Qualifying

Top 16

Finals

Round 4

Qualifying

Top 16

Finals

Round 3

Warm up

We took the opportunity in this session to set up the car and calibrate the engine and mapping. We recently switched to E85 and saw some good results on the dyno, so we wanted to check its performance in a real-world environment. Tsuki completed the most laps in this session, which showed that we had good reliability in the scorching heat. Our best time of the session was 49.6.

Practice

I was given the all clear to push on during practice and went for the lap record. We managed it comfortably on lap 12 with a time of 48.3. This was a new lap record for the Pro class, a record that had stood for the past 10 years! Tsuki felt great at this pace and we were 2.5 seconds clear from 2nd place so didn’t need to push any harder.

Qualifying

The weather was getting hotter and hotter at this point. We knew we had the pace and did a 48.3 on lap 5 and then decided to park it as we still had a comfortable 1.5 second lead ahead of second place. The car had lost some grip from the earlier sessions but we attributed it to the change in track conditions. Therefore, we adjusted some roll bar and damper settings to settle the back of the car for better corner exit.

Final

Round 4

Warm Up

The NSX had gained a huge amount of understeer overnight, probably due to a change in track conditions. Therefore, we had to make some changes in this session. We did a banker lap of a 48.4 (0.1 off our lap record) and this was safe as we were 1.1 ahead of 2nd place. At the end of this session, we reduced our rear wing angle to help decrease rear grip and gain some front-end grip.

Practice

The changes we implemented worked wonders. The car felt amazing and we got back to our lap record pace of a 48.3. However, Alfie, the driver of the Ariel Atom, was getting quicker so we knew we’d have to push a little extra now. At this point, we were nursing a slight problem of a crack on our exhaust. This meant we were 0.2 bar down on boost, resulting in running about 490 horsepower for the rest of the day.

Qualifying

Bradley John, one of our competitors in the Pro class, managed to get his car working and put in a 48.3, matching our best time of the weekend. We had done a 48.1, so we were leading by two tenths but felt it wasn’t enough. We went for a push on lap 16 and achieved an amazing 47.7, completely demolishing our previous lap record set the day before. This put us fastest overall, five tenths ahead of Bradley. It was great news that Bradley had managed to sort his car, as we now had to push even harder, making the final race more exciting.

Final

Bradley managed a 48.017 on lap 3, so we had to go for it! However, the balance of the car had gone away from us since qualifying and the back of the car had lost grip. We put in a 48.013 putting us into 1st position by just 0.004 seconds. I then went straight for a pitstop to bleed the tyres down as we knew they had ballooned. We wanted to push for a low 47 which was on the cards. Unfortunately, Bradley’s car caught fire on the pit straight and the session was ended with an early red flag.

Overview

Tsuki performed incredibly throughout the duration of the weekend. We completed plenty of laps in the crazy heat and she didn’t falter. We managed to break the lap record twice, with only 1.2bar of boost at 490 horsepower. So now we can’t wait to crank things up in the hope that our lap times tumble even further. We’re super excited for the next round and can’t wait to see you there!

Rounds 1 & 2 of the Drift Pro Championship at Cadwell Park was the first outing in the all new 1JZ powered Silvia S14 representing Tegiwa Racing with Coilovers.co.uk.

The car was absolutely flawless all weekend with no issues, no breakages, nothing. Just simply changing tyres and adding fuel, which for a brand new build, I’m very very proud of.

It had been 3 years out of competition for me. I don’t get nervous, and I certainly wasn’t, however I did feel very out of practice, and had to be respectful of the Cadwell layout that ducks and dives through the Hall Bends, especially as I’ve never driven it.

This Cadwell track is completely new to me with its crazy ups and downs, whilst also being very narrow with little run off. It’s not the place to make any mistake when chucking it in at 60mph!

After a sketchy damp practice, I learnt the car and track enough to feel confident we would qualify. The track had completely dried out for qualifying which meant that I could drive the car to the fullest. I qualified 10th with a score of 77.67, which I was happy about given how new everything is.

My top 16 battle was against the formidable LWI Edwards and his supercharged LS BMW E36. I was no where near aggressive enough on the run in to stay with his torquey V8 on the straight. However the ’14 is showing huge potential of being very fast in a drift environment, as we gained the ground lost very quickly.

