The weekend saw it’s a Drift Life head north to Teesside Autodrome for Round 3 of the Maxxis British Drift Championship, this time with new team mate, Lewis Mitchell with his newly created Nissan S14, in the mix. With confidence levels really high, the team were looking to get noticed and take points this round.
During first practice semi pro drivers Ryan Cooper and Lewis Mitchell had to deal with the wet conditions. The hairpin was extremely greasy and made putting the Maxxis rubber down hard work for the drivers. With the pressures lowered it gave the boys loads of grip and they both put in fantastic qualifying runs.
Christian was blessed with more power for the weekend and it was typical that the first practice session was wet. With a few set up problems ironed out we were very confident that Christian would do well in his qualifying runs. Three consistent runs struggling with over steer meant we had niggling alignment issues. In Christian’s last run the gearbox gave in. After nearly 4 years of abuse the new power had taken its toll on the box.
At the end of qualifying, it was announced that the whole of the Driftlife team had qualified with Christian 27th in Super Pro’s, Lewis 25th in Semi Pro’s and Ryan, who was determined to prove himself on home turf, soaring in confidence with a well placed 5th.
On Sunday the top 32 battles commenced with Semi Pro drivers Ryan & Lewis going out first. With Ryan’s confidence sky high he took the first battle with ease. Lewis unfortunately was knocked out at the first stage.
Christian’s first top 32 battle pitted him against another Maxxis sponsored driver Team Japspeed’s Shane Lynch. The battle was tight but with Shane making a few small mistakes in his first run and with roles reversed experiencing technical difficulties, Christian emerged as the winner.
With Top 32 battles out of the way, all eyes were on the semi pro category as Ryan Cooper went to work drifting hard in some great battles to eventually come 4th overall. This was an amazing result for Ryan and the Driftlife team giving us some well-earned points. Ryan’s amazing effort also handed him the opportunity to compete in the Pro Category at the next round of the Maxxis British Drift Championship, a goal he has been striving towards all season.
After the pro class, it was time for team mate Christian’s Top 16 battle was against Wesley Keating. On this occasion, although Christian battled well, Wes took the win.
We would like to thank all of our sponsors, friends and families for their continued support throughout the season. We hope to see some of our fans at the next round of the Maxxis Tyres British Drift Championship at Lydden Hill Race Circuit on the 9th/10th of August.
