Three Sisters

Will the car be ready? We were certainly unsure but Greg from Protuner wasn’t sweating (or at least he didn’t show it). As you may remember we had some mechanical issues at Norfolk arena from round 2. The extent of the damage was that the SR20 from the Walton Motorsport S13 had broken 2 rockers, cracked a few more and destroyed a Camshaft. Not usually a problem but when the Camshaft had to be ordered from Japan, and the Fast and Furious overnight service was unavailable it meant a long wait with the Cam only arriving on the Wednesday before the event and Pro Tuner worked through the night so we could collect the car the following day. Fast forward to Friday lunchtime and we were off to Three Sisters in Wigan, Sat Nav was estimating 3 hours, yet it took closer to 7 1/2 thanks to M6 Traffic. We eventually rolled into the paddock, got the tent assembled and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Drift Day came and we were ready for action, the track layout had been changed to a layout that suited the higher powered cars more and the (untested) S13 was ready for the action. after a few warm up laps Mike was throwing down some fantastic runs, with the S13 really coming alive in the 2nd half of the track. But just before practice finished something didn’t feel right on the car. Rolling back to pits there was alot of rattling and after jacking the car up the wheels would only rotate backwards. Fortunately it just turned out to be the brake caliper trying break free of the chassis, 1 new bolt later and the car was ready to rock. Practice finished and the heavens opened, it poured down, the track was flooded. A quick decision was made to switch from out the usual Pace tyres to the super popular Westlake Sport RS to get that extra bit of grip in the slippery conditions. A great advantage, or so we thought as the sun suddenly appeared whilst waiting for the first qualifying run and began rapidly drying the track. This was bad news for Mike as he had the super grippy tyres at a low pressure. Unfortunately it was too late to change and Mike put down a good first qualifying run with a few handbrake corrections playing it safe to stay on track and not score a Zero, after the first run, Mike decided the car felt great and elected not to change tyres as he felt he could now push hard and put in an great run, It wasn’t to be though, the car struggled to break traction and made the run very hard work for Mike. Back in the pits we went about restoring the car to earlier settings and refitting the Pace tyre ready for the first battle after a 5th place qualifying result. Mike was up against Steven Knott of Devilish Drifters in his Nissan S14a. Steven really pushed his lower powered car against the near 500 horsepower S13 but sadly for Steven and his team this was not enough and Mike emerged victorious and on to the top 16 battles where he would face Scott Sargant in his V8 powered E30 BMW, This would be a good battle having seen how well Scott was driving in practice. Mike lead first and both cars entered well at turn one, but just after clip 2 the BMW spun putting Mike at a 10-0 advantage. In the chase run Mike played it safe rather than opting to push his luck, A tactic that played out and allowed Mike into the top 8 where he would face Mark Illand. After a close battle the judges decided they wanted more and it was a one more time. disappointingly the one more time would not go in Mikes favour and the Judges decided that Mark would continue through to the the next battle, where he would eventually come 2nd overall to series leader Mark Webb.

See you all at Teeside on 30th July for more action!