On my lead, I was very happy to have put in probably my best lead line so far, and LWI did an awesome job of staying right with me throughout, giving him the rightful win.

Round 2 – Drift Pro Championship

In practice I wanted to make the effort of twinning right from the off, and try to learn the new car as much as possible. I managed to do exactly that, picking battle with some of the fastest cars on the grid and we stayed with them all!

During qualifying I was blessed with a dry track again. I managed to score a 81, slightly improving from round 1, but still securing 10th position again.

The top 16 battle put me up against Dave Bastin in the ‘little Corolla that could’. His AE86 is an extremely fast car, and Dave being someone in my earlier years of drifting I’ve spent a lot of time with driving together. So it was safe to say I was very excited about this one.

Dave lead first, and I wasn’t prepared for just how quick out of the gate that car could be, next time I know to jump him. However a little dive on corner 2 and the ’14 was back on him, and by the last corner we where very near to pushing him around the last bend.

On my lead run, I did my best to give Dave all the opportunities to chase me close. He was with me from the off, then towards the end he lost a little of that proximity. Again, this showed me just how much potential is in the car.

My girlfriend on the newly appointed spotting duties gave me great advise prior to both the runs made with Dave.

The judging favoured Dave as I agreed with, however, head judge Maz spoke to me afterwards and said it was actually at lot closer than you think, and we nearly clinched it if it wasn’t for the initial separation.

I’m happy with both results and especially happy with the car. The YSR suspension worked well and the newest addition of YSR big front brake kit was a game changer. It gave me so much more confidence in the dives to make up ground on the lead car.

The way the steering feels is the biggest adjustment I need to change. I’ve never actually driven a S chassis before, as I usually drive BMW’s so I know I need to improve too. The parts have already been purchased; a Wisefab V2 front angle kit to replace the more basic cut hubs and extended arm current setup.

With that changed out, and the addition of the car running on ethanol for the next time out at Brands Hatch, we will definitely be aiming for a better finish.

We were already struggling with the car being delayed whilst coming back from Oman. Knowing that the engine was breathing a little heavy on the last event, it was straight to the engine builders as soon as it was collected from the container. Craig at DynoTorque found a few things wrong and with overnight parts from the US, thanks to Billy’s Speedshop it was back together in just a couple of days. The next task was getting it back in the LSZ, which I did in my workshop on Thursday night, just 2 days before having to set off to Cadwell Park. There were a few systems that needed cleaning and servicing during the build up and I finished minutes before we had to load up and get on the trailer.

Thankfully the car fired up, the cooling and oil systems were bled, new doors were fitted and we set off to get set up in the paddock on Saturday evening.

Round 1 – Drift Pro Championship

Sunday morning was Round 1 of the championship. It had rained through the night and the Drift Hyper Paddock was on the grass area so it was more like Glastonbury at that time. My team had pulled the car out of the gazebo and got her cleaned ready for practice in a couple of hours. I hopped in to start the warm up and straight away we noticed a misfire. Other cars started to pull into the line as we continued to race and find the source of the problem, checking spark plugs, coil packs, etc.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find the source of the problem prior to practice starting so everyone went out and we remained in the pits, working on the car. After plenty of troubleshooting we found that cylinder 2 wasn’t getting any fuel and eventually found this to be a wiring fault. A quick fix later we fired the LSZ back up and it appeared better so we were ready.

Qualifying

Next step was qualifying. Luckily the schedule was running ahead of time so there was a chance to have a sighting lap before my 2 critical laps of qualifying. Knowing I had no chance to ease myself in, I sent it, hoping I would be able to remember how the track felt from last year and we put down 3 decent laps. Maybe having the pressure of no practice is a good thing!?!?! The car was not 100% but was better than before.

When I returned to the pits we soon found out I qualified 9^th which I was pretty happy with.

Top 16

Top 16 battles came up and went against fellow Ph.Drift driver Michael Bennett, a new driver in the championship but a very capable one. It was a good battle but we managed to take the win and progress on to the Great 8.

Top 8

The car was now starting to misfire worse again. However at this point, we were committed so pushed on to our next battle with my nemesis, Ollie Evans. I was almost pushing up the mountain so I could ensure he didn’t get away from me and I did one of my best chase runs ever! I was buzzing.  It then came to the point where Ollie would chase me. We were side by side over the mountain and actually touched wheels as we accelerated to the initiation point, I could see him over my shoulder round corner 1 but after that I lost sight. I completed the lap and pulled into the pits followed slowly by Ollie. It turned out that he had split his 3^rd gear into 3 and twisted his input shaft so he was out. I was a bit gutted it didn’t turn out to be the full battle as ours are getting closer and closer every time.

The gent, Dave Bastin was next. Dave led, hooked up well off the line and started to leave me over the mountain, the V8 torque helped regain some positioning before we initiated. The run went well with both of us putting down a good line. As we went round the circuit to re-join the back of the queue, Dave pulled into the pits as it turns out the rumble strips had destroyed his gearbox.

Top 4

So I sat on the line by myself as I progressed through to the Top 4. The next part is pretty surreal.  Paul Cunnington and Martin Richards were battling at this point and I was talking things through with the Marshalls, we waited and waited and neither driver came back around. Turns out there had been an impact between both drivers and the judges were working out who was at fault.

As I was the last man with a working car sat on the start line, I took the win for the round! Not exactly the way we wanted to win Round 1 but points are points and I was happy to be stood on the top step and get some silverware!

Once the bubbles had been fired around and all the pictures had been taken following the podium, we set back to work on the LSZ to get her ready for round 2 the following morning. With some calm troubleshooting a cracked plug and split HT lead was found. I fired the car up and could instantly tell she was running on all 8, so we backed her under the gazebo and went to get some food.

Round 2 – Drift Pro Championship

Round 2 was during the Modified Live show so the crowds were already starting to grow when we arrived at 8am. We quickly got the car out on show and prepared for the day ahead. Practice would soon start so went decided to run with the left over tyres for the few laps we had. It was a dry day but the track was still damp by the time we went out so the first couple of laps ended up with me visiting the grass and covering some of the photographers. In future I won’t be using heat cycled tyres!

Qualifying

Qualification soon came around and we put down 2 solid laps. Then I heard that the judges decided that I was shallow towards the end of my first qualifying lap, so I thought “I’ll show them shallow!” So at the end of my second lap I went past the final clip on full lock, wheels on the limit of the tarmac, almost taking the rear of the car off on the wall. This helped me gain a few extra points, qualifying 5^th overall.

Top 16

Harry Love was my first battle in the top 16. He was worried I was going to leave him on the drag up to the initiation point so as soon as the flag dropped he was off and was still ahead of me at the top of the mountain. This had all the hallmarks of being an awesome battle from the start but his clutch gave out after the first corner and had to retire.

Top 8

This meant my Great 8 battle was going to be against the highly experienced Martin Richards. It was 2-1 to me in regards to our battle results so I was hoping to extend my lead further.  Martin led and I was focused on following him as close as possible. I came up on the inside of him in corner 2 and got myself slightly out of position, meaning I had to slow to allow him to transition so the advantage went to Martin. When I led I put down a decent line for him to follow, Martin did have a slight straighten but not a big enough error to overturn the advantage from the first half of the battle so Martin took the win, and finished my day.

I’m now joint 2^nd in the championship with LWI Edwards so there is still lots to play for.

Now it’s time to go through the LSZ, fixing the little issues we found and also get some more twinning practice in so we’ll be ready for Brands Hatch in June. Hope to see you there.

Free practice 1 was pretty wet for the first time out in Tsuki this year. With the systems checked for the first few laps, it felt great to be back behind the wheel for the first time this season. I managed to go fastest in my class too during FP1 and the car certainly felt good in the wet so I was looking forward to see what it was capable of in the dry.

The track soon cleared up after the sun came out and the drifters had done their thing. We learned pretty quickly that the car was sitting too low and we were scraping our splitter everywhere due to having so much downforce. As you can see from the images of going over the infamous mountain, the car produces an unbelievable amount of downforce now and completely pushes the rear end of the car into the track. I nursed the car round and finished 2nd in our class. We were already just a second of last years time with a 1:33.171.

