D1GB Round 2 - Phil Morrison

D1GB Round 2

Back at the now relatively familiar Silverstone National Circuit, you couldn’t help but notice the difference in the quality of vehicles on the grid since the last time we were here. Once again we had a fantastic turnout of drivers from all over the UK, Ireland, Holland and Poland, and all of us were to be under the watchful eye of Mr Keichi Tsuchiya (The drift king) and the 12 Japanese D1 teams here to compete in the Exhibition match on the Sunday.

The first practice session was a little slow, with a few too many competitors ending up in the gravel on their first runs, but after people settled into it a little more, we managed to get a few nice practice runs in. This weekend I was running Toyo tyres as apposed to the Yokohamas in round one, so the change took a couple of laps to get used to the additional grip. But after my 3^rd practice run, I found the line that I had been searching for previously at Silverstone, and felt very comfortable attacking the course a lot faster, and with a lot more drift angle than previously possible.

The qualification went very well for me. I normally push very hard, and end up getting one or two good runs out of the three we are judged on, but this time I was pretty consistent in all three. My mechanic/spotter Chris Bradbury (Guishnu) informed me that the judges were very happy with all runs, and Mr Keichi Tsuchiya had commented that I was driving like a Japanese D1GP driver, which is a very nice compliment to achieve at only his second visit to the UK.

I qualified  joint 2^nd which was very satisfactory..

Top 16 Tsuisou (battle drift)

First I drew Ian Coyne, who is one of the most enthusiastic people I’ve seen behind the wheel of a drift car! When others lift off, Ian doesn’t, so I was keen to keep as much distance between him and my newly painted panels. Neither of us got particulaly close at Brooklands, but when I was behind him, I pulled in close after transitioning into Luffield..

So I was through to the top eight, where I drew Mark Polody in the S14 from Poland. He is a very talented drifter, who is obviously very dedicated to the D1GB series. Both battles were nice and close, but I was sent through to the top four on angle and speed ‘in drift’.
 

This meant I was up against the round one winner, my good friend Brett Castle. Myself and Brett are very familiar with competing against each other, and Silverstone has been the place where we’ve done most of it. His new HKS 2.2 stroker kit stage 3 engine and 6 speed sequential box wasn’t quite ready in time for fitting before this round, so Brett had to deal with only 320bhp. On a track with this sort of entry speed and high speed corners, this isn’t really enough, but despite this he was really close behind me into the first corner but I pulled away a little thanks to better grip and a bit more power.

I was now through to compete in the final against Keichi Tsuchiya’s favourite European Driver, Darren McNamara, in the SR20DET AE86. He had performed really well all morning, and I had a good feeling earlier on that if I got to the final I would be up against him.

I’ve never driven against Darren before, but I’ve seen the in corner speed that his AE86 has, so I tried to follow as close on the straight and entry as possible, once we were into the first corner to my surprise I was able to pull a car length on him to close the gap, then after the crossover, we hit Luffield where I was up on his door. Tsuchiya gave this a 5/5 completely even score and we went into the second part of the battle. In Tsuisou there is a start point, then a marker cone on the run up, at this cone you must make sure that you are level with the car you are competing against to ensure that there is no substancial gap between high and low powered cars. As it happens, Darrens SR20 powered AE86 and my 400bhp S14 are very evenly matched in power to weight, so after the marker cone, we were both foot to the floor, entering the first corner at what felt like one of the highest speeds of the day. I scrubbed off the speed reasonably well with the Toyo tyres and set myself up early to get on the power again to finish the course. I transitioned and apexed Luffield and had a cheeky look over my right shoulder, where I would normally expect to see Darren four inches away from my rear quarter panel, but to my surprise he was absolutely nowhere to be seen. He had gone slightly too deep at Brooklands, hit the gravel and spun, and as a spin means an automatic 10/0 to me, I took the win!

I have been competing in top level competition in the UK for three years now. In my first ever competition I took 2^nd place, and since that date I had never bettered it. Achieving many 2nd, 3rd, and 4^th places, but never getting that first place. As you can imagine taking away first place, at round two of D1GB with Keichi Tsuchiya judging was a pretty good feeling, and to those in the Luffield stands it must have been very obvious as I drove back punching the air to the applause of the crowd and judges…

1st Place: Phil Morrison
2nd Place Darren McNamara
3rd Place: James Hudson





Pictures courtesy of (c) Victoria Russell D1GB, and Ross I'anson Doristars/ D1GB
 

Huge thanks to:

My Sponsors:: Adrian Flux Insurance, Rota Wheels, Kaaz UK, D2.
My co-workers: who tirelessly ran the Driftworks trade stand both Saturday and Sunday, and didn’t get to see a single bit of the action: James Robinson, Melissa Green, Kel Turner and Ed Robinson.

My Pit Crew/Spotter: Chris Bradbury (Guishnu)