British Drift Championship Flatout & Sideways…Lydden Hill Round 1

Lydden Hill played host to the opener of the 2015 British Drift Championship season, and this year sees a few changes with original title sponsor Maxxis tyres stepping away along with a class change. This year, Semi Pro, Pro and Super Pro to become just 2 classes…Pro-AM and Pro.

The sun was out but a cold wind was blowing through the paddock, Saturday witnessed the Pro-AM drivers take to the track for a 2 hour practice session before qualifying. This proved interesting as new drivers got used to their 2015 changes, it became an eventful 2 hours with cars being claimed by the gravel traps of the Kent circuit along with a fair bit of contact made with the big walls put up as clipping points.

The conditions remained dry for ‘quali’ enabling drivers to stay confident in their set up and put in some good runs. BDC qualification gives the drivers 2 runs to be able to gain their place in the top 32 battles.

These battles were close in Pro-AM but it finally all boiled down to an interesting final between Mike Lardner in his Voodoo Skyline R33 and James Roberts in his ex-IDC SR20’d Corolla AE86 with Lardner finally taking the win.

‘Pro’ really are the big boys, and the cars range from huge power naturally aspirated V8’s to a 1200BHP 2JZ – you cannot ever write the outcome of this class. This year seen a few big builds including Michael Marshalls E92 BMW with a Liberty Walk kit and a 600BHP 2JZ but missing this round was David Waterworth who is putting a Dodge Viper V10 into a Chrysler 300C. Again the ‘Pros’ got a 2 hour practice in the morning followed by qualifying and during this qualifying session these top drivers were on it…no doubt about it!

As the ‘battles’ took place there was paint trading from the start, quiet literally in Marc Huxleys battle against Paul Cheshire. Huxley in his old Celica, which pushes out 400BHP, chased down Paul Cheshire in his 700BHP Nissan 350GT in a competition that proved closer than you’d expect. Ultimately Huxley ran out of space chasing Paul and had to scrub off his speed on Paul’s door.

In the end however, the ‘Round 1′ podium position takers were, Team Japspeeds’ Danny Eyles 3rd, Driftworks Phil Morrison 2nd and 15 year old Driftworks driver Jack Shanahan 1st.

Driver of the event for me was Jack Shanahan, the Irish driver had never driven his car before and didn’t even get any practice runs before heading into his first qualifying run which ended up in the gravel, only scoring on his second run qualifying in 7th place then going on to win the event!

Check out all the photos below and you can even watch the second round live streamed at www.bdcdrift.com.