With qualifying now upon us we’d fitted new springs and raised the ride height and the car was now flying! We smashed last years time but still had a lot of setup changes to carry out. I finished 2nd once again but this time with a 1:32.024.

With everything to play for in the final I managed to go even faster. A 1:30.824 meant I was just 0.4 seconds from finishing 1st, but I was happy enough with a 2nd place, especially as the car has so much more to give.

Round 2 – Time Attack

We were fresh out of the box on the Monday morning after making several other changes and eager to see how much we could push today. We topped the session and went even faster with a 1:30.421.

With even more changes made we once again finished at the top of the rankings in free practice 2, now breaking into the 29’s with a 1:29.614.

For qualifying we made a change to the aerodynamic settings and adjusted the rear wing. Unfortunately, this actually hindered our performance, thus causing too much drag down the back straight and causing understeer. Sadly, we only managed a 1:30.143.

Moving back to the original wing settings before we went out for the final, I managed to go the fastest I’d been all weekend with a 1:29.448. However, an oil temperature issue meant that it called a halt to the session early so I wasn’t able to achieve the true potential that I know the car is capable of. This meant backing out of my fastest lap yet and short shifting my way back to the paddock.

A big thanks goes out to Dave Hudson of Motion Motorsport and Terry Radbourne of BourneHPP for their support throughout the weekend!

We know that there’s plenty more to come from Tsuki between now and Brands Hatch next month. With some plans going forward we’re super excited to get back out there and clinch that number 1 trophy!

Despite his busy schedule as a business owner, Andy has continued to pursue his passion for drifting, achieving remarkable feats on the track. From winning the overall championship in the Drift Cup in 2018 to multiple podium finishes in the British Drift Championship, Andy’s skill and determination have earned him a reputation as a formidable competitor in the drifting community.

When we learned that Andy was busy building a 1JZ powered Silvia S14 to return to the world of competitive drifting, naturally, we had to get onboard! Andy will represent Tegiwa Racing with Coilovers.co.uk this year alongside team mate Ian ‘Bizz’ Phillips in his supercharged LS3 Nissan 350Z. With his expertise in fabrication and his already proven accomplishments, the Iceman is undoubtedly going to be a force to be reckoned with!

Not only have we been working with Andy as Tegiwa, but we’ve also had the opportunity to get involved as Yellow Speed Racing involved too. Andy’s S14 is utilising a set of Yellow Speed Racing Advanced Pro Plus 2-way Drift spec coilovers that allow a huge amount of adjustment and performance when pushing his car to the edge.

As well as Andy’s awesome livery that was designed in-house here at Tegiwa, we’ve also hooked him up with a top of the range OMP One-Art custom race suit too, complete with the Iceman character!

You can catch Andy in action for the first time this weekend as he heads over to Silverstone for Japfest. He’ll then be returning to the competitive scene the week after as we head to Cadwell Park!

We have one more exciting announcement to make next week too, so make sure you stay tuned!

The Drift Pro Championship is the pinnacle of UK drifting, featuring top-level drivers competing in high-speed battles and showcasing their drift skills to a massive audience. With Bizz’s incredible car control, precision, and fearless driving style, he has proven himself as a formidable competitor, consistently at the top end of the grid and having multiple podium finishes. His hunger for victory and dedication to his craft make him a force to be reckoned with in the pursuit of the Drift Pro Championship title.

Bizz joined the Tegiwa Racing team last year in 2022 with his LS3 swapped Nissan 350Z and has enjoyed competing around the world at the Nurburgring and most recently, the Oman International Drift Championship. As one of the most recognisable and loved drivers in the drifting community, Bizz’s performances never fail to captivate audiences. His high-speed initiations, insane transitions, and intense battles are a spectacle to behold!

The upcoming season promises to be an exhilarating journey for Bizz and Tegiwa Racing as we set our sights on the Drift Pro Championship title. With Bizz’s unwavering determination, skill, and the support of the Tegiwa Racing team, we are poised to make a strong statement on the track and compete against the best in the UK.

Get to know more about Bizz and his legendary 800 horsepower supercharged LSZ in the video below!

Stay tuned as we’ve got more exciting announcements to make later this week!