I’d not touched my C33 Laurel since returning from the STL event that I ran at Driftland back in September. This was mainly due to me having smashed up both the front and rear bumpers and subsequently leaving them with Adam off of Retroshine/StyleCase to try and repair.
After a quick check over on Saturday morning (which led to the discovery of a small hole in the intercooler that I fixed with liquid metal, along with a broken release bearing) I drove the car over to Adam to pick up the bumpers and attempt to straighten out the front end. By Saturday evening, the Laurel was looking somewhat similar to how it should look thanks to a mammoth effort from Adam and his dad to straighten out the bumper bar and headlight mounting points. Seeing as the car was working fairly well, I decided to book on for the drift event being held at Three Sisters the following day.
Arriving to a freezing cold venue and wet track on Sunday morning, I had a walk around the pits before I could bring myself to unload all of my gear.
I spotted this AE86 at Drift Matsuri last month and it was great to see it again. It’s such a brilliant example of perfect execution and style while still remaining functional. The S14 in the background was pretty cool too, sporting a set of LED rear lights.
The track was soaking wet for the first few sessions and was extremely greasy in places. The organisers had also decided to change the track layout from what I’d driven at Three Sisters in the past, introducing a longer section after the first corner which was then followed by another hairpin and a “no drifting section”, before re-entering the track for the faster middle section. It took me a while to get used to it and, to be honest, I much preferred the layout that I’m used to due to it flowing much better.
In between sessions I spotted this pretty sweet R33 in the pits. I’ve seen quite a few cool ones popping up now, which is definitely a good thing.
As the track started drying out the grip levels rose but there were still a few slippy damp patches that were just waiting to catch drivers out, myself included. On the transition into the big final corner I hit one said slippy patch and completely overshot the apex, setting me on a one-stop journey towards the tyre wall. I tried to power out of it but once my rear wheels were on the wet grass it was game over, so off came the freshly painted bumpers in a fantastic explosion of fibreglass. Thankfully, there was no mechanical damage so I bodged the front bumper back together and carried on.
The track was open until darkness set but I decided to call it a day early and get my car ready for the journey home before it was too dark to see anything in the pits. Here we see Adam piecing my rear bumper back together so that I could chuck it back on for the drive.
The face says it all, haha.
Oh well, at least my new 326POWER Rear-View Mirror Plate looked pretty cool as the sun set.
Once we were all packed up and loaded it was time to head home. With a few of us having driven our cars to the track, it was pretty cool to be driving down the motorway in convoy together, a collective sigh of relief being exhaled by all of us that our cars were still drivable.
My last stop of the day was the local Tesco jetwash, as there was so much mud stuck to pretty much every imaginable area of the car and I’ve learnt my lesson of leaving it to cake on, only to fall on my face the next time I’m underneath doing maintenance.
Overall it was a pretty fun day, although I wasn’t entirely happy with my driving or how the Laurel felt. On the plus side, I finally started initiating on the first and middle sections of the track in third gear, so every cloud and all that! You can view some on-board footage that Chris from StyleCase recorded while riding shotgun below: