The D1 drift series from Japan came to the UK over the first weekend in October 2005 held at Silverstone.

I was lucky enough to be at WRC Technologies for a car club rolling road day on the Saturday as the D1 cars appeared ready for the practice session that evening doing final last minute work on their cars like an engine change, 4 wheel alignment and stickering up for sponsors which were all sites to behold.

The drift series is the art of manoeuvring a car sideways ride a corner at high speed under competitive conditions.
How the competition is run is that the racers perform an individual run through a series of turns in opposite directions being judged on speed, angle, line taken (determined by a race officials and then told to the drivers) and smoke produced. A panel of judges marks these individual runs with the top 16 drivers going through to a “Tsuiso” (twin drift shoot-out) to determine an overall winner.
The main heart of the competitors flew over from Japan (some 16 teams in all) with 6 drivers from Europe picked through a previous competition.

Drivers from Japan -

Yasuyuki Kazama [Kei Office] Nissan Silvia S15
Youichi Imamura [Apexera] Mazda RX-7 FD3S
Takahiro Ueno [Team T&E] Toyota Soarer JZZ30
Masato Kawabata [TRUST D1 S15] Nissan Silvia S15
Nobushige Kumakubo [Team Orange] Subaru Impreza GDB
Ryuji Miki [TOP Secret] Nissan Silvia S15
Toshiki Yoshioka [DRoo-p] Toyota SprinterTrueno AE86
Ken Nomura [Blitz] Nissan Skyline ER34
Kazuhiro Tanaka [Team Orange] Nissan Skyline ECR33
Kuniaki Takahashi [Kunny'z SUMO POWER] Nissan Fairlady Z Z33
Hideo Hiraoka [DRoo-p] Nissan Silvia PS13
Naoto Suenaga [Team Orange] Nissan Silvia RPS13
Tsuyoshi Tezuka [Bee-R] Nissan Skyline HCR32
Hiroshi Fukuda [Power Enterprise] Nissan 180SX PS13
Masayoshi Tokita [Signal Auto] Nissan 180SX PS13
Makoto Sezaki [Wise Sports] Nissan Silvia S15

Drivers from Europe -

Darren McNamara Ireland Toyota Corolla AE86
Eric O'Sullivan Ireland Toyota Corolla AE86
Julian Smith Ireland Nissan Skyline GTR32
Phil Morrison England Nissan 200SX S14
Reserve 1-Brett Castle England Nissan 200SX S14
Reserve 2-Paul Vlasblom Holland BMW M13 Touring

The competition was fiercely fought with the 2 hi-lights being the quarter final between Ken Nomura’s 4 door White Blitz Skyline & Masato Kawabata’s Sky-Blue Greddy Silvia S15 or the shock upset of Darren McNamara battling his way to 6th place in his Dark Blue Toyota Corolla AE86 to the praise of the Japanese judges and commentators.

Result
Winner Ryuji Miki Nissan Silvia S15
2nd Nobushige Kumakubo Subaru Impreza
3rd Ken Nomura Nissan Skyline ER34
4th Yasuyuki Kazama Nissan Silvia S15
5th Masato Kawabata Nissan Silvia S15
6th Darren McNamara TOYOTA AE86

Overall an entertaining weekend cannot wait to see more, for more information visit http://www.d1gp.co.uk/

Jase E