The BDC Tears Up Teesside!

The 2013 Maxxis British Drift Championship reached the halfway point over the weekend, with Round 3 being held at the infamous Teesside Autodrome venue in the North East. With certain drivers starting to shine in their respective classes and the points tables starting to take shape, the pressure was on for the drivers to rack up more valuable points to aid their championship campaigns.

With Round 3 also including the BDC's annual Team Triple Drift event the action kicked off on Friday underneath the scorching sun in what looked to be the hottest weekend of the year. The first day saw all three classes enjoying a morning of practice before heading into their three qualifying runs.

With three runs each to nail a perfect run, the drivers were under pressure to perform. Once the dust had settled, the Semi-Pro class saw Adam Simmons and Matt Stevenson from Slide Motorsport taking a 1-2 ahead of Steve Donnelly.

In the Pro class, Matt Tilyard took the top spot ahead of Mike Gaynor and Round 2 top qualifier Richard Grindrod. In the highly competitive Super-Pro class, Mark Luney took the coveted top qualifying spot