Smoking, Smoking, Smoking at Lydden Hill

Smoking, Smoking, Smoking at Lydden Hill Race Track. On 30th November, this coming Saturday its time for some proper drifting, on a proper track & hopefully dry track.

A mate of mine Christian Freed who has a V8 powered E30 Beast showed me this video of his mate Peter Green in his V8 powered e30 Drifting machine at Lydden Hill in May 2013 at the Retro Drift Challenge!!! 😉

This will be the circuit I will be Drifting on this Saturday, WooHoo! I do like Arena Essex but this is how drifting should be, with a plenty of speed and lots & lots of Tyre smoking smoke……

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Arena Essex Drift Practice November

Arena Essex Drift Practice November the 6th. After the fuel pump problems at the last Drift practice on the 23rd of October, I bought a new Bosch fuel pump & fitted on the 5th. All sorted? Well not quite…… the new pump is real damn noisy and was making some strange noises but it would have to do for now!

Got to Arena Essex around 6.30pm. Signed in and headed down to the pits. The place was in darkness and once again it was packed and only half of the pits was open? The place was like a mud bath in places.

Had to cut through the queue to find a spot to get prepped, a few cars started hooting? Was they hooting at me, nah, I think not! Taped up the lights, had a little snack & set up the GoPro.

Joined the line & had to kind of cut in the long queue that quickly stopped moving due to the damn tractor wetting the track…It was another 2 runs before i was finally at the front. Jodie Rasburn was behind me in her e30 that was back together after ramming an e46 at the last drift practice.

I asked Jodie & the girl letting the drifters through each session if this was the final drift practice? They didn’t seem too sure and asked the bloke in the scrutineer cabin. He said drift practice would carry on all throughout winter unless it was snowing, WooHoo!

I finally got onto the track at 7.30pm, WTF, Grrrrrr….., precious Drifting time was disappearing fast & furiously.

The 1st run was going great but then the Beamer started losing power once more towards the end of the sesh, engine even died out a couple times, damn it! All the sessions after this and she ran fine, without missing a beat…..which was a result!

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Drifting, Drifting, Drifting, Drift Practice at Arena Essex

Drifting, Drifting, Drifting, Drift Practice at Arena Essex. I headed up the M11 for some more drifting fun at 5:30pm, a little later then I wanted to. Traffic was heavy & slow moving but cleared up when I got on the M25.

The time was now 6:15pm & I was nearly there but as I was slowing down I noticed a heavy clicking from the rear end…..Oh no, sounded like the diff, a broken or chipped gear? Hmmm, should I turn back now or take a chance……

Oh yes, take a chance, I reckoned. I didn’t come all this way to turn back now, if it gets worse I will stop, just hope the diff doesn’t lock up or I will be in the shit!

Coming of the roundabout at Arena Essex & who was parked up & waiting? The slags in blue. They have a bad name around here, giving grief & fines to law abiding drifters and boy racers!

As I drove passed them they pulled out behind me & followed me up to the next roundabout to the Arena Go Kart entrance, I was thinking fuck off & just let me go Drifting! Oh yeah, they just carried straight on, result!

Parked up & ran upstairs to the bar to sign in. Name & number. T Dirte`, 169! Now down to the pits and tape the lights up! It was now very near to darkness & the place was packed…

Sunsetting on essex arenaJoined the queue and set up the GoPro action cam. The queue was long, after 2 runs It would be my turn. Not quite, the f`ing tractor was out wetting the track! As I was waiting with the engine running, the revs suddenly dropped and the engine spluttered for a second or 2, Bollocks petrol pump, don’t you give up on me just yet!

Finally we were waved on to the Arena, I was feeling the groove almost straight away, holding some good drifts. It wasn’t a great run as a lot of people were spinning of, haha like me when I started but it was pissing me of a bit! I was holding back on the transitions but enjoyed my 1st run.

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King Of The Ring The Final Chapter

King Of The Ring The Final Chapter at Arena Essex, October the 5th. This would be the final King of the Ring for 2013! I got here early for this one. Arrived at 4.30 with my sister Caroline. Sambo followed me down with Amber. The queue to get in was pretty long…..but soon everyone was in!

