Once again, I’ve falllen behind with blog updates. I wish I could keep on top of these posts and publish them as soon as events and meets have taken place but, due to the sheer number of entries needing to be posted recently, along with the amount of time it takes to put these together, I’ve been left on the back foot. I apologise for the lack of updates but I will be powering through over the next couple of weeks or so to catch up!
First up, the v8illuminati meet in Stockport last month. Held at the garage best known as “The Church” where a few of my friends work on their cars, the guys decided to make the most of the sizeable car park out front and invite a group of both old and new friends for a chilled Sunday afternoon.
We had been reminiscing about the days where we would be out in our drift cars almost every night, attending every meet or activity with any car people that came our way. As soon as people’s cars started becoming more track focused and less enjoyable to drive on the road (along with finally getting somewhere to store and work on said cars), this all became a thing of the past. There’s no doubt about it, changing a gear box in a public car park sucked but, at the end of the day, it made you get on with the job quickly and, once finished, you would be determined to get straight back in your car and drive.
As a result of this not being the case any more, it had felt like a long time since we’d met anyone new within the Manchester drift scene which, as a city with so many likeminded people living in and around it, felt like a bit of a shame. So, to try and remedy this, the meet was organised for the beginning of July on a red hot Sunday afternoon.
Of course, plenty of people didn’t get the weather memo and found themselves sweltering in the drift uniform of choice that is black long sleeve t-shirts and black jeans. But hey, at least it wasn’t raining.
Nathan’s CA-powered S13 was one of the first to arrive, still sporting the shiniest pair of WORK VSs in the world.
I didn’t get chance to speak to the owner of this E46 but I believe it was boosted. I’d love to give something like this a go; I often feel that we’re so caught up in our own understanding of the Japanese scene that we’ve ignored some potentially great (not to mention cheap to build and repair) cars that have been right in front of us the whole time. Just because it’s a BMW doesn’t mean it needs to be a battered E36 missile.
Alex’s S14 is a regular on these pages…
…while Saule’s S14 (with its fresh Works9 aero, the front bumper of which lasted a whole half an hour before being ripped open by a cats eye) has also featured on here before.
9cm 326POWER wheel nuts keep his AVS Model 5s secure.
My C33 Laurel also features the same 9cm nuts, along with 326POWER valve caps. This photo is a great example of just how bad I am at cleaning it.
Joe Yelland turned up shortly afterwards in his stunning S15.
I think everyone suffered from VSKF envy at some point during the day as a result of the fantastically large lips on Joe’s set. The 7cm 326POWER nuts, spikes and valve caps really helped to set them off too.
No 326POWER-equipped car is complete without a rear-view mirror plate!
Jonathan is one a number of local guys who I’d never met before, despite him having a stunning S14 on a set of definitely-not-Rotas WORK Meisters.
The same story goes for Andy and his S14; a local car that I see driving around a fair bit but never have I had the opportunity to have a look around it or meet the owner.
Simple, yet so effective.
Dave’s awesome cream coloured R32 with wild blue tints.
Adam, getting his new Tinder profile picture in front of the aforementioned R32.
Not a Tinder photo: Adam’s FC3S.
Will and Tom’s respective S13 and S15 are two cars I’d only ever seen when they’ve been passing me on the other side of a road before, so it was cool to check them out in the flesh. The gold paint on the 15 was something else.
It’s not easy to make 17s look good on a 15 with such a big kit but the chunky tyres certainly do the trick.
Charlie showed up in his SR20DE powered S13, the car that always gets everyone reconsidering their current complicated and unreliable turbo setups.
Lauren and Dave featuring drag wing, Chinese food and STL windscreen sticker (shameless plug).
In the end there were so many new faces to meet and cars to check out that the meet went on for hours and continued way past sunset. It was cool to catch up with the owners of cars from the internet and check out their work in person.
Hopefully we can do something like this again in the near future. As drifting continues to become more serious and the cars involved are destined to live their lives at race tracks, on the back of trailers and in workshops, this social aspect of the sport has started to suffer. With many moving on from their roots and becoming increasingly professional, it’s up to the new generation to keep pushing this fun and sociable aspect that comes with road legal drift cars.
Of course, there are those who have been doing this a long time and continue to do so without taking drifting any more seriously than this (myself being one of them) and that is purely because there is so much fun to be had with drifting and drift cars other than just at the track. Long may it continue.