Prodrift Ireland 2011 kicked off a few weekends ago in Ennis Speedway and unfortunatly for me, due to other commitments it was my first and last round in Ireland this year.

The Prodrift Irish series has always been good to me and it has been a great platform to learn the traits of drifting in the most competitive championship in Europe. Due to the economic downturn in Ireland recently and the lack of big name sponsors it’s not viable for me to compete in my home championship anymore and the time has come to move elsewhere in search of bigger and better things to enhance my career.

Saturday kicked off as usual with two practice sessions. It was my first time back in the drivers seat of the 180jz after our win @ UAE Drift in Dubai and confidence was high. Last year the car worked perfectly and with minimal changes this year I knew the car would be competitive right from the get go!

The track in Ennis was quiet tight but with plenty of wall rubbing I knew it would suit my style and we could lay down some agressive runs! Maybe to agressive at times as with my first run in practice I came in way to hot and had a heavy hit with the tyre barriers through turn 2!! Im after putting this down to cold tyres, a dusty track and a serious rush of blood to the head to be back driving! Luckily for me there was no major damage done to the car bar a few cosmetic issues!

The rest of practice went quiet smothly and by the end of the second session and with a few set up changes we were on form and rubbing every wall with big entries! For the main event day on Sunday things were looking good!

Sunday brought another practice session in the morning before qualifying and it with a good set up it was time to get some twin drifting in! One of my main aims this year is to be agressive as possible while in the chase car position.  Without the pressure of the championship this was a great opportunity to prove to myself that I can run on peoples doors comfortably.

Qualifying got underway in a reverse championship order from 2010 and this left me 2^nd to last to run. I really enjoyed the rivalry last year with James Deane and the start of this year was no exception. After the first qualifying run I was lieng in 2^nd place behind James and I knew for run 2 it would have to be awesome to knock him off top spot. My 2^nd run put me in top spot behind the young guy but it was short lived as he duely went back on top with a blistering run!

Super lap was next. James laid down another great run with a score of 27 out of a possible 30. I was gonna give it all or nothing to knock him off. My plan was to go for a huge entry and rub every wall possible. It worked, just. My entry was right on the limit in both angle and speed and it paid off with a score of 29. Delighted to win the super lap and more importantly delighted to keep James honest!

Top 16 pitted me against Chris Brady in the newly built MCN  Sport Ae86. Chris is one of the new guys to come into Prodift last year and i’ve been hugely impressed with him as he came through the ranks! It was definatly not going to be an easy battle and my point was proven when we had to run 2 one more times! I enjoyed the battles so much as the two of us were on it. No games just flat out driving! The way it should be but not always the case in Ireland lately! We managed to pip Chris to the win and move onto the Top8.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Top 8 saw me against Christy Carpenter in the Yokohama s15. An amazing car and is a pure credit to Christy. It was great to hear the two jz’s hitting it hard off the startline. Christy did manage to catch me slightly off guard as I was chasing. He is running over 100hp than me but his run in was very slow. It messed up my lines slightly and managed to get the win as I caught the wall under the judges tower through turn 3!If I was going to get knocked out by anyone, I was happy it was Christy as I think his time has come finally to show people what he’s really made of and to compete for the overall championship. Best of luck to you for 2011 buddy!

And that was that. Qualified 1^st and out in the top 8, a good days work and one of the more enjoyable prodrift events i’ve competed in for a long time on a driving scale! Prodrift you will be sadly missed but here’s to bigger and better things!

The say a picture says a 1000 words……. so what more can I say only Check out the new 2011 promo video!

Thanks to everyone that helped get it together! And Cezeli Productions for the Editing! Big Respect!!

For more of martins work click here

Nigel!

Following the rd2 win in Punchestown, We were on top of the Prodrift Championship. Hopes were high going into the new venue at Citywest for Prodrift rd3.

Drift Jam was on again on Friday and I got a chance to lay down some runs and see how everything was working. Everything felt pretty good with a 4^th gear entry into the first turn running the wall, back to 3^rd for the tighter sections. The last bend was flat in 3^rd out to the wall over the finsih line! Very technical track and everything felt good after parking up after practice!

Saturday was another Practice session. A few changes were made to the car but on the final bend the 180jz was struggeling a small bit for traction. Other than that everything was good with the car running flawlessly.

Sunday Qualifying had a very strong field of drivers with Team Japspeed coming over for the event! Dean Kearney was also competing in Ireland for the first time this year and the competion was stiff! I managed a respectable 5^th place in qualifying.

Next up was the all important Super Lap, to decide who was against who in the Top 16 and also some valuable championship points for the top 8 Qualifyers. On entry to the first bend I completly missed the scoring box. Big mistake on my behalf. I managed to claw back up to 8^th place with a good end to the lap.

Top 16 had me against another UK driver Paul Cheshire from Team Falken, who made the trip over for the event. I had been watching his runs all day, pulling off crazy angles at the end of thefirst bend, but he seemed slow! A steady run while chasing and a fast run while leading managed to see me through pretty comfortably.

Top 8 and I was paired against my good mate off track and arch enemy on, James Deane. This was not who I wanted to meet in the Top 8 but for the 3^rd consecutive event we would be facing up against each other. The traction James has in the Nexen RX-7 is crazy and I knew it was going to be a fast, close battle.

James led first and I pushed hard behind. Through the first half of the track I managed to stick it to James, but coming out of the final bend I just didnt have the traction to stay with him. With James chasing it was more of the same. I could feel the presence of the Purple RX-7 on top of me all the way through the track. I knew it wasn’t going to be enough to beat him after the gap he managed to pull on me in the first run. The judges confirmed and I was out.

James went on to take a well deserved win at the event with flawless driving  and took the top spot of the championship table away from me. Game on for Prodrift rd4 in Mondello Park!!

Nigel

Check out this pretty cool video From Prodrift @ Citywest…… Head to 2.15 to see some pretty close wall riding action from the 1jsx!!