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My Oulton Drift day report. My First time drifting EVER !

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:59 pm
by Nige
The people mentioned are on Northloop, and I`m too lazy to re-edit :loser:

I`d booked on a Drift Introduction day at Oulton and asked if anyone else wanted to come along too. Stan said that as it was his Birthday, it would be a good present and he`d love to join me. Plans were made and at 06:30 this morning we set off in convoy for the 1hr 25min drive to Oulton Park.

Uneventful journey, stopped to fill with fuel just before arriving.

Steady journey on the motorway gave me decent economy in the Z
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Quick tyre check before starting. Yep, they look Black, Round and well worn :D
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Met up with the other guys on the course, there were only 8 to begin with, a couple of others joined in later. :thumb: Fortunately, it was the first time for some of the others, but one guy with a dedicated drift car had done the last 8 events :o

There were the expected spins..
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Cones AHOY !
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Had lunch and then continued Drifting.

"Oi, NIGE". huh ?? AH HA its YOU !
Weeman called to visit :thumb:
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Stan had to pull over, the dry track had caused his NSR Tyre to de-laminate :o Quick directions from marshall and after cutting off the offending part he carefully drove to a local tyre fitter for a replacement. The Guy in the drift car also had the same problem and had to cut short his day :(

I asked if he was disappointed but he said that out of all the events at Oulton he`d been to, this was the best ever :thumb: It was the first time there had been such a low number of drivers, as a result the marshalls said they wouldnt `wet` the tarmac and so it was the only dry track time he`d ever had there. No queuing and he did more laps in the morning, before his tyre delaminated than he`d ever managed in a full day :o

Pooky called to collect his M3 and we had time for a short chat before getting back to the business of going sideways.

As the day progressed, we became quite proficient B)
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Stan with Weeman passengering
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Weeman offered to take some photos of me. :thumb:
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WOOHOO ! !
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Whoops Stan :whistle:
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Well saved...
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After 94 miles of drifting, the fuel consumption wasnt that impressive...
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Said our goodbyes and drove home. Inspected my rear NS Tyre...
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whoops, that will be because of the constant drifting I did then :whistle:


There are upsides and downsides to the dry track. The tyre breaking up is the problem, but that was because we were out for long sessions. If the tyres didnt need replacing, I wouldn`t have hammered them with such long stints and they would have held up fine.

I set up the bulletcam, unfortunately, it was too low so you cant see enough of the track. This was just before lunch, I was better later, much less hand twirling, but didn't have the camera running :(

Bulletcam footage
Footage from circuit 2

When I`ve had a play before, in empty carparks etc, there is always that moment when your heart rate shoots up, until everything in controlled. I had the same experience first thing on the drift day, but by mid afternoon, I was much more comfortable and wasn`t `seizing up` as much.

My arms are really aching, far more than on a trackday !

To summarise, it was the most FUN I`ve ever had in a car. We were all grinning from start to finish. Made much better by knowing someone else there, although I`m sure I would have still thoroughly enjoyed myself alone.

It wasn't as exhilarating as going to the ring or on a trackday, but I had a blast :thumb:

Massive thanks to Lou for entrusting me with her Z. I didn't hit anything and apart from being a little dusty, its fine :thumb:

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:07 pm
by Stuart
Great report Nige and nice to see you 'hanging it out' in the z 8)

I'm a firm believer in drifting as an excellent way of improving car control (ignore the having fun bit :) ) Perhaps I should do it a bit more often and then I'd be a better driver.

Do you think you'll do it again?

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:16 pm
by Ben
Fantastic ... great write up - especially love the mexican waves :)

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:18 am
by duncan
stuart wrote: I'm a firm believer in drifting as an excellent way of improving car control (ignore the having fun bit :) ) Perhaps I should do it a bit more often and then I'd be a better driver.
Totally agree with you there Stu - the drift nights at Snet have definitely improved my confidence in stepping the back out.

Great report Nige :thumb:

Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:32 pm
by Bladerider
Nice write up Nige,

Looks like fun was had and better yet progress made which is the key area. I wish we could get something similar at Snett so we could do some proper training, I would gladly help but it always sadly comes back to noise and circuits being - rightly - concerned over the damage to track and infield.

Still it sounds like this might be something they do regularly, just a pity its so far away else it would be fun to have a wander up there.

J. :D

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:52 pm
by Steve H
If anyone else fancies a go at the Oulton Drift stages Trackaction-Online is running a day there on August 2nd.

More details are here http://www.trackaction-online.co.uk/php ... .php?t=789 and you can book here http://cart.trackaction-online.co.uk/in ... 6&parent=6 8)

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:11 pm
by Stuart
Hi and welcome Steve

At least have the courtesy of contacting one of the guys that runs the site and asking permission before you start selling your wares on here.

I'm getting sick of people jumping feet first into this forum and trying to flog stuff. Make a contribution, be a part of it things here at BigPower and then, and only then take up a trade account so that you can start selling stuff.

Soap box removed.........

We are happy to try and help companies and forums, large and small. In exchange for that we ask for a few simple things. Manners is one of them.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:26 pm
by blackskygtr
I seem to remember Shaun Taylor racing having a drift training set up some where in norfolk anyone know where? might be handy as a training method once the car is up and running again.
Jay

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:31 pm
by Stuart
If you are interested in this per se, there are a couple of tremendous options Jay. First up, RPS13 (Rob) has access to the facilities at Norfolk Arena. He was able to hire this recently on a Sunday for about

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:08 pm
by Mick429
blackskygtr wrote:I seem to remember Shaun Taylor racing having a drift training set up some where in norfolk anyone know where? might be handy as a training method once the car is up and running again.
Jay
Went on a couple of them a few years back. They used to run at the Stanta Training area in Norfolk. Doubt they would be as much fun as the track at Oulton though ... all exercises consisted of driving round a large circle of cones on wet/sandy concrete. Great fun so long as you have never tried anything similar before ... you would get bored quite quickly otherwise.

There was a rally course he ran alongside this which went round a bit of a coned route ... that would be a little more interesting maybe (still not up to Oulton's standards though!).

All courses used to be run in Shawn's own cars (a few MGFs, stripped out Sierra and Bimmer). Don't know if his fleet has changed recently.

There are brief descriptions of all of these courses on the STR website here ...

http://www.st-racing.com/training.shtml