New Facebook Page etc..

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.

The Year That Was 2012...a Summary of a Great Year

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

Inactivity

Firstly I would like to apologise for the lack of activity recently. I have been mostly working away and just doing mainly other things. I have been updating GarageLSD with my posts though. If any of my readers were ever wondering where my posts have gone. I will hopefully be back into the full swing of things on this site soon. Due to the most recent picture of mine going a bit viral I thought I owed it to the new visitors of the site why it's been quiet.

Have a look around and check out the blog roll on the right.

Northern Drift Championship Round 1 at Teeside Autodrome

The Northern Drift Championship is a new entry into the drifting calender. It was designed as an entry level drift competition. This series is based solely at the Teeside Autodrome, which is renowned for being a great track for spectators as well as drivers.



The event has 3 classes as with other drift championships. Since this is an open championship the field will be divided during qualifying. The driver will then be placed into the Novice, Semi-Pro or Pro class. Both Novice and Semi-Pro classes will be ran individually and there will be no twin drifting. The only twinning is in the Pro class and because of this the Pro cars must meet British Drift Championship (BDC) standards.



The event is split into two days with the first soley for practise and the second is the qualifying and main competition rounds. The judging of the competition has been altered slightly to meet the ‘open to every drifter’ style event. The track will be marked in different sectors, each sector will be judged separately so if a driver spins in one sector, the rest of the sectors will still count towards the final score. It seemed that all Novice and Semi-Pro battles would be done similar to normal twin drifting however the cars will not be so close. This will mean that both cars get judged at the same time but will not run the risk of hitting each other therefore not requiring a roll cage.



With the introduction to the event over, my journey for this weekend began on Friday. After work I rushed back to the house and got ready to leave. In this time the lads coming from Aberdeen had already made their way down to Edinburgh with Dunkz in the JD and Ryan in his JZX110 a bit further behind. Me, Cam & Kinghorn convoyed down to Berwick Upon Tweed and waited for Dunkz and Ryan to catch up. When Dunkz arrived you could see by the look on his face that the JD was not a good commuter car. The car was also so low it was constantly sparking all the way down the road as the car scraped on any slight imperfection, so some weight had to be shifted. The car was so low that even when jacked up, the wheels look like they were sitting standard on other lowered cars.



The rest of Garage LSD lads apart from Kinghorn were travelling to a high quality hotel close to the track. I only went as far as Darlington, where I met my friend Henry. Through Henry, I met the local drift team, Team Sunset. Their speciality being BMWs. Reggie’s BMW E30 4 litre V8 Estate is their main machine. Between Reggie, Pete and rest of the Team Sunset lads, they’ve built a bit of a beast.



When I arrived the car bumper was still getting painted and wiring issues were still getting sorted. It seems that leaving everything to the last week is the standard. They mentioned how they swapped a BMW V8 into a PS13 for Matty Stevenson in under a week in time for the next round of BDC. It turns out that Pete will be driving Reggie’s car for the competition.





Amongst all the work, there is always time for fun and games. Hoho decided to have a go on the modified drifting tricycle. It looked like a lot of fun in all honesty to the point I might actually need to hunt one down.



By the end of the night, it was about 2am. The car was pretty much ready with just a few things still to put on like the rear bumper, but since that was waiting for the paint to dry there was nothing more we could do that night. So we headed home and prepared for the next day nice and early.



Saturday morning, I woke to many messages from the Garage LSD’s chat. It seemed that I kind of slept in, but the practise didn’t start till 2pm. Dunkz, Cam, Ryan, Kinghorn, Stu and the rest of them were already at the track preparing their cars for the days practise. However I made another stop to Team Sunset’s other headquarters before I headed out to the track where I found Daz.



Daz was just putting his final touches on the car with some polish when I arrived. Now his BMW E30 540 V8 conversion was gleaming and I mean it as it was so red that it made some of my pictures over saturated. There were still a few things to be done before Daz makes it to like the alignment which he had booked at 2pm, some might say it was leaving it a bit close for comfort.



When I arrived at the circuit I found the Scottish contingent had invaded Teesside. Some of the best local Scottish drifters turned up for this competition. Walking into the track I spotted Jeek and his BMW 540, Kyle and his Chizcab, Stu and his Mazda RX7 FC3S and of course our very own Dunkz with the JD.









With the preparations and a driver briefing done it was time to get started. Only the smaller west track was available to practise on as the main circuit was in use for karting till later on.







