Drifting Federal Tyres In Taiwan - Phil Morrison

Federal Tyres Release The 595RS-R Tyre.

We were honoured to be invited to Taiwan by our sponsors Federal Tyres, to demonstrate the release of the new 595RS-R tyre.

The 595RS-R is a successor to the 595RS tyre we used in the 2006 and 2007 season. It's come about from the R&D done by Federal's technicians working with drivers all over the world including Keichi Tsuchiya and ourselves at Driftworks.

It has a re-enforced sidewall, and a 140twr (tread wear rating) compared to the RS's 180, and a few other secret tweaks here and there..

Birmingham to Taiwan is a rather long 24hour trip. So for our few days there, our bodies were constantly fighting the time zone.
We arrived at Taiwan International Speedway for a day of practice before the main event.
It's a really cool track with loads of character! By character, I of course mean that it's not quite up to the standards the FIA would require over in the UK, but the changes in track surface, no run off, and fast approaching lethal walls, make it a really thrilling drive.
No corner is constant radius. Every single one of them required knowledge of the correct line, and what particular bumps to try and avoid for fear of disengaging your spinal column.
I absolutely loved it, and I was told that people can come and drive the track whenever they like, for around £20 a day. Unbelievable! I'd be there every single day of my life!!

A drift team running under the name American International were supplying the car for me to drive. It was a right hand drive S15 Silvia Spec R, and there wasn't much other info.. It turned out to be a bit of a nail. 99% standard, with strange handling characteristics due to cheap coilovers bottoming out, and knocking noises from the front hubs... It just wasn't going to cut it on this challenging circuit, and looking at the spec of the other cars in this team (a well specced S14, and an extremely well specced Drift S15 from Japan converted to LHD) I knew they could do better.
So they called in a favour with one of their drifter friends, and towards the end of a day, a light blue R33GTS-t Skyline arrived. Instantly we could see that this was actually a track car, and had all the makings of a potentially very good drift car.

After a quick change to Federal boots, in the closing moments of sunlight I managed to squeeze in a couple of laps of the track.
The car was awesome!
Yeah it wasn't mapped, so it stalled every time I lifted, requiring massive quantities of heel and toe to keep the thing running on the entry to each corner. It had standard steering lock, and was running low and laggy boost on the Greddy TD06 turbo, but that was all perfectly acceptable, because it actually DRIFTED!.

The first corner of this track was a really big deal. I'd been waiting for the car to arrive for a fair while, so I'd had the chance to watch a couple of the other guys attack it. They were going slow in and fast out with aggressive clutch kicks, and staying low down on the shallow banking, with a lot of throttle modulation, staying as far away from the outer wall as possible.
 
A few laps in, I'd got the feel of the car, and found a better drift line going faster and wider, and only clipping the last part of the inner corner, allowing the Skyline to carry much more speed and angle throughout the whole corner.
The rest of the track was a fun technical section with some sweet surface/traction changes. I killed those tyres, and we called it a day.
Despite only having about five minutes seat time, I was comfortable in the car, and confident that I would do okay in it the next day, so off we went for Taiwanese steak and 200 x Taiwan Beer! (Yes, it's called Taiwan Beer, and its luuurvly)

Federal releases the 595RSR to the world’s media

Our job for the day, was to do a small demonstration in the morning, and spend the rest of the day taking out the huge number of media and invited guests. The Taiwanese weather was being relatively kind to my western sized (aka mildly obese) frame. It wasn't too hot, but stayed dry. Perfect drifting weather, at a perfect location!

I must have done over 100 laps of the complex circuit, as the passenger seat of the Skyline became the place to be.
Even the CEO of Federal Tyres hopped in, and the nod was given by his employees to 'make this a special one', which of course I did. It was quite a relief finishing that lap, knowing that I hadn't killed the owner of one of my biggest sponsors.

It was an exhausting adrenalin filled day out on track. Only returning to the pits occasionally to change tyres, and re-fuel both the car and myself.
So after the final photo shoots with the cars, pit girls, and Feddi the mascot. It was definately time to retire to a Taiwanese/Italian Restaurant for plenty of cross culture food, and of course another two hundred Taiwan beers to ensure we felt 'just great' for the 7am flight back to England the next morning.

We had a great time in Taiwan with our friends at Federal Tyres. The show was a great success, the new 595RS-R proved to be a superb tyre.

Thanks to:

Federal Tyres

Special thanks to Emma from the marketing team, who arranged the trip, made us feel very welcome, and spent alot of her personal time showing us around Taiwan.
CEO Jamie Ma, who returned the favour of a passenger ride, by having his driver chauffeur us back to the hotel in style in a new black 7series IL.

American International: A truly sound bunch of drifters, who are very capable drivers, who I expect we'll see alot more of in the future. They made us feel very welcome, and  even more importantly escorted us to McDonalds for breakfast in the morning, :oD

Also thanks to: Taiwan beer. MMmm

Cheers :o)

Phil & James

Driftworks Ltd