Oliver Bolton reports of his round 2 event at Drift Land!
‘Round 2 of the Retro Drift Challenge was to be held at the awesome Driftland, Scotland.
We arrived late on Saturday night after a 9-hour journey and got our heads down ready for the RDC event ahead.
We woke up to a busy paddock in the sun and after getting the car ready briefing was called. We took a track walk, looked at the clips and cones and that famous wall!
As we lined up to start the event, the inevitable had happened, rain began pouring down. As I had never been to Driftland nor drifted in the rain in the S13, I was worried to say the least.
First of all we had a chance to get out on our own. I kept spinning out and twinning slightly too shallow on the clips and I really struggled as the rain began to fall harder. We played with tyre pressures, which improved things slightly, but still the entry and last 2 clips I could not get right. I decided to come in and change the set up, before qualifying, then it was the end of practice and a drivers briefing was called again before qualifying.
Taking a huge risk, I took the chance to change the set up and lined up third to go out for qualifying. 
The car felt good, much more responsive and the first run was a good one. Still a bit shallow on the last 2 clips but I was happy. The second run was maybe a little better so I headed back to the paddock and watched on as everyone had their turn on track.
IDC driver William Rose in his red BMW E36 compact and IDC Compact Kev in his yellow BMW E36 V8 were awesome to watch. Kiwi looked on point as did Maclachlan and Farrar. After qualifying, we waited anxiously and as the judges read out the top 32. The numbers continued to fall until I had found out that I had qualified in 5th. I was over the moon! The top 10 went straight through to top 16 so we quickly became spectators for the battles, The rain had stopped and the track was drying out quickly at this point but we had decided to leave the car alone.
Top 16 Battle against Harry Stuart in his S14
My lead run ended quickly as I saw Harry coming in hard to my door so I swerved to avoid impact and ended up on the grass, totally my own fault and I was extremely gutted that I did not just carry on with the run.
Chase run was a good run, I kept with Harry within close proximity and stayed right on the clips, The judges had us re-run my lead run this time so I managed to stay on track and pull a gap on the qualifying line, winning the battle.
Top 8 Battle against Compact Kev’s bright yellow V8 E36!
My chase run was surprisingly okay as I kept in close proximity and had a good run. Kevin was on point and flawless at this point. My lead run started promising but then ran shallow on clip 3 and then straightened briefly before clip 5. It was a good battle but he put a lot of pressure on me so fair play to him! Kevin took the win! After the race Kevin’s team told me the car was an IDC car and that he was a regular at drift land in the SDC. This important news made me feel a lot better about the battle.
Before I knew it, that was the end of my drift land experience. Congratulations to William Rose, taking 1st place, Stuart Maclachlan taking 2nd place and Kevin Kay in 3rd. Hard charger went to Kiwi and rightly so!
A huge thank you to Gordon @ the RDC and everyone involved for their advice throughout the event. I am really looking forward to Round 3 of Drift cup at Rockingham on the 11th June and Round 3 of the RDC at Santa Pod on the 18th June.
Thank you to our title sponsor Funk Motorsport for their continued support throughout 2017’
Oliver Bolton