Through the day all the cars were put through their paces in the heat wave we were having. For Dunkz it was testing the JD to see what it could do after coming out of full refresh. Dunkz had worked some crazy hours in the lead up to Teesside to get the car ready for the first round. His first couple of runs we watched Kinghorn noticed that there was fuel spilling out as he transitioned up the hill. The JD was brought back into the pits and the tank drained to help prevent this. With that sorted the Dunkz want back out for a few runs but was plagued with overheating issues. In order to remedy this he borrowed my fan cowling from my s14 to improve the air flow through the radiator. Although not perfect it allowed him to start putting a few runs in and the JD looked amazing on track. I think everyone is just really glad to see the sight of the car going sideways again.





Sadly, Dunkz only managed about 10 runs before the bottom end gave in which spelled the end of the event for him. Getting home would be a dilemma, but fortunately Kyle from Chizfab was to the rescue. He offered his trailer for the JD and Dunkz would drive the Chizcab home. Before we left the track Dunkz was already hunting for a new engine to put in the car and on writing this it’s already back in JD and the work has began to improve the car for round 2.

He did managed to hit record on his borrowed GoPro right before it died though. Video is of course from Garage LSD. Dunkz wasn’t the only casualty of the day, Daz in his E30 also had a bit of a drama.



An altercation with a tyre wall after the first corner of the west track. He ended up damaging his bottom arms which got twisted and bent slightly. Fortunately this was fixed at the trackside with Team Sunset’s expertise.



Within a short period, the car was fixed and back out. It really helps having access to everything within driving distance to the track.





By the end of the evening, the main track was free to play on. This is the track that the competition will also be held on, but the time on this track was limited so everyone only got a handful of runs.







With the end of the first days practice it was time to get some food. We ventured into Middlesbrough and went to a well-known local restaurant – Europa as recommended by Henry. This was one of the places where the original Chicken Parmesan was created. Let me just say…I had the Pork Parmo and I would highly recommend it. After dinner it was time to grab some snacks and the rest of Garage LSD headed back to the hotel. I needed an early night so went back to Darlington. The rest of the lads grabbed a few beers and ended up playing host to the guys from slide motor sport for a viewing of ‘wreck em’ in one of the cramped Metro inn rooms.



On Sunday morning, I had to get to the track early as there was meant to be an SXOC stand. On arrival however, I was directed to the public car park where all the spectators were parked.



There was a free practice in the morning on the main track. Drivers were free to come and go, allowing them to learn the main track and the lines that they would need to take for the competition.





Qualifying was mainly uneventful with everyone putting in their best runs of the day to be judged and categorised into different classes. For Jeek of 7eam Chizfab however, one of his qualifying runs had an un-expected twist.



Most of the time Jeek keeps his run consistent, until that last corner on his last qualifying run:





The wheel studs let go and the wheel came flying off leaving Jeek doing his best tripod impression. Luckily enough the wheel bounced into the tyre wall and stopped. The studs needed changing, but unfortunately Jeek did not make it back on the track for the competition itself.



The drivers were separated out into 3 classes. Stu, Kev, Kyle and Jeek were placed into the Pro category & Mint was placed in the Novice class. Daz from Team Sunset was placed into novice and Pete from Team Sunset was placed in the Semi-Pro class.



Onto the finals and the novice category was up first. Most of the drivers put in some good runs, with a few spinning out. Daz from Team Sunset came out on top with Mint in his MX5 coming in at third place.

Novice Class Results

1st: Darren Rickerby / BMW E30 Team Sunset

2nd: John ‘GB’ King / BMW E36

3rd: Steven Murray / Mazda MX5

Semi Pro Class Results

In the Semi-Pro class Pete from Team Sunset beat the rest of the competition with his crazy angles and constant billowing of smoke.

1st: Peter Crown / BMW E30 Tourer Team Sunset

2nd: Jefferson Harper / Nissan S13

3rd: Matt Stevenson / BMW E36

Pro Class Results

In the Pro class, we had quite a few drivers from Scotland. Kev was up against Kyle, with Kyle gaining the upper hand in their runs. Kyle and Stu came against the Slide Motorsport duo in the semi-finals. Both narrowly losing out to both of them which resulted with a Kyle vs Stu match up for the third place on the podium. In the match up Kyle was trying to get Stu closer to him when twinning by tapping on his door. Eventually Stu got the better of Kyle in the runs and was rewarded with the third position. The winner of the Slide Motorsport’s duo was Adam Simmons who beat Jason Clark in the final.

1st: Adam Simmons / Nissan Skyline R33 Slide Motorsport

2nd: Jason Clark / Mazda RX7 FD3S Slide Motorsport

3rd: Stuart Lawson / Mazda RX7 FC3S

4th: Kyle Chisholm / Chizcab BMW M3 Cabriolet

After the events and the trophies were handed out, it was time to head home.



I have to thank Teesside Autodrome for hosting such a fun event. They are willing to cater to a market for drifting competition without the need of the full-scale BDC competition. Being the first event of the championship, they strive to improve over the coming months. Hopefully this event will become even greater as it grows.

::Jeff