Nigel Colfer Blog » hankook

Prodrift Rd2, Punchestown

Nigey San — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:40:27 +0000

Following the first round of prodrift in Fermoy, it was time to get down and dirty with the car and give it a new look for the 2010 season! My main focus had been the mechanical end and to make the car reliable and with everything holding up and looking good after Rd1 it was time to have fun with the outside!!!

The satin black paint gives the car a real distinctive and agressive look and im really happy with how it all turned out! I’ll go into more detail in the car section when I have the pics back from the awesome Paddy McGrath photoshoot!!

Round 2 started for me on Friday with a new crowd on the scene, Drift Jam adding a practice session before the main event! It was great to get in the hot seat a day earlier and through down some runs and make some adjustments! The car was performing well and everything looked good for the weekend!

With the turn out of the semi pro guys of over 70 cars saturday ended up being a practice day for the seeded guys!!! It’s great to see so many cars competing in this time of economic downturn, and its great to see drifting getting more and more popular! With a full 90 mins of twin drifting practice, I made a point of following everyone as hard as I could! Chasing really has been my achilles heel lately and with my confidence growing in the car it’s the only way to sort that out! By the end of practice I was feeling a lot more comfortable driving in on people’s doors!!

Sunday was now a full day, qualifying, super lap and the main event! Sunday morning practice was all about finding the right qualifying line, and a few more close twin battles towards the end!

Qualifying for the main event went well, 3rd overall, but after checking out my speed @ 100kph I was 12k down on the highest qualifer Gavin Lenihan! That meant a loss of 6 points with the new prodrift scoring system! This was something that bugged me!! I wasn’t going to be as slow for the super lap!!

For the super lap I entered at 116kph, the fastest entry of the day, but it messed up my line slightly pushing me wide through the course! The speed made up for the slightly dodgy line though as it left me in 3rd place and another 6 championship points! With championship leader James Deane making an uncharacteristic mistake and not scoring any points we were tied for the championship lead going into the twin battles!

Top 16, Stephen Bolger

I knew Stephen in the orange 180sx was struggling for grip all day and his entry speed for qualifying proved it with an 89kph entry! So while leading first I concentrated on getting a huge entry speed hoping he’d follow and make a mistake! It worked and he spun out behind me! With another spin while leading I advanced into the top8!

Top 8, Michael Swan

Michael Swan is one of the new guys on the scene and his runs had been quiet impressive all day. Its tough driving against a new guy as u just dont know how fast or what his driving style is like! Again his entry speed was a little low so I concentrated on using my fast entry as an advantage! I washed out quiet wide entering the tear drop and Michael was there or there abouts all the way through the run! I knew id have to push hard in the chase run to convince the judges of my place in the top4 so I stuck to his door all the way through the chase run! It worked, and I progressed to the Semi Finals!

Semi Final, James Deane

This was a battle I was looking forward to all day! James and I had practice quiet a bit together on both Friday and Saturday and we were on each other’s door all weekend!! It was also a battle I had to win in order to have any hope at the 2010 championship!! To be honest it was all a bit of a blur for me!! I pushed as hard as I could and it ended up going to 2 OMT’s! In the 2nd OMT I knew I had to do something different to catch James off guard. I transitioned slightly earler hoping to upset his run. When we got back to the start line James had a cone caught in his front bumper and I had some kind of advantage! I concentrated on following him hard and not to give him a chance to make up the difference and couldnt believe when he spun coming out of the teardrop! This was one of my biggest wins to date and was totally pumped having bet him!!

me and james messing about after the semi’s!! lol

Final, Gavin Lenihan

After the sick battle against James in the semi’s I knew I had to calm down and finish the event off! Gavin had been a man on a mission all day, defeating both Nexen’s Christy Carpenter and Hankooks Alan Sinnott on the way to the final! I had to get my head down and concentrate hard! I ran a fast line while leading and Gavin wasn’t far off my bumper. I chased hard and I really didnt know what way it would go!

Words can’t describe what it was like to win. After all the upsets of 2009 and mechanical issues id worked soooo hard to get back here again! To get the car competitive and reliable and to not worry what was going to go wrong next, so I could just concentrate on driving the socks off it and most importantly enjoy myself while drifting!! It was the best feeling ever!!

The last pic pretty much sums up my day, the battles were so tough and I definatly lost half my body weight in sweat!! Dam them cars get hot!!! It was worth every drop of sweat though for an 11 point championship lead heading into Rd3 in CityWest!

