I will be seen drifting on UTV at 10.35pm on Thursday 5th August, at the Paddy Rally event that I attended last month as part of a special RPM Motorsport programme. Tyndall Productions covered the supercar event at Mondello Park in Kildare at which I was running drift demonstrations during lunch and later that afternoon.
A lot of hard work went into the Nissan leading up to Cadwell Park. A new ACT arrived clutch courtes
y of Apex Performance and during fitting we noticed a crack in the turbo elbow, so it was all hands on deck to get everything competition ready. A quick trip to Redditch to visit Greg at Protuner, to finish the map in the car on the rolling road and we were ready for Cadwell.
Only 20 miles from the east coast of England near Grimsby, Cadwell Park isn’t as centrally located as the other large circuits. It is also particularly narrow, with the section we were using through a set of trees more like a rally stage, with the spectators being right beside the action. The tight, twisty off camber set of four corners we were using didn’t seem daunting until fellow drifter Kieran Cameron returned from his first practice lap minus half the front end of the Apex V8 Nissan S14.
I was up against Declan in the mighty Toyota Cresta, who closed the gap behind me on our first run. Second time out and I kept with Declan but it wasn’t enough to progress through to the semi-finals. I was then paired with the battle for 5/6th place against Brett Castle in the V8 skyline, and almost had a spectacular crash as Brett had a 360 degree spin on our practice run. We had two tight battles but I know I could have pushed harder, and Brett clinched 5th.
With temperatures soaring into the early 30s, it made for a very warm trip to the south of England on our way to the great Brands Hatch for Round 3. I had driven here last year with the EDC and was looking forward to the huge Clearways corner for some genuine 100mph drifting.
The Nissan was struggling to break traction in practice. I knew from last year the car could perform 4th gear drifts effortlessly on this corner, but it seemed that the great new very sticky Pirelli P-Zero Corsas we had been supplied coupled with high track surface temperatures was the issue. We increased the tyre pressures to 55psi in the rear (up from 35) and the difference was dramatic and timely too – I was just about to go out against second round runner up, Paul Conlan. Paul had trouble with his S15 and was in Declan Hicks old Toyota Soarer, but he still put up a fight. I went through to the top 4, result!
Next up was season leader and fellow Belfast man Mark Luney in the SVA 350z, who I was paired against at the same time last year although this time it was the semi-finals. Mark and I had two blazing runs, with me clocking a 98mph entry on my lead run, however his second entry of 104mph he pulled a gap and went through to the finals.
Another fantastic EDC event however we were all burnt to shreds in the scorching heat. It was great to be back with the EDC and roll on round 4 at Cadwell Park!
Big events have held up by blog updates as my attentions were turned to my big day. Without the unwavering support from my now wife Ruth I wouldn’t be able to persue my drifting passion like I have done, and we got married a few weeks ago. For obvious reasons I subsequently missed the second round of the EDC at Knockhill, and was pondering an offer to attend the Paddy Rally event at Mondello.
The Paddy Rally event was a supercar owners track day at Mondello and after party at the Cultra Inn; I had been kindly invited to do drift demonstrations at lunchtime along with Mark ‘Buff’ Luney but I was only home a few days from honeymoon so prep time was non-existant! I decided at the last minute I could do it and made the trip to Mondello really not knowing what to expect. I was in for a treat…
I had arrived about 10.30am at Mondello to fairly empty pits, and soon after I was greeted by a jaw dropping selection of supercars including Lamborghinis, Porsche 911s, Nissan GTRs (I love them), a Honda NSX, Lotus Elises, an Aston and a TVR in there as well. Toys for the boys – or the girls, who were in an orange Lambo Diablo!
Spot me below if you can – somewhere behind Cool FM’s Pete Snodden! You might also notice the back of Plum Tyndall in the pic – he was there with the whole RPM crew who were filming the entire event for a special RPM show due to air in late July 2010. Also at the event was Mr Paparazzi - I took his associate out during the first drift demo and he was glad to get out at the end of it!
