My friend used to buy cars from Japan as a hobby, mainly for himself, occasionally for friends and for a short time for other people although he doesn’t bother any more. He has been out there a couple of times and met a few people over there thanks to various contacts. Anyway, they were driving around Tokyo I believe when he noticed this cool looking Orange 180sx at a petrol station forecourt. They pulled over anyways for a drink and stuff and got talking to the cashier who's car it was and it turned out that he was going to sell the car - which he loved taking on the Touge - as he and his fiancé were getting their first house together and it was time for him to grow up a bit and more importantly get some cash together!!

My friend bought the car for himself, but knowing that I was interested in a drift car told me all about it on his return and showed me loads of pictures. This was almost 3 years ago, when I still had my R34GTR - I met my friend through the GTR Register as he too had a heavily modified R34GTR - and it seemed to take ages for this wonderful looking Orange car to arrive. It finally did in which time my Skyline had killed its engine yet again, I was falling out of love with it and also having trouble keeping up with the tens of thousands it was consuming regularly and so I talked my buddy into selling me the car.

At the time - late summer 2004 - it was one of the highest spec drift cars around, and was about the only genuine Touge drift car in the UK. Everyone loved it, and it became quite famous in drift circles almost immediately. I also bucked the trend of a lot of people who brought these types of cars over in as much as a £7000 car was a cheap "extra" for me at the time and as such wasn’t really worried about damaging it, so I was therefore happy to start to learn to drift in it.

I had just turned 30 and my history with cars is a bit hectic, I have done quite a few crazy things in cars over the years and speed and sideways have been a part of my life since I got my first RWD car at age 18 - a Ford Capri that was bright Orange, slammed, with blacked out windows, big polished rims and lots of tuning parts often custom made (can you see a pattern forming!!!). Back then of course it was called arsing around, wannabe rally driving or just simple "power sliding", drifting and the advanced techniques were as unknown as Keichi Tsuchiya and Onevias (in fact a friend of mine had one of the first tuned up 200sx S13's around, done by a new tuning shop - Silvia Engineering!!!) and I also had the advantage of being a go kart instructor at my local circuit to help practice overseer a few hours a day!!

Anyways, I started to learn to drift, which came very easily to me, I attended a few practice days and even competed in a Euro drift round and passed my advanced license for UKD1 in 2004 ready for the following year. However things change and I had already started planning the GTBattle event at Rockingham. Priorities moved too and the Orange became a bit of a show pony doing the odd drift demo, going to lots of shows here and abroad as promotion for GTBattle in 2005. I pretty much stopped drifting altogether.

GTBattle came and went, I damaged the car the night before in fact when the car was loaded with gear for the show and a tyre peeled off the rim on a roundabout spitting me into a kerb, damaging one of my split rims and also doing a lot of damage to suspension components. After GTBattle I was in a bit of a fuzzy place as to what to do next and the car just sat there along with some of my others (I have 7 !!) and simply didn’t get touched - literally - for 6 months !!!

I decided that as D1 was now coming to the UK for 2006 that I would compete and concentrate on that rather than all out show orgainising like 2005. Fortunately I know a few of the right people and that’s where Bob, Geoff and the guys at GBH Motorsport came in!!! Soon the car was dismantled, problems and damage identified and a new spec was written up. It also had to comply with all the safety regs for the D1GB season and more to the point for me - it needed to be competitive. Abbey Motorsport are also good chums from my skyline days and they agreed to help too, as did my pal Will Fulford at Fulford Motorsport who prepped all the body work and gave it this awesome MATT finish colour scheme in Abbeys distinctive Orange, which I much prefer to the old more washed out shiny finish it came over with.

HKS have helped out too with a few bits - in fact I ended up winning the first "HKS Hard Charger Award" at D1GB Round 1 at Rockingham which was a bit embarrassing for Gary as he thought people might think it was a set up !!! - And I have to say whilst all these people knew me they wouldn’t have done the deals without Bob at GBH sorting it all out. Sponsorship is the Holy Grail in drifting at the moment here in the UK and I must thank Bob for getting me so much help, without knowing GBH were behind the car and it would therefore be good, it would compete at all the Rounds and it would be the finished article we wouldn’t have got so many companies involved.

