The Drift All Stars were in London at last, a local event
and what an event to attend.
Originally the Drift All Stars were supposed to appear at
the O2 arena, but, after a few location issues it was relocated to Wimbledon,
normally more suited to bangers and friends of the four legged kind chasing a
fluffy white tail, today it was high powered Japanese monsters chasing each
other.
An early start meant I arrived at 9:15am with a warm welcome
from both Stephen Stiggy Evans and Luke Fink who were already heading for the
onsite cafe for some much food, for me a coffee and a chance to catch up and
find out what was in store.
Shortly after Matt and Co. from CTS Car Transport, a good
friend and a wander into the centre track for my first glimpse of the arena, at
this time still under construction with the wooden boards still being placed in
front of the wire wall to offer minimal protection to the drivers, something that
we would later find didn’t work exceptionally well with crashes from Dan
Chivers, Brad McQueen and Jacob Hansen (All
drivers luckily OK). From the inner circle you could tell it was going to be a
mad event.
Media access was kindly arranged
through Matt and Faruk and it was back to the truck and the unloading of an
extremely large quantity of tyres until waiting for Media sign on. At 11:30 I wandered over to the
media briefing, bumping into Laura Bonafont and Dan Fegent and a chance for a
catch up before the briefing started. Briefing over, wristband on and we were
off into centre circle and picking our spots and an opportunity to get some practice shots in.
The first few cars out and I was
worried, we had a few showers of rain early on and some of the early cars were
struggling for both grip and speed, not something you want to see at a drift
event, then came some of the more memorable names, Walton Smith, Daniel Colfer,
Juha Rintanen, Stiggy & The Fink (who were both on this occasion sharing
The Mighty) and things returned to normal, everyone was on a form that I had
never seen, every time you felt someone was going into a corner to hard they
managed to pull it back, rub the wall followed nicely by a massive plume of
smoke with their cars begging for forgiveness, this was only the practice
session, this was going to be a mad, mad evening...
Centre section was getting extremely
warm, the sun was out in force with a couple of heavy showers to break the day
up nicely, but it was going to be a long hard day if things were going to run
over. Nice big puddles were still on the track if the drivers weren’t careful. The practice sessions showed more of
the same, all drivers pushing extremely hard with a few body parts being taken
by the boards, luckily nothing to serious, at the end of the qualifying The
Fink had taken top spot driving Stiggy’s car, they both looked exceptionally
quick out there but a well deserved placing, both the Stig and Fink had the
crowd eating out of their Webbers.
Unfortunately for Walton Smith after
an absolutely blinding practice lap the gearbox in the Scooby let go meaning,
Walton borrowed a comp spec Volvo but unfortunately could not make the top 16.
The stadium was filling up nicely
and the qualifiers were on,
unfortunately Jacob Hansen became the
first casualty of the day when he over cooked the first corner and came out of
it and hit the wall at the clipping point putting his car out of the
competition.
Now for the battles.
Shortly after that was a monster
crash from Dan Chivers, again coming out of the first corner into the
transition zone resulting in his Soarer being written off and with nowhere to
go Luke Fink sliding the Mighty into the side withdrawing both the Fink and
Stiggy from the competition.
Next to go was Brad McQueen, again,
same location and a knock from Juha; it had been a very expensive night for
some...
Matt Chiappa was the next to nudge
the wall after over cooking it against Nigel Colfer but with a little help and
pulling off the front bumper was back on track, unfortunately not going through
to the next round.
The battles progressed until James
Deane came out to take on Alan Sinnott, a battle that nobody will forget in a
hurry, personally I have never seen so many “ONE MORE TIME’s”, both drivers
were rubbing not only the wall but each other, both drivers were relentless in
their aim to get through, after a quick tyre and fuelling stop it was Alan
Sinnott to go through after James Deane’s car ran out of fuel, a truly epic
battle.
At the end of the night it was Nigel
Colfer and Juha Rintanen to fight it off in the final with Juha taking over all
victory and lifting the winner’s trophy.
Wimbledon put on a show that was truly
memorable, I ended up with more photo’s than I could shake a stick at which can
be found in the gallery on Fueltopia. Now a long wait until August for the next
southern Drift Event at Lydden Hill in August...
