sunocouk – Lwi Edwards

Lwi Edwards : Pro Drifter : UK Drift Championship : Three sisters circuit : Round 1

The first round of this brand new championship was to be held at the awesome Three Sisters Circuit, a venue that Lwi always performs well and has a good results

The BMW E36 LSV8 was given a thorough overhaul after the winter season by Allitalia Ltd with fresh oils supplied by Driven Oils and Sunoco Fuels but the main setup remains the same as 2020 apart from a few suspension tweeks to improve rear grip. Then the short journey to one of our closest venues on the calender

Lwi Edwards : UK Drift Championship 2021

All set up at the Three Sisters Circuit ready for practice day and the weather was good. Friday was a full day of open practice before a day of rest on Saturday and the main Pro competition day on Sunday. The car ran faultlessly all day and apart from a collision with Fitzgerald when he span in front of Lwi, resulting in a damaged door, the car survived pretty well

Lwi Edwards : UK Drift Championship : Damage on practice

Sunday was Pro Race day and after a morning practice and small setting up of suspension, the car was refilled with Sunoco Fuel, fitted with some new Accelera Tyres fitted to the 1Form Alloy Wheels ready for qualifying time.

Lwi Edwards : UK Drift Championship : 2021 : Three Sisters : Qualifying Runs

Two qualifying runs and Lwi didnt disappoint, the first run was clean and a safe tidy run to give him 74 points, but Lwi turned up the screws on the second run, pushing out to the clipping points and running the line close to the edge, this gave him 85 points and third place qualifying place behind Luke Barker and Duane Mckeever. Pretty happy with the result!

So on to the battles

Lwi Edwards : UK Drift Championship 2021 : Top 32 Battle : Three Sisters

Top 32 Battle: Lwi Vs Marcus Clare

Lwi’s first battle was with Marcus Clare who unfortunately span on his lead run narrowly missing Lwi in the process. However it gave Lwi the chance to do his now trademark Lunar bend wave.

Lwi Edwards : UK Drift Championship 2021 : Round 1 : Top 16 Battle

Top 16 Battle : Lwi Vs Rob Black

This wasnt going to be an easy battle, Rob Black had come through from the Pro2 grid the day before and was on form, making his way to the Pro top 16. However, Lwi just put the perfect lead line as always and let the chase car make the mistakes, the extra grip we have dialled into the BMW starting to show around Lunar bend. Although Rob Black put a nice lead as well, the advantage was Lwi but a good battle for sure.

Lwi Edwards : UK Drift Championship 2021 Rnd 1 : Great 8 Battle

Great 8 Battle : Lwi vs Steve ‘Baggsy’ Biagione

Things were going to get hard now against the extremely experienced Baggsy who was also out to win the championship. Lwi putting on another perfect lead and gaining a little at the start, but Baggsy soon closed up the gap to finish the run. Lwi’s chase run was close and clean but he lost by a small margin. So close it split the judges in their decision after a good few minutes of deliberation . It would have been nice to go one more time but we were happy the judges decision and the result

Final Result:

A great start to the season, a solid finish and Lwi is currently sitting in 5th place overall in the Pro Class of the new UK Drift Championship.

Hard Charger Award

Surprise of the day was to be awarded the Hard Charger Award for the weekend !

Huge thanks to our Partners this year that help make this journey happen, Learn2Drift, Haltech, 1Form Wheels, Tirestreets UK, Accelera Tyres, Sunoco Fuels, Driven Oils, Beazy Media and our Family who contribute so much. It is going to be a busy year!

If you would like to get involved with our team or could offer support we would be glad to hear from you, drifting is a great platform to promote your company or brand even in these difficult times, drop us a line at support@lwiedwards.com

You can check out the YouTube channel below for more InCar footage from the weekend

Round 3 of the British Drift Championship took place at Teeside Autodrome, an awesome venue for drifting which Lwi had experience of in 2019, but this year saw a completely new layout never tried before which turned out to be challenging for all the drivers but rewarding when the line was mastered.

With Covid restrictions in mind the event was being carefully organised with social distancing rules in place and limited spectators so extra precautions had to be taken into account in preparation such as face masks and anti bacterial sprays as well as the normal event equipment and spares supplied by main sponsor Allitalia Ltd

Lwi Edwards : BDC 2020 : Allitalia paddock

Friday was practice day for all classes, weather was dry and mild so Lwi spent some time familiarising himself with the new layout, getting to grips with the track conditions and playing with a few setting on the BMW. It was apparent that the layout was going to be fast and technical but initial practice is all about finding the line, speed comes later.

Saturday was the Pro 2 day and the heavens opened, torrential rain for majority of the day made it interesting for the drivers to say the least. It also gave Lwi to get a short practice in the wet conditions inbetween the Pro 2 competition.

Sunday and Pro day. The weather sorted itself out with the track drying quickly so a few hours of practice before Lwi had to get his game face on. He started to dial in the line with some speed needed to push put to the clips. Running the softer Tirestreets UK supplied Accelera 651 sport Extra on the 18 inch 1 form wheels to gain extra grip was a must plus dialling a bit more mechanical grip into the suspension in anticipation that the pro class was going to be on fire this weekend. So on to qualifying!

Qualifying: Run 1 : And things didn’t go to plan, Lwi started with a nice line but pushed a little to hard, always trying to get that perfect score but the grip level was a bit sketchy in places and he span… we could count on one hand the amount of times Lwi had span in his career but he span all the same giving him a big zero for his first run.

Qualifying : Run 2 : And for the first time ever this was to be a safe one, usually Lwi will push harder on the second run to improve score, but no chances could be taken so he decided to push 80% for safety. A nice clean run with a decent score of 85 just put him out of the top 8 qualifiers which go through to top 16, so he would have to battle from top 24

Top 24 Battle : The first battle was to be against Nathan Chivers in his 700 hp Nissan, Lwi put down the almost perfect lead to follow and managed to put a good chase to win the battle. So Lwi advanced to the top 16

Top 16 Battle: And this was going to get hard, Lwi now had Oliver Silcock in another very quick Nissan, equal 5th in the champonship and he had battled him earlier in the year so knew what a worthy opponent he was. Lwi put down a very clean lead line as usual and pushed hard on his chase. It as a close decision which we though should be one more time to decide but Ollie took the win. So Lwi was out of competition.

All in all a good weekend, the car ran faultless, and Lwi has only dropped a few points on the leaderboard to 6th place overall, still an amazing achievement for his first year in the top Pro class surrounded by some big names in drifting.

Follow the link below for more images on online album

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LWhSBqRPtbzevWZj8

We would like to thank all the sponsors who help us on this journey, Haltech, Tirestreets UK, Accelera Tyres, Learn2drift, Sunoco fuels, Driven oils, 1form Wheels

Tag: sunocouk

UK Drift Championship 2021 : Round 1 : Three Sisters Circuit

British Drift Championship : Round 3 : Teeside : Report