The other weekend I made my annual trip to check out DriftMatsuri at Anglesey. This time round I skipped the Saturday evening night demo and partying and just popped down on Sunday to catch up with mates, take some pictures and film some video.
By Sunday morning a lot of the cars that had been driving the previous day were looking a little worse for wear, and the same could be said for some of the drivers.
Rory‘s Sileighty had been involved in a pretty hefty collision with an MX5 on the Saturday. Thankfully this was one of the rare events that he had decided not to drive the car to, so he could at least trailer it home in peace.
Helen‘s R32 was also sporting some bodywork damage, caused by running quite an optimistic wide line and tapping one the large tyres surrounding the track. Thankfully the rest of the car was ok, as she had a very long drive home ahead of her in the slammed ’32.
Speaking of four door R32s, it was great to see Rob‘s example back in the pits after a long absence.
Another car I hadn’t seen in fresh air for a long time ( usually I find it tucked up in the Huxley Motorsport workshop whenever I pay a visit) was Adam‘s PS13.
You might remember Norfy’s PS13 from this blog post a few years ago. The car has since had a slightly weaker set of Watanabes fitted and a lot of body and paint work performed by Dave Bastin, which has really brought it to life. Unfortunately, a rear tap of the aforementioned track outer edge tyres undid some of that hard work on the rear quarter, but I’m sure it’ll be looking perfect again very soon.
Speaking of Dave Bastin, his AE86 was looking about as elaborate as you could expect a drift car owned by a guy that runs a paint shop for a living to look.
Now here was a blast from the past; a car that I hadn’t seen in the flesh since 2013. As you might remember from this blog post, Protuner owner Greg Gush‘s PS13 once featured an extreme SR20 but now runs an LS lump. While that may irk a few people, I was just happy to see this car being used after a build process than has lasted the better part of this decade!
Another car I hadn’t seen for as long as I could remember (after some research, it appears I last saw it in November 2012 at the first Anglesey drift day) was Joe Ball’s S13. When the apocalypse comes, I’m sure that only locusts and this car will survive. I also love that it reminds me so much of Naoto Suenaga’s “battle car” S13 as made famous by this Noriyaro video.
Tom Van Beek‘s MX5 in the pits.
A car that seems to be at every single drift day possible is Alex‘s JZX100. The amount of seat time Alex must be getting is phenomenal and, shortly after DriftMatsuri, I saw him throwing down endless laps at Three Sisters. It’s a testament to the JZX platform’s reliability that he can keep going the way he does, which is especially admirable when considering the strong ride height and wheel setup.
Something I never expected to see; Paz (aka Toyota/AE86/Corolla OG legend) driving an S-body. This was his new S15 and, together when Iain from Retro Speed Shop in his S14, the pair were throwing down some super quick and aggressive runs all day.
I wrote a bit more about this car here.
When it comes to lowstyle drifting, few are more hardcore than Mikey. His Navan-kitted S14 on 15″ WORK Equips is practically kissing the floor, but don’t be fooled into thinking this look has been achieved haphazardly.
Along with the subframes having been raised, the OEM fuel tank was removed and replaced with a custom fuel cell setup in the boot (trunk). The car’s SR20DE doesn’t demand such a fuel setup but, when running low is life, you have to be ready to make serious modifications such as this.
When I arrived at the track on Sunday morning I found Tom and his mates rolling around on the floor while replacing his SR20 gearbox. Their dedication was admirable but there was no way Tom was passing up on a full day of drifting when he had travelled such a long way to Anglesey. He was back out on track shortly after and was throwing down his trademark big angle entries.
While it was great to see so many familiar cars and faces at the event, it was cool to come across some cars that I hadn’t seen before. This was Mikey‘s AE86.
As the sun began to set over the Anglesey pits (sunset is at around 4.30~5pm at this time of year in the UK) I quickly grabbed a few aesthetically pleasing sunset photos before heading off home. It’d be nice to drive at DriftMatsuri again some time in the future, but for now I’ll continue to enjoy the social aspect of the annual event.