Yo drift fans just gonna give ye a little insight into my latest travels to Seattle WA for Formula D the worlds biggest and most competive drifting series.

Driver and Beast in this picture maybe showing some of my pre-event confidence…….But sometimes it just not ment to be…

Anyways on with my adventures flights booked to leave Dublin for Seattle on the Friday before the event. When I got to the airport friday morning from my trip 130miles south in Waterford I relised once i had gotten to the check in desk that the unthinkable had just happened………..I had brought the wrong passport to the airport with me OH NO…With countless cell phone calls to my Team boss Lawrence stateside we got another flight booked and sorted out for Sunday morning so all was not lost and I would make it there even if it was two days late haha….The only thing that was now bothering me is that we had had a days Test/Tune at the very track we where competeing on the following weekend booked for monday.Which with this later flight almost granteeded that we where now gonna miss this..Not a great start to the home town event for the team but I was still confident about it.Ive tested on this track before and is the only track on the FD calendar that i have driven before the regular thursday media day.So myself and my techs had spoken about the track set up we where gonna run here and had a pretty good idea of what we wanted the car to do here.I wont bore you with all the late night garage antics that seam to go on before every FD event…..

Thursday pratice is always kinda a relaxed atmosphere with drivers and crew just finding there feet with the track/air temp/track temp recording weather all the usual and geting the car pretty dialed for fridays Qualifying session to follow.

I did however get a chance to put in a couple of lead and follow runs to gauge the speed/grip of my car and I was surprized to learn that my car was good here like the best its been in terms of speed and grip.Now most drivers sandbag for thursday but I was geting the general idea that my car was gonna be competive with the best here.

We where happy with how the car was performing but did realise it was down on power quit abit from previous rounds.But we just desided to leave it alone as it worked pretty good here.With a smile on my face and fulla confidence myself and fellow irish drifter Eric O Sullivan left for the Karting that Intecracing where holding for teams and drivers at Skykart followed by the Lexus launch party for Apexi’s new sc430

Surprizing how Karting takes it outa ya haha big red on me lol.

With the fun out of the way it was down to business Friday pre-pratice and Qualifying.So we got our game together running the high line on the wall was what we wanted to do as this is what they had told us in the drivers meeting was gonna score high points more so then another part of the track..If you look  behind the car you can see the spoiler been ripped off by rudding the wall..Good??

Lawrence was on the radio pushing me more out to the wall on ever pass of the course.This is a track I can now say I love and am really looking forward to coming back here next year. Its full trottle off the line using all the gears up the back striaght and finally into 5th pointing the car at the Concrete outter wall..And then quick weight shift and kick the clutch to start your drift its one of those track that makes your stomach sink everytime you hit that first bend..

Right lining up for run one of Qualifying there was some big hitters in the championship after passing before me and not scoring amazing scores so I was determaned to put in a good run..Maybe a little to determand i miss shifted coming down the power ally…

This set me up wrong for the rest of the course and knocking the first inner clip with at the expence of my front bumper.. Score BAD

Now once again finding myself in this situation of having it all to do on my final run of qualifying this is not cool.

I got my game face on on focused and this next pass a pasition I didnt need to be in but also one I had put myself in.Plan was consistant safe run and just make the cut.. It paid off safe but in for the main show 25th

Some pictures from friday evening pratice where i was workinf on my chase line.

Geting right up inside charles in this picture.This dude is also really cool guy and a guy i hang out with quit abit at all these FD events he also drives in the Asain touring car series.

Friday is also a great chance to interact with the fans and supporters of FD the two little dudes in the picture are wearing Dean Kearney 43 jerseys gives you a great feeling to see this around the pits..

Also friday evening gives you sometime to repair any damage that might of happened to the car..I like give the team some work to do late on friday evening haha sorry dudes..But they had the wall tap fixed and another wing sorted for the car and She was Brand New again…

Love this picture..Saturday morning is final pratice session..And i was on the pace big angel on the bank one of the top speed drivers and scraping the wall on nearly every pass i felt good..

Saturday before the T32 started gave us a chance to meet somemore of the loyal supporters and cook in our suits

My battle in T32 was not gonna be a easy one but i was confident. i had 3rd place finisher in the championship last year Tyler Mc Quarrie but i knew the pressure was more so on him to bet me as i was the rookie..but gauging Tyler over the past two days I knew I could bet him and I was goin for it. Into turn 1 following him first I noticed he was slower then me but I still attacked as always he made a slight correction infront of me forcing me to make maybe a more noticable one behind him but i got right back on it..

I got right back on his door for the rest of the bank and all over his rear bumper in the power ally.Transitioned lovely right alongside him for the S bends…I knew at very very worst it was all equal goin into my lead run..Right??

On my lead run the lights went out I waited a moment as I remember him askin me for the pace cone.I waited about two-three seconds at crawing speed at this point I desided I couldnt wait any longer as I needed every inch of the striaght away into turn 1 for my 5th gear entry.And to be honest I didnt think Tylers car would have a problem keeping up having twice the power and torque and half the weight.

I then tagged the wall on the bank and also the inner wall before exiting the final bend with a look in my mirrior to see he wasnt nearly as close as I was to him.. Returning to the line i was think i had it by maybe a narrow margin or perhaps a OMT I was in shock to learn tyer had advanced…Not the first time in my drifting career ive gotten the bad end of the stick.But it was my first time in Fd it had happen to me.

^^^^Depressed head on me after the T32 battle^^^^^

Speaking with TMcQ afterwards he said he thinks a OMT would of been a better call “thanks” but he also told me his 350z has problems getting the power down with makes its striaght line speed poor..This is probley the reason for the big gap I pulled on my lead run.But I still dont agree with penalising me for it..

So it was to the spotters tower to watch the rest of the weekend unfold and enjoy the atmosphere of the crowd with some of the other drives knocked out Robbie Nashida and EOS.

I leave you with this wall scrape mark from the weekend Hope you enjoyed the read and thank you very much for taking the time out to read it.

Big thanks to all my sponsors and supporters.Also big shout out to all the crew at V-LEDS and at IntecRacing.

well done to the intec pro am team in rd4 kyle winning nik second and peter 4th.