Donny Show – Media / Test and Licensing Event ( April 15/16th )
Last weekend saw the inaugural outing for the NRG Events team. Held in collaboration with the Donny Show, NRG showcased the features of its events line-up this year with the D1GB and Time Attack Series media launches respectively.
D1GB:This event was held to establish the best drifters in Europe by judging their skill and performance on track under the watchful eye of the Japanese D1 World Champion, Mr Kazama. Flown in direct from Japan for the event, Mr Kazama had 29 available licences to reward the best drifters with. The competitor line-up was over subscribed however we ran 52 drivers throughout the weekend, all gunning to fill the available licences and prove themselves worthy. The final result was that 21 full National D1GB licences were issued on the weekend and a further 6 National Provisional licences were awarded to drivers who came very close to the requirements for a full licence.
The drivers that gained full D1GB licences were:Scott Armstrong, UK Ben Broke-Smith, UK Ian Coyne, IRL Mark Coyne, IRL Ralph Crampton, UK Mike Deane, IRL Stephen Evans, UK Derrick Forde, IRL Will Gough, UK Niall Gunn, IRL Ian Harrison, UK Nick Hawes, UK Declan Hicks, UK James Hudson, UK Garry Kennedy, UKMark Luney, UK Tim Marshall, UK Damien Mulvey, IRL Maciej Polody, PL John Power, IRL Mat Steele, UK
The drivers that gained a Provisional D1GB Licence were:John Chambers, UK Olaf Commij, NL Leon Kaan, NL Mike Murphy, IRL Simon Russell, UK Steven Shine, IRL
As 6 drivers had already been awarded full D1GB licences last year as part of the Driver Search, we now have 27 official D1GB licence holders and 6 Provisionals who will compete for the first time at Round 1 in Rockingham on May 28th.
The Championship has its drivers and is ready to display the talent of Europes finest, Rockingham will be witness to 100mph+ entry speeds a metre from the wall and Round 1 is poised to set the mould of Drifting action within Europe.
Time Attack:Organised as a test and tune day, the Time Attack rumbled into action early on Saturday morning with over 4000bhp on track, burbling their way around Donington for the warm up. For the Time Attack drivers, the weekend was un-timed and served as an introduction to the Time Attack format and gave ideal chance for drivers to size up the opposition and for the fans of the UK’s best tuned cars to see what the Series has in store this year.
Although un-timed, as soon as the cars had warmed up the chase began to prove who was the quickest on circuit much to the amazement of the 5000 strong crowd watching a Peugeot battling it out against a Nissan Skyline with neither wanting to back down.
The grid consisted of an exciting mix of cars and drivers, from Dimma’s WRC Peugeot 206 to the might of the infamous aftermarket hero Rocket Ronnie, normally seen in the Abbey prepared Skyline GTR, this weekend he was battling it out in his Porsche GT2 alongside arch rival Andy Barnes in the Sumo GTR and Abbey Motorsport’s Mark Gillam in the orange one-time race car R32 GTR Skyline.
No stranger to battles, a pattern was forming and the pressure grew as Sean Bicknell, pedaling his nimble yet shatteringly quick Lotus Exige set some extremely quick lap times, unofficially clocked from the pit wall which set an immediate rush of gossip around the circuit with all eyes on his little orange monster!
Also in attendance was the Nurburgring warrior Phil Gooriah in the well prepared RE:Worx Mazda RX7 punching over 500bhp, giving an inspiring performance in the RWD class.
As word spread that the tuners and credible names were battling it out on track, the accessible areas of the track became crammed with spectators, 4 deep and all wanting to see who the quickest was and an obvious difference to the track format that had been happening earlier in the day with Redline trackday sessions, what they witnessed was something very different, luring people from stunt bikes and action show elsewhere on site, word soon spread and Time Attack officially arrived to demonstrate that this year is set to be the most explosive the aftermarket has ever seen outside of Santa Pod.
Next event : Round 1 - May 28th at Rockingham