Drifting at King of the Ring

Got to the gate, signed in and headed down to the pits to tape up the lights on the Beamer. I was surprised that there wasn’t more cars here but I’m sure that more would be coming!!!

Sunsetting on king of the ring

The time was now 5pm, this would be Caroline’s 1st time out for a passenger ride & she was looking really forward to it!! We drove up to the non members lane that was still empty, time to get out there and do some drifting!! Continue reading

Drift Practice Before Final King Of The Ring

Drift Practice Before Final King Of The Ring at Essex Arena! Been looking forward to this all week. Marsh had finished of another car. The lovely blue E36 328i he had bought 2 weeks ago was now badly beaten up and the M52 lump had been cooked. 🙁

I was going to fit another engine for him but after checking the car over Marsh decided he would get another Beamer instead, oh yes, more money then sense!

I found him a list of 3 series Beamers, even a E46 328i for £700, maybe to nice for Marsh to wreck…… anyhow he decided to get another Mercedes from the merc garage next door. Continue reading

Powerflex Bushes for the e30

Powerflex Bushes for the e30. Finally going to get the back end sorted on the Beamer! After King of the Ring Chapter 4 were I thought my welded Diff had broke because my cousin Dwayne was so convinced that only 1 of my wheels were spinning up?

Think you need to visit Specsavers  Dwayne. 😉

I didn’t want to risk the Diff locking up if the welding had broke so had to retire from King of the Ring after my 3rd run…… 🙁

The back end had been making strange noises but I had put it down to the subframe and trailing arm bushes. Which is what them noises were and not the Diff!

Anyhow the time had come to fit the polyurethane bushes from Powerflex. Now remember the Beamer is 25 years old with over 160,000 miles on her and I don’t think these bushes have ever been changed before!

Put her up on the ramp and gave the nuts, bolts and bushes a good soaking in Wd40 before stripping it down. There are a few different methods of doing this job but as I would be changing all the bushes, the best way was to remove the diff and subframe. Continue reading

Drift Practice at Essex Arena after KOTR

Drift Practice at Essex Arena after KOTR on Sept the 11th! Me, Marsh and JT were still fired up from King of the Ring and wanted more drifting fun!! Simon took Martins E36 328i at 4pm to the drift practice, he wanted to get some runs in before we got there, we were leaving at 6pm!

After he got there he called Martin to tell him there was a Big man with a pony tail in the queue to sign in behind him & he was feeling intimidated, ahhaha we were pissing our selves laughing!

Then 15 minutes later he phoned saying he was too afraid to go out on track as they were all maniacs, just too funny! Simon said he would wait for us to come.

At 6pm we headed for the petrol station to get ripped of, then we were on the road! Martin had Simon’s Navara pick up, Jt had his newly acquired 520i beamer & I had my E30 beast! Lets just say it wasn’t a leisurely drive to Essex Arena, still we got there pretty quickly. 😉

Went upstairs to the bar to sign in & met Simon there. He looked quite sheepish saying that it was more like banger racing then drifting!

He had been chatting to a couple drivers in the pits and they were telling him to watch out for this car & that car as they would just take him out for the fun of it! Sounded like Marsh was out already, hehe!

I believe they were just winding him up. 😉 Although I was getting a little concerned, didn’t want my E30 getting smashed up!

Anyhow we signed in and taped up our lights before joining the line for our 1st Drift practice!

drifting at essex arena

drifting at essex arena

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High Planes Drifter King of the Ring 4th Chapter

High Planes Drifter King of the Ring 4th Chapter at Essex Arena. This event seems to get bigger and bigger every chapter, the standard of drifting is also getting better and better, although I’m still in need of more practice. 😉

Had a tooth ache all week and today of all days it was killing me! Had some pain killers that did not help much and Clove oil drops, that did help a bit.

Another drifter, Young contender for King/Queen of the Ring, who finnished 3rd at the last Kotr! Was Jodie Rasburn in her freshly painted, Orange E30, she had to leave early due to a Infection…….

Still my 1st run went pretty good, this time I was actually getting pretty sideways 😉 Had a few spins but not too many.

Two of my mates came to try out some drifting fun. Martin or Marsh as we call him although there are many other deservingly abusive names he is often called, came with his newly acquired BMW E36 328i.

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