Also I want to take this opportunity to thank all my sponsors who have stuck with me through all the good times and more importantly the bad! Shane @ DriveNStyle, Streetlegalirl, Xtreme Auto’s for building a kick ass engine, East Coast Customs for mapping it, OBP, Ross @ DeadPirate Productions and Dan @ Driftbloggers

Im still hunting for a main sponsor for 2010 so please please please if you can help, catch me at Colfer08@gmail.com

and finally all the supporters and well wishers, It’s what makes me keep going! Appreciate it loads!!

Catch u guys at CityWest on the 26th/27th June as I try hold of James Deane for the 2010 Championship!!

Nigel!

Prodrift rd1, Fermoy

Nigey San — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:09:35 +0000

Prodrift RD1

The off season has been a busy time for me!! Last year wasn’t the best for the new 1jsx, with terrible cooling issues and a car that endlessly wanted to swap ends!!

The long off season gave me a chance to fix all the little problems that were playing on my mind for the 2009 season. No.1 being the reliability issues the 1jz was throwing up. During an off season testing session engine number 3 decided to give up the ghost and was the Final straw! New engine and a rebuilt bottom end was dropped in and a totally new cooling set up was installed into the front of the 1Jsx!

The car also got a set of the new Driftworks Geomaster hubs front and rear and the difference this made to how the car felt was like night and day… It finally felt like a nible 180 again with loads of grip and HUGE steering angle!! Which is always good in drifting!!

The week before Prodrift round1 in the cork marts I returned from an awesome break in California where I took in the first round of Formula Drift in Long Beach!! Just the job to get me in Drift mood!!

Saturday 17/03/10, Practice & pre-event qualifying

With things not working out with previous sponsors, this was my first event running independently and I was totally chilled. No pressure, no worries!!

The track temperature was quiet high on Saturday afternoon for the practice session, the surface was very slick and not a lot of grip was to be found, it seemed to be a problem for everyone though so I was concentrating on putting down some good wall rubbing lines and carrying as much speed as I could!

Pre-Qualifying went well, coming in 4^th behind D-Mac, James Deane and Team Hankooks Alan Sinnott!! More importantly the car was feeling better with every run and left the track Saturday with loads of confidence for Sundays main event.

Sunday 18/03/10, Super Lap & Main Event

Sunday morning has turned into quiet a relaxed affair…. with only 16 drivers and a start time of 10am things were very chilled out before practice!!! Prodrift seems to like one big family with everyone having a laugh and a bit of craic!!

The track was quiet different for sunday practice. Cooler track temps meant more grip and speed!! It was difficult to get to the outside clips at times but it just meant i had to push harder.

Sunday practice also gave a me a good chance to check out what the new car was like against other competitors. Straight off it was very quick and I was pulling gaps on most guys I battled against!

Fermoy started to fill up pretty quickly during the morning, just in time for the SuperLap qualifying! Valuable championship points are available for the super lap, so taking it easy is not an option!!! I laid down quiet a good run and put me on top spot with only AlanSinnott and James Deane left to go. Alan couldnt quiet match my score but James came along and laid down an awesome run, leaving me in 2nd place and claiming 7 points!!

First off in the top 16 was one of the Lenihan brothers, Gavin! I knew this battle was going to be tough and my point was proved after it went to one more time! Luckily I had watched his line through the first battle and adjusted mine to run a lot shallower on the 2nd run!! It was another close battle but id done just enough to gain my pass to the top8!!

Top8 and I was against another Lenihan, Alan in the Team Hankook s13. I led first and just concentrated on driving as fast as I could through the track. The Hankook car just couldnt match the pace and took a fairly healthy lead. Chasing was a lot tougher, with Alan nearly stopping in the horse shoe. It ended up going to another OMT and I took a place in the semi finals

The semi final had me up against another hankook driver and 2009 team mate Alan Sinnott. Having ran practice with Alan i knew i had the pace on him and it ended up being a relativly easy passage into the round 1 Final!

The final was against the man on fire, Nexen’s James Deane. Having been over in Long Beach, CA with him the week previous I knew it was gonna be a tough battle. During the first run I made a silly mistake by transitioning too early into the horse shoe and it left me with nowhere to go! On my lead run I ran a good line hopeing James would make an unlikely mistake. He didn’t and I ended up with second place!

It was a great weekend for me and the new car. My aim for the weekend was to stick with James and I couldn’t have stuck any closer. With both second in the Super lap and 2nd overall the championship is definatly still up for grabs. Round 2 in Punchestown is going to be interesting!!

Thanks again to all my supporters, well wishers and sponsors who have stuck with me into the 2010 season!! See you at the next round!! Nigel!