My second drift demo run of the day was with familiar looking gentlemen – none other than Britain’s Got Talent’s Stavros Flatley! Dimitri absolutely loved the drifting after his run with me and was raving about it all day.
The rest of the day was spent mingling with the other drivers who were there for the track day before heading back North to the Cultra Inn for a great after party.
Round 1 of the 2010 European Drift Championship was back with a bang at Oulton Park near Chester. It was great to get back to this track, and this year we ran it in reverse – which meant a tricky first corner.
I was up against James Russell in the Kleers R32 Skyline, with James winning our runs with a bigger drift angle in the first corner. Next time James! I also had two great runs against Scottish mate Kieran Cameron in his Apex V8 Sylvia. In our battle for 5th/6th place I put in two solid runs to secure the win over Kieran, and I was 4 cylinders down!
A great start to the new season, and here are a few photos of the fantastic new image of the EDC for 2010, including our driver stage and car gazebos!
With the beginning of the 2010 European Drift Championship season looming, we were invited to Cadwell Park for a day with the media and some on track testing. The new graphics of the “Team RMS” Nissan went down well, and I had great craic on the tight and technical track.
The 2010 season of the Ulster Drift Championship started back at the Bishops Court track last week and I brought the Nissan along for a quick shake down after winter. The new track layout meant full throttle 4th gear drifts, and I qualified 3rd place with fastest entry speed of the day at 80mph.
The top 16 saw me against Clive Heatherington and after a ‘one more time’ battle re-run I was out by one point. They don’t come much closer than that!
Next up, with the 2010 EDC looming the S14a is going for a new look. All will be revealed at an upcoming press day….
The European Drift Championship 2009 final at Snetterton circuit in Norwich was a fitting climax to an awesome year’s events. I was named EDC New Driver of the Year and managed a respectable 10th place in the championship. I’d like to thank the team and sponsors and this brilliant achievement makes it all worthwhile.
So back to round 6 and if you’ve seen my previous posts we were coming to terms with a dying engine. All back together but barely run in, we loaded up and headed to East Anglia, the home of Snetterton Circuit. Luckily we got some practice on the Saturday, and like all EDC events, this one seemed faster than the last.
The Coram and Russell corners were used – Coram was so long that I had to take the racing line without drifting on the previous corners of the track in order to get the 200sx sideways – with enough momentum to get round the corner. I ran the engine on a low boost - probably 25% down on power - so it would survive the day! To put things into context, 115mph was cited for drift entry, with in-corner drift speeds in the mid 90s!
On the Sunday, I got through to the top 8 and was up against Paul Conlan in his 550hp Nissan S15. Running more boost helped but on my first competitive run a hose blew and was badly damaged. Using the EDC ’5 minute rule’ we were able to get a quick fix for the second run but the failing pipe broke again mid-corner sending me off the track! Paul went through to challenge Mark Luney in the final, with Luney winning the round and also the championship.
This marks the end of the 2009 EDC season - both myself and the car have come a long way over the year. I am hoping to make some improvements on the car over the next few months and aim to compete in the SWD events at Bishopscourt. I’ll keep you posted through the blog – thanks again for the support throughout the year.
Andy.
It’s been a
while since my last blog, unfortunately due to engine issues. Once home from Brands Hatch we lifted out and stripped the engine to find some piston ring damage which would seem to be the cause of loss of power.
The engine made the short trip to WK developments where it was rebuilt with new gaskets, bearings and piston rings. My run of bad luck was to continue with a faulty head gasket. Meanwhile we had missed round 5 of the European Championships at Santa Pod but with only a few weeks to the final at Snetterton all the stops were pulled out to get the car going again.
Thanks to AI Autosport I was able to run the car in on their rolling road and everything is looking good for another trip across England and another epic drift championship round.
