Today has come at last, my wife (Gina Stokes) and I were
invited to join Buyagift.com and Caterham driving experience at Silverstone for
some drifting action. To find the UK’s FASTEST BLOGGER 2012. I am a huge car nut and love anything to do
with cars or anything quick with an engine to be more precise, not only do I get
to spend a day with cars but I also get to spend it with my wife, so when the opportunity
arose to do this I jumped at it.
It was then onto briefing about the cars and
what the day entailed, it was hard to listen to what was being said with 3 Caterham’s
around though.
We then watched how things should be done around the
practice circuit and group order was arranged. We noticed straight away they had put my wife
and I down to drive at the same time as we would be driving in groups of 3,
which would cause a problem for us to video each other. We mentioned this and the guys were great and
got things changed straight away with no fuss. So the driving began. Gina went out and I was able to get some pics
and video. 
It then soon came to my go
and the nerves set in quickly. I got
strapped in and I was soon ready to go. The
red mist descended and I wanted to take off, my first go round was not too bad
and I seemed to get used to the car pretty quickly. I’ve always loved to try and get my own car
sideways in the snow etc. so being able to do this in someone else’s car and
supposed to be doing it was great.
My first
few turns were over and the adrenaline was going. Before I knew it, it was my turn, so off I went
again thinking I knew what to do and just nail it as fast as I can, but I wasn’t
really in control although I was having great fun! On my arrival back into the starting area it
was pointed out to me that speed isn’t everything and that its easier if you
take it easy then use the power when its needed to start the drift, so I thought
let’s try that then. 
My fourth go was a lot more subdued but the power was now
there when I needed it to get the back end out and drifting. I realised I’m not trying to race around the
circuit now but take control of the car and not the car take control of me. I came back in and Sudds (who was now giving
instruction) explained that if I’m only using 10% of the power I still have 90%
to use to get the car drifting which made a lot of sense instead of using 40%
and only having 60% left. After more
instruction I felt I was able to gradually take more and more control of the
car and became better throughout the day.
It was onto the figure of eight practice which again I really
loved. We then stopped for lunch and
were told that the UBER drifting course was to come after lunch. After lunch we had another quick briefing
about what had been learnt earlier and was shown the uber drifting course by
one of the instructors. It was soon time
to helmet up and go for it, we were advised to drive the course to find where
we were going I kept trying to remember my clockwise and anti-clockwise for the
360 doughnuts. After my first run I had
figured out where I was supposed to go and on my second run I went for it. Wow the
course was so good when I came back in I couldn’t stop talking about it with the
other guys. As I got more practice I started
to get into the flow of things and was determined to drift my way from start to
finish which with a bit more instruction I was getting there.
The time then came for the serious part the last 2 runs, 1st
run would be a final practice with the all-important 2nd run the decider for
the UK’s fastest blogger 2012. I was
ready for it, I felt like I could do it and on my practice run I nailed it, it
was my best run of the day and felt awesome. But then I remembered I had to do it again,
that was just practice. I came back
round for the final run, a bit of banter from the instructors and I was ready I
felt confident and went for it. I pretty
much got it right until the very last doughnut where I came a bit tight and had
to ease off the power but kept control. That
was it I had done all I could, I knew it wasn’t the perfect round I had wanted
but it wasn’t bad.
Gina and I then sat down to watch the final runs and everyone did so well, from the initial crawlers, the cone killers and the kangaroo-ers everyone looked so good. All I could do was wait and see. I knew Gina had also done really well and a few others had made next to no errors. The time came and the results were read out it was announced that I had done enough. I had won the title of UK’s Fastest Blogger 2012 (Drift King)!
