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HKS with Castrol Edge & Toyo Tires Drift Demo at Jap Meet, Mantorp Park, Sweden
Following the success of the Drift Demo at Maxi Tuning Show in
The Car was loaded and set off 4 days before our arrival and we would be meeting the car at the track on Friday afternoon with enough time to prepare for the event at the weekend.
The flight would be leaving from Stansted airport at 8:30 am and so to be safe we planned to arrive at the airport 2 hours before at 6:30. This early start meant that we would all be lacking a little sleep on the first day. I had arrived at the airport at the correct time but there was no sign of the others. It turned out the car they had planned to use to get to the airport had a nail through one of its tyres and so they had to swap cars. In their rush to catch up on lost time they also managed to miss their motorway junction resulting in having to take a diversion which adds another 20-30 minutes to their journey. They managed to arrive in time for check in but were clearly looking a little tired
Brett Castle was our driver for the weekend. He is 2007 European Drift Champion, sponsored by HKS and now also backed by Toyo Tires making him a natural choice as our driver. He had only had 2-3 hours of sleep the night before due to the birth of his first son Alfie, who is doing a fine job of keeping both parents awake all day and night.
My colleague Russell, made most of the arrangements for the trip. It would be his first overseas trip supporting our drift car and so had plenty enthusiasm in him at 7:00 in the morning.
Due to our cautious plan for timing, we managed to get to our gate in good time. A little chance to sit down was still much welcomed by the team.
The flight managed to leave on time and just over 2 hours later we had landed at
We found Joakim “Jocce” Dyrstedt waiting for us at the airport. Jocce runs JRM racing near
The JRM crew would be taking this race bus, which they borrowed from a local team who race Porsches. Jocce’s EVO 6 is one of if not the most famous in
With the race bus fully loaded, we set off to
It was good to see and hear that all motorists are conscious of the changing weather and changing their tyres to suit. Summer tyres, winter tyres and studded tyres all being used carefully to ensure maximum grip and safety in all conditions is something that we could certainly learn from in the
A quick fuel stop was made and we could see that there were other people making the same trip as us.
As they say in
from left to right: Brett, Dennis, Jimmy, Josef, Jocce and Russ
We arrived at the hotel before the track to check in just in case we got held up at the circuit for any reason
We managed to make it to the track and found our van and trailer waiting to get in at the gate.
Some eager campers were already setting up for the weekend ahead.
A quick break before we were shown to where we would be based for the next two days allowed us to catch up with Bob our truck driver. On our way to our spot, we found something a little strange for Jap meet also
Once reaching our spot, it was time to unload the Car and van and setup in preparation for the next day. The tents went up easy and quick and the car was rolled out in no time
The tent on the JRM race bus was not so easy to put up however but after quite a few hours of struggle we were all set and ready
The JRM guys would be sleeping in the race bus, so Brett, Russ, Bob and I made our way back to our Hotel for some much needed dinner. Dinner was great other than the piece of glass Brett found in his pasta. It was to be an early start for Saturday morning and so we all off straight to bed (although it was already past 23:00)
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