next season and will compete again, which is a relief.
This year has been amazing to say the least. I really enjoyed every event I went to and it was great to see everyone do what they love. The world of drifting seems to be flourishing now compared to previous year and it is bigger than ever. Next year sees the arrival of
Open Drift Championship hosted by
Jumanji Nights, another
Northern Drift Championship at Teesside Autodrome and of course the national competition of the
British Drift Championship. With the development of Driftland in Lochgelly for Jumanji Nights, I simple cannot wait to see what this year will bring. 2013...bring it on!!
Special thanks to:
Garage LSD
7eam Chizfab
Team Sunset
Teesside Autodrome
Northern Drift Championship
Jumanji Nights
SXOC
Daiko
Last but not least:
Henry Yeung and HoHo Chan
::Jeff
I have recently decided to make a facebook page for the blog. It's where I will be posting random pictures that are mainly mine and what I find interesting as well as posting some pictures on there from events.
You can find the page here:
https://www.facebook.com/theMWP.net
I also have a tumblr which I use to reblog anything I find interesting, from cars to games to anime.
You can find my tumblr here:
http://jeffreyshek.tumblr.com/
If you have twitter and want to follow me on there, you can find me here:
https://twitter.com/jeffreyshek
Oh and I also have an instagram:
http://instagram.com/jeffreyshek
And a flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/themwp/
In the mean time I will leave you with a picture of Jamie Gardner's wide bodied sil80 which was just freshly painted for the first Jumanji Nights of 2013.
Posts
