Elmia 2k18 - Bilsport Performance & custom Motorshow
Our traditional season opener Påsksladden went down 30-31 of march, we had a couple of stressful weeks leading up to this event but we managed to get everything done in time to take part. This event was supposed to be round 1 of the Swedish Drifting Championship but only 2 days before the event they removed it from the calendar and made it into a show competition outside the championship, this decision was made due to unstable weather conditions which could mean ice and snow on track. We feel that the decision was a good one because it has to be fair for all the competitors.
We decided to take part in the show competition anyways to get some seat time as well as putting on a great show for all the people who had bought their tickets! The last couple of days before the event we were working our asses of to get the livery set in time, we contacted WTP Dekor who helped us out with short notice and got the job done. The car was fully wrapped and ready for the weekend just a couple of hours before departure, but we still weren't anywhere close to the stress we have had previous years so everyone was excited and stoked about the start of the season!
When we finally got to start practice on Friday evening the car felt solid and we headed out to Line up for our first runs, but as soon as i rolled out on track i lost the brake pressure in the rear.. So I decided to run the first run without any handbrake to get a feel for it and to be honest I felt a bit uncomfortable, not just because of the brakes but the whole feel of the car was different.. Because this was the very first test of the car after the off season rebuild, we have changed the steering geometry and a new clutch setup that I just wasn't used to quite yet.
But after re-bleeding the brakes we headed back out for more practice and when after a few runs i started to feel comfortable again and it felt great, the steering feel had improved a lot and the chassi felt grippy. This ment I started to push it a bit harder each run but the more we pushed i got warnings for low oil pressure.. This is a problem that has haunted us for a really long time and we did some small changes coming in to this 2018 trying to fix the problem but unfortunately the problem was still there, so this was making me loose some focus on my driving when always worrying about the flashing oil pressure light.
When entering Saturdays qualifying I decided to drive like the problem didn't exist and we first put down a safe points run, which meant i had the confidence to go hard on my second qualifying run to better my score. Said and done I went out and put on a solid run which gave us an 86.67 that put us in 6th position which ment we were in the show!
Top 16 started out with a battle against Linus Joensuu (Driftbrothers - Sweden) who had brought his old competition car out for the event, we had a really fun battle against each other and we ended up taking the win. In top 8 we were up against 3rd qualifier Kim Fors in his V8 supercharged S13, in my first run out I was lacking a bit of grip so I left a gap around 2 cars which ment I didn't get the proximity I wanted.. On my Leadrun i put down a solid line but I simply couldn't shake Kim who had a lot better proximity which meant he walked away with the win.
So in the end we ended up 6th out of 25 drivers which i feel is a really good start to the season! Nothing major breakdowns on the car and I didn't even scratch the wrap so that feels like a blessing so far:D Now we are looking forward to a Promotion video shoot which will be going down next weekend and the weekend after is the first round of SDC at Mantorp park (28-29 of april)!
Event Photo Gallery
We have collected some photos from the event for you to check out!
Huge thanks to: Amelie Papparazzi, Björn Billsten, REC production, Moa Svarf Photo, Wide Angle Media, Alfonze Photo, Deltaphoto and Christoffer Åslev!
