Tag: Allitalia Wrexham

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British Drift Championship-Round 3-Teeside-Report

BDC2019 Round 3 Masterclass – Teeside Autodrome – Lwi Edwards

With a short break from the Drift Games National championship in Ireland, our next round for Young Blood, Lwi Edwards was round 3 of the British Drift Championship which was visiting Teeside for the second time due to problems securing a new venue. However, the circuit was to be run in the traditional direction, with very fast entry into banked circuit, this was a bit of a concern for us due slight shortage of horsepower that the BMW M3 evo suffers from against a field of 450+ hp cars. Currently lying in 5th position in the championship, it is becoming obvious that he has the ability to get impressive results in his first year of competition.

With the van loaded, it was time to hit the road early from the Allitalia World HQ in Wrexham to make the most of practice on Friday and arrive to a mixed bag of typical summer weather, heavy rain showers. Initially spending the morning on a wet setup with the grippy Triace tyres, towards the afternoon, the skies cleared and the track dried and decided to revert back to the Irish control tyre, a road based Westlake tyre which Lwi prefers. One of the last runs of the day, Lwi managed to do a chase run with Pro driver Martin Wonnacott and even the power difference is probably double, still held a reasonable proximity during the chase… admittedly, Martin’s tyres were shot and he lost grip, but it was a chance to run with one of the top drivers in championship without being embarrassed .

Lwi Edwards chasing Martin Wonnacott in practice runs

Qualifying, and due to Lwi Edwards sitting high up in the championship, he was one of the last to set out on his qualifying run. Once again showing that, with his technical smooth style, he can get the most from his relatively low powered M3 engine by putting it exactly where the judges ask, hitting all the clipping points and not dragging the handbrake. Lwi is quickly gaining the new name of ‘Mr Technical’ from the Judges who appreciate his style of driving. Another impressive score of 83.67 was enough to give him 4th position overall at the end of the session. On to the Battles

Top 32, due to his opponent Matt Fountain having car problems, Lwi was given a byrun, and automatically through to the Top 16. Its was a shame as Lwi had battles Matt the last time at Teeside and he was looking forward to a rematch.

Top 16, and Lwi was to battle a driver who has been on point all year, Lee ‘Colgate’ Lawrence in his S14. Lwi to lead and put in his usual perfect qualifying line, Lee had a bit of a moment while following and lost his drift. The chase run, Lwi lost a little proximity due to getting mixed up in the smoke from Lee, but held his line. Advantage went to Lwi and he was through to the Great 8.

Top 16 battles Teeside- Lwi Edwards Vs Lee Colgate Lawrence

Great 8 – Another great battle to come with hugely experienced driver with 10 years behind him, Karl Farrar in his V8 powered RX8, this was going to be a hard fight. Lwi to lead out with a perfect line as always apart from a tiny error on last clip . On his chase, the proximity was slight problem and this was judged as one of the main reasons to favour Karl. It was mentioned again the Lwi was not outclassed, but out ‘carred’, something that will need to be addressed sooner than we expected. So advantage Karl and Lwi failed to make final 4 again!

Great 8 Battles Teeside – Lwi Edwards Vs Karl Farrar

A fantastic result once again for Young Blood, Lwi Edwards, to almost make it into the final 4, consistently in every round, which has now placed him in 2nd position overall on the British Drift Championship leaderboard, and only 5 points behind the top spot. Amazing for a 17yr old on his first attempt of a UK championship and only 15 months in a drift car. The future is going to get interesting with more support and sponsors needed to help his career grow .. more horsepower is needed !

BDC 2019 standings – Lwi Edwards 2nd after round 3 Teeside

Our next round of the British Drift Championship will be at the NEC Birmingham 27th July. Inbetween this we will be sailing back to Ireland for the next round of Drift Games Nationals on 7th July in Northern Ireland where Lwi is currently in 13th position overall.

