Drift Cup Rd1 & Spring Matsuri

Drift Cup

Our first event of the season was Drift Cup Rd1 at Rockingham Motor Speedway in Northamptonshire. Drift Cup was on the Saturday followed by Spring Matsuri on the Sunday, our original plan was to take the BMW compact but unfortunately we had an engine issue and had to work around the clock to get the S13 into shape for the event. We arrived on Saturday morning at Rockingham in the fog and quickly set up our pits behind Andy Stroud of Team 1340 and Kinzuru Kits Belinda Challis, always handy to be with good company in the pits as you never know when you may need a hand or to borrow a tool. Luckily for us we were the ones lending the tools to Andy to help change his diff ratio following a slipping clutch.

Practice was quickly underway and Mike hit the track straight away in the S13 and immediately spun twice. Back in the start queue we dropped the tyre pressures and immediately Mike reported back that the car was feeling great (always a worry after a last minute rush) Mike began winding the pace up and putting in some impressive runs right on the qualifying line. Unfortunately when it came down to qualifying, out of the 60 cars and his first run Mike was sitting in 34th place. Needing to get into the top 32 to qualify, Mike upped the game and put in an improved run to get into 29th place. Close, but with quite a few drivers to run there was a good chance Mike would be knocked out.

We all nervously awaited the Judges announcements of who had qualified… “Just scraping into 32nd place is Mike Walton”. He was into the comp and ready for action. There is however a downside to qualifying in 32nd place and that is that you have to battle the number 1 qualifier and today this was Chris Taylor in the Motorparts World S13. Chris was leading first, and Mike put in a great chase run forcing Chris to make a small error, but when the order was reversed Chris chased Mike down hard, and on the exit of the big corner Chris put his door into the rear corner of Mikes S13!

Nervously awaiting the judges decision did Mike have the edge? Did Chris bump into Mike? Was it the end of Walton Motorsports Day? The judges radioed down to the finish line to ask the drivers what happened… The judges announced… Chris goes through! Chris had knocked Mike out of the event, Mike had told the judges he missed 2nd gear resulting in a loss of speed, meaning Chris had no choice but to bump the back of Mike and ultimately that Chris should win. game over for team Walton. Unfortunatly Chris was to be knocked out in his next battle of the top 16 whilst we watched the rest of the competition from viewing area. With Mark Webb finally taking the win of Drift Cup Round 1.

Drift Matsuri

Sunday came and with it a fun day for all on the infield of Rockingham with Drift Matsuri, again Mike was straight out and putting in the laps building speed and working the S13 through its paces, Rockingham is the fastest track the Nissan has been on so far and Mike was loving it, only returning to the pits for tyre changes and a quick cool down.

It was also great to see Matt Carter and Paul Cheshire of ex Team Falken shaking down the R32 and Infiniti G35 for the new season, both Matt and Paul are running full Walton Motorsport Manifolds and exhaust systems on the Toyota engine conversions. Arron Stevens of Scrape n skid was also out on the Matsuri tracks running our SR20 manifold. Other highlights included Michael Marshall in the wide arch M3 running Toyota power and former competitor from 2015 Drift Outlaws, Leonard Kepert in his newly supercharged BMW 5 series.