Best of all for a drift driver is a tyre sponsor, and I must say that I am so proud to drive for Yokohama. James took a huge risk sponsoring someone who was an unknown from a competition standpoint and by my own admission am not in the top flight yet. He felt he wanted an "up and coming" driver who could be seen as more of a club level performer trying to break into the upper leagues and went with me because of GBH Motorsport's association with the car.

As for what happened this year well, I can say its been a heck of a rollercoaster pretty much going upwards all the way which is nice!!! We got the car ready the day before the Licensing event at the Donny Show, and I hadn’t driven in anger for 14 months, and when I got in the car it was like a totally different vehicle, the track was at the time one of the most challenging anyone in the European drift scene had attempted, and the level that was set by World Champion Mr. Kazama was incredibly hard. Worst of all I felt for the first time ever the real pressure of competition and a weight of expectation from all these people who had poured money and effort into me now expecting a result. They didn’t feel that way of course, but it was my mind telling me that I must perform that put me under the cosh!!! As a result I found it very hard to do well, it was also hampered as we hadn’t had a chance to sort out the hydraulic handbrake and as such my worn out old cable one (not as good as UK spec S13 200sx's!!) did nothing to initiate a drift which was very awkward as this course demanded a fast approach but a slowing entry (handbrake is ideal here) and then lots of commitment to make it round in the desired fashion. I was pretty hopeless!!! I had no confidence in the car or myself, we suffered from terrible under steer, I was shift locking (letting the engine revs die by dipping the clutch in a low gear so that when you re-engage the clutch it locks the rear wheels as they try to spin the engine up to speed) on the approach as the handbrake was useless and generally found the gravel or a washed out drift as many times as I hooked it up!! The second day was a lot better though and I started to gain confidence a little. On the last session of qualifying runs I thought I might have a chance, but alas my nerves and an untimely wait whilst the timetable for the show ran on a bit got the better of me and I didn’t make the grade.

However we came away with a lot of answers and a lot more questions about the car. GBH set about sorting out what we had learnt at what was effectively our shakedown session and at that time Yokohama came on board which also meant I could run the softer version of the extremely grippy Parada performance tyre on the front of the car, which with some extra parts, some more extreme settings and a bit of GBH magic came alive with tons of grip, the rear end was also improved with the consistency of using the same tyre - originally Yokohama S-306 and then later moving to softer C-drive compound with chunkier tread blocks - helping a great deal to learn about the car. We also entered the car into the Euro drift Championship so we could try out different settings and I could learn more techniques rather than just relying on the warm up sessions at D1GB events!!

This proved to be a successful formula, I came second at my first Euro drift event in the Clubman class, third in the next one and continued to do well eventually claiming 3rd place overall in the Clubman Championship, some people may think it was unfair for a D1GB driver to compete at this level, but actually it was dead right - I WAS a Clubman when I entered my first event, its just that I learnt so rapidly as the year progressed that perhaps I outgrew that level and should have been moved up into the "Pro" category, either way it didn’t stop my good friend Pete Barber in his excellent Nissan Cefiro from beating me just about every time in the smaller Euro drift rounds, I eventually got my revenge when he finally got his D1GB license and suddenly realized what a different setup and level of competition it was at the bigger circuits. My car is currently quite hard to drift on smaller more technical tracks as the grip levels required for 100mph drifts round Silverstone of Knock hill actually makes it more difficult at a track like Lydd or Teeside !!

D1GB held a licencing day at Silverstone just before the first event at Rockingham was due to take place and finally the work on the car and the practice at Euro drift paid off - I got the top qualification spot at the event and only two other drivers out of 20 something made the grade. I was in!!! At Rockingham we also had a well known guest with Fifth Gears Tiff Needell joining us for a baptism of fire at the very intimidating oval circuit, where the steep banking and concrete walls make even the most well seasoned drifter think long and hard about whether this is a good idea or not !! I had a shaky start, and my nerves were still my biggest handicap, but I got through with only a minor scrape on the wall at around 40mph to show for my efforts, as would be a pattern at both early Euro drift and D1GB events my practice or sighting run would be judged my best (but not count in the scoring!!) with my subsequent runs being a bit haphazard!! Anyways, I went from probably dead last position initially, to about 22nd which wasn’t too shabby for a field of over 30 top drivers, and managed to win me that HKS Hard Charger award for determination and improvement over the course of the weekend.

Round 2 at Silverstone was a different story. Abbey had just remapped the car - although it turned out that a mechanical gremlin actually robbed me of all my new found power and I didn’t even notice - blaming the lack of high speed wheel spin at the top of 3rd gear on too much grip !!! All in all I was happy with my performance at a track I had never been too before, a major disadvantage as the circuit was effectively the only one that was used in UK competitions for the last 2 years!! The other drivers had a big head start!!! I felt immediately at home, and other than the fact I had trouble carrying speed angle and smoke round luffield (due to my 100horses running off without telling me !!) I was enjoying myself immensely. I think I finished in 18th or 19th place which given that I aimed for top 16 by the end of the year I felt was quite a result!!!

Round 3 meant a massive trek up to Knock hill near Dundee in Scotland. It also meant that as I had only earned a provisional license at Silverstone back in May that I had to retake my drift license before being allowed to compete. It was wet and greasy and not a very friendly place to be asked to approach a new track coming off a long straight into a blind entry corner that shot off downhill with a left kink and then a 90* right hander at the bottom. That right - we were drifting Duffers Dip - one of the most notorious sets of corners in UK Motorsport!!! I managed to get a couple of visits into the gravel traps on either side of the course early on (My good friend and Autoglym D1 works driver Stev "Stiggy" Evans and I had already started "Team Gravel Rash" for all us unfortunates who seem to be magnetised towards the stuff!!!) but this time held my nerve - which I had been practicing on - and pass my license test again. Then it was practice, and more practice and then finally as the weather was clearing up and the track was bone dry it was full pace qualification time!!! I gave it everything I had, in fact I actually collected a cone on my sighting lap that got wedged under the car - I was gutted as I was sure I would get black flagged, but they just waved me on regardless !!! This light hearted moment probably made the greatest single difference in my drifting career to date. I finally relaxed, and recorded my highest scores to date qualifying in 12th place!!! Admittedly it was a reduced entry list because of the long traveling to Scotland and a few mechanical issues for some of the guys, but I still feel I would have made top 16 even with a full grid. I was chuffed as monkeys!!! I soon came back down to earth though when I realised this meant I would be doing my first proper "Tsuiso" or twin drift battle.

Fortunately for me I was against my good mate Stiggy - a guy I trust totally - and I must admit I made a rookie mistake and followed his lines on the first run, which resulted in us both ending up in the gravel as he had made a mistake initiating and I had followed him in !!! On the second run when I was in front I thought I would be able to get the upper hand, and for a moment it looked like I had, only for me to overcook it on the last corner and end up in the gravel again and get knocked out !!! Stiggy went on to come second despite entering the gravel on almost every Tsuiso run. His opponents just kept getting suckered in too and he almost made it all the way to the top spot!!!

Before round 4 at Silverstone again I had a long chat with mark from Abbey Motorsport at the Jap Show at Santa Pod where I have been doing demo's all year, and he asked me what I felt was holding the car back. We discussed different options and he thought the same as Bob and Geoff at GBH that a change of engine management from the HKS FconSZ we had used before to the more sophisticated HKS FconV-Pro system would yield us the results we needed from the engine to get more from the car. When this was fitted they also found that I had been competing the last two rounds not with the 300 or so bhp we had mapped last time, but with only around 220bhp - just about standard performance in fact - and as such it meant that I had done even better than I thought. With a new map and now ditching the previously hampering Airflow Meter we recorded 330bhp with loads of torque and could have gone a fair bit higher but for a technical hitch and also the fact we wanted safety first for the engine as drifting is such a harsh environment. The torque was the real killer though - 350lb/ft at an unmentionably low figure which almost immediately made my worn single plate clutch start to be less happy about life!!! We quickly swapped in a spare clutch as my twin plate hadn’t arrived and went to Silverstone for Round 4.

This would be my all-time highest point in drifting so far.
I immediately felt at home, I was relaxed, felt full of confidence thanks to my performance at Knock hill and also looked forward to trying some of this power stuff!!!
WOW!!!!!! What a difference, whereas at Round 2 I was having to fight the car round Luffield and clutch kick several times I could now just plant the throttle at 80mph in 3rd gear and it would just wheel spin like crazy and maintain speed angle and lots of smoke all the way round. In fact so addicted was I that I accidentally found out how not straight the last kink onto the pit straight was!! What used to seem fairly in line with a mild apex cut to the right at 90mph suddenly became a proper corner and the way the car was set up the speed and amount of steering I put in at 115 mph in 5th as my enthusiasm at my new powers round Luffield took over meant that I was now actually drifting the main straight in 5th facing the pit wall!!!!! Fortunately I held it and realised that perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor from now on and remembered not to get too carried away with myself - still it gave me and John Fuggles the GTR Register chairman something to talk about in the bar later as he happened to witness the apparently quite impressive feat !!
As for the actual competition I pulled out my best result - completely blowing away my initial target for the year. I qualified in 9th place, against a pretty full grid of Europe’s best drifters!!!! I could scarcely believe it, and got a nice cheer from the lads when my name was read out!!! In the Tsuison I was against none other than Stiggy again who had placed in 8th just ahead of me. I was determined not to get beaten this time and gave it my all, this time not getting suckered into anything rash!!! When I lead in the second run I knew I could outpace him round the second part of Luffield and pulled a couple of car lengths. I thought I had done enough, so you can imagine how gutted I was to find out they had scored it 6-4 to Stiggy on the second run. As it happened at Round 5 Steve came up to me himself and said I had beaten him fair and square, as did quite a few other people, but at the end of the day its the judges decision at the time which counts, and in fairness Steve was the more consistent and accomplished driver throughout the season so I guess it was right to give him the benefit of the doubt at the time.

Round 5 was a bit of a washout for me - quite literally. GBH Motorsport had found bigger premises which they desperately needed and were tied up in the move, we had never got round to doing any wet weather testing and at Silverstone in September it kind of meant I was doomed!!! I awoke to a real gritty looking day, which although not actually raining at 6am didn’t look like it was going to stay dry for long. I was amazed as we got to the circuit that it was still dry, we had our morning drivers briefing, came outside to go to the start line and then the heavens opened!!! My car is pretty much a well oiled hog desperately trying to run up a thoroughly watered slide in these conditions!!! I tried my best and used every trick I could think of with setup and driving style, but no matter what I tried I couldn’t find a grove that was consistent. I actually did some of my best runs in the qualifying session, but feared I hadn’t made the cut. I was proved right in the most horrible way possible, Ralph Crampton, SVA's 350z driver had scored a 92 for his first run, a 92 for his second run and a 92 for his third run and grabbed the final Tsuiso spot in 16th place. My pal Matt "Mitto" Steel had scored a 92, a 92 and a 90 to get 17th and also not make it, but be in the spare place in case of a breakdown. I scored a 92 with my first run, but then got a 91 with my second and a 90 with my third meaning I was definitely out in 18th place!!!

It was a sad, and very wet !!, way to end the season, and I was pretty depressed for the rest of the week, but in fairness you cant have it all your own way and we certainly achieved way more than what we set out to do at the start of the year. I am just happy that I tried my best, improved pretty much every time I got in the car and did all my sponsors proud, all of whom have said they want to continue next year.

I guess you can’t get fairer than that!!

As for the car, well its going to have a well earned rest, its done 9 competitive events this year, countless demos, set a world record (for a rival magazine !!! lol), just completed some 1/4 mile runs and never missed a beat, I even hit a couple of concrete blocks and walls in it and it kept going (although somebody who shall remain nameless but knows a lot about rubber did try to reshape it with the help of a fence at Santa Pod !!!) Then it will be ripped apart, loads of new bits fitted, have the power wound up to 450bhp and be ready for the first couple of events next year until GBH's own monster drift car is released which they have kindly asked me to compete in for them all next year in the EDC European Drift Championship.