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British Drift Championship : Round 2 : Driftland : Report

Lwi Edwards : BDC2019 Rnd2 : Driftland : credit MS Photography

Round 2 of the British drift Championship found us making the long trip over the border to Driftland in Lochgelly, Scotland. With young blood, Lwi Edwards sitting in 5th place overall in the Pro-Am championship, we knew it would be a challenging weekend at the purpose built drift circuit that suits high horsepower cars

Friday practice was spent familiarising himself with a circuit that Lwi had not visted before. With the team trying different settings on the BMW E36 M3, he settled in pretty quickly and dialled in the qualifying line before session finished. Feeling comfortable with the setup, he decided to finish on a high after nailing an almost prefect qualifying run.

Qualifying : 84 points and 3rd Position

BDC2019 Driftland : Lwi Edwards : Qualifying

Saturday started with open practice for the morning, with the sun shining and a dry track, Lwi spent his time just cleaning up his qualifying lines before the main qualifying sessions started. The weather became overcast as sessions started and the rush to get a run in before it started to rain was on. His first run was clean and tidy, scoring a very impressive 84 points, putting him in 2nd place. Then the weather started to change and light rain started to make things interesting. After making the decision to ‘send it’ on second run, Lwi got caught out with the slippy track on entry to first clip and slipped off line, this was immediately a zero score, so luckily his 84 point run was enough to finish in 3rd place overall.

Into Battles – The heavens opened

BDC2019 Driftland : Top 32 Battle : Lwi Edwards Vs Charles Funnell

Top 32 : And the heavens opened, we hoped this could give Lwi a small advantage and level the playing field and we were right, so decided to change to narrower Triace tyres on the rear and Uniroyal rainsports on front for more grip in the torrential rain. First battle was with Charles Funnell in his nicely built AE86. Lwi had a great jump on him in lead position and lay down his usual perfect line even in the rain, unfortunately for Charles he couldnt get the grip needed to catch Lwi. The chase run for Lwi was same, with Charles struggling with conditions and Lwi comfortably keeping close proximity throughout. First win to Lwi and though to top 16

BDC2019 Driftland : Top 16 Battle : Stu Jones Vs Lwi Edwards

Top 16 : And Lwi was pitched against Stu Jones in his Nissan, another high powered car in hands of experienced driver. The Lead run and once again, Lwi was not phased by the very wet and slippy conditions to pull a clean lead line while the chase car struggled for grip and Lwi managed to pull a gap which he held until the finish. The chase run and Lwi held a good proximity to the lead car, keeping a safe distance as the lead car made a few small errors. All in Lwi’s favour and he moved through to the Great 8.

BDC2019 Driftland : Great 8 Battle : Lwi Edwards vs Martyn Cowley

Great 8 : A place Lwi has been before and this battle was going to be hard, with Matryn Cowley in his Nissan, another very talented driver who is renowned to be aggressive on the chase runs and is currently leading the championship. The Lead run, and Lwi made a small mistake into clip 2, just dropping a wheel over the circuit into the huge puddle that had developed, but the chase driver also made a large error in the middle of circuit which had now developed a mixed surface of grip, catching a few drivers by surprise. The chase run, for Lwi was hard work, Martyn’s car had the grip and the power but Lwi managed to keep close proximity but in the same area of the circuit that Martyn had problems Lwi had to back off to avoid hitting the lead car, this caused him to transition too early and he ran wide off track on that clip. After composing himself, he held a good chase position for the rest of the run.

So it was all up to the judges to make their decision, which seemed to take for ever, both drivers had made errors on the difficult mixed surface and opinions were mixed, the majority wanted one more time, but judges couldnt agree and the win went to Martyn Cowley. A controversial decision as both drivers would have been happy to run OMT to battle it out. So Lwi was out and Martyn Cowley made though to Final 4 and on to finish on the podium

Another amazing result for Lwi in his first competitive season at a circuit he had never even visited before, never mind driven, the weather did help with lack of horsepower in battles, but he also qualified 3rd in the dry against some big horsepower cars. The podium is getting closer every time and Lwi is currently sitting in a nice position on the championship table in 5th overall.

Credit must go to Learn2Drift, the leading UK drift school that started the whole drift mission 18 months ago, now officially an instructor for the school, with their help and guidance, it has enabled Lwi to experience drifting on both wet and dry surfaces in different vehicles. The opportunity to gain extra seat time inbetween competition is invaluable and is recommended to both beginners and experienced drifters. http://www.learn2drift.com

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British Drift Championship : Countdown to round 2 : Driftland, Lochgelly, Scotland

British Drift Championship Rnd2 Driftland 25th May 2019 : Lwi Edwards

Fresh from Drift Games Nationals in Cork, Ireland, it is now all change and 25/26th May will see us make the long trek back up north and over the border of Scotland to the drifters mecca, Driftland in Fife, the only purpose built drift track in the UK.

A notoriously fast track will be a challenge again for young Lwi Edwards in the Allitalia prepared BMW E36 M3 with moderate power against some high powered machinery but his technical driving style should make up for the lack of horsepower. Still only his first year in competition, Lwi is currently sitting in 5th place overall after a great result in Teeside and is hoping to build on this result this coming weekend.

Transformation from Drift Games Nationals to British Drift Championship for Lwi Edwards M3

The car has been checked over in the workshop, given a bill of health ready to go apart from change of graphics from Drift Games to British Drift Championship and a few minor changes and repairs. Transmission upgrades will have to wait until after this round, the car is continually being modified and improved this year as none of us expected Lwi to be competing at such a high level so soon and he will be competing within a limited budget.

So stocking up on tyres and fuel, our trip to Scotland will soon be with us, come and join the fun at Driftland, or if you cant, check out the BDC Livestream https://www.thebritishdriftchampionship.co.uk/live

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Drift Games Nationals Round 2 : King of the Hill : Watergrasshill, Cork . Weekend report

Lwi Edwards Drift Games Nationals at King of the Hill Credit to Niall Keating Photography

Another trip across the water from our base in North Wales with the help of Irish Ferries for Lwi and the M3 Powered E36 Coupe for round 2 of the Drift Games National championships at Kartworld, Watergrasshill, Cork

The Saturday was a practice day and the chance to get familiar with the circuit and the first time using the Westlake control tyre, based on a standard road tyre , it is designed to level the playing field and benefit lower horsepower cars.

The layout of the track was very technical, a lot of elevation and the Drift Games team had spent some time designing a very tight and challenging layout to test the abilities of the 75 drivers. This certainly made for entertaining battles later in weekend.

Sunday : Raceday

Sunday starts with briefing from the Drift Games team and help and advice on how the layout should be driven to gain maximum points. With an hour and half practice in the morning it gave Lwi a final chance to hone his line and get the feel of the circuit until he snapped a driveshaft, luckily this was in practice and changed by team mechanic, Dan, in a few minutes. then it was straight into qualifying mode.

Qualifying for the top 32 places and Lwi was his usual technical, precise self, where much more experienced drivers struggled with the tight layout, he nailed his first run to score 85 points. The judges commenting on his technical lines. Second run couldnt better his previous score and by end of the session Lwi was seeded in 10th place . Once again the level of driving to get into the top 32 was incredible, with the lowest score of 74 up to 92 shows the level of the competition, one small error and you drop out of qualifying.

To the Battles. The Top 32 started with Mark Brady in Nissan Skyline, a close battle which Lwi won and progressed to top 16.

Top 16, was a hard battle, pitched against another very experienced driver Justin Murphy in similar spec M3 Powered E36 BMW, it was going to be a close run. Both drivers made small errors which made it difficult to judge and resulted in a ‘one more time’ run call. Both Lwi and Justin once again did clean lead and chase run and after a very long deliberation by the judges, Lwi was knocked out of the top 16 by a very small margin of errors. Check out the footage from YouTube playlist below

Great result for Lwi Edwards, more points on the Drift Games championship leaderboard sees him currently in 13th position overall.

Big thanks to everyone who helps Lwi to achieve these results in the two premier drift championships. Next challenge will see us in Driftland Scotland for round 2 of the British Drift Championship on 25th May 2019 . Currently in 5th position overall and looking for a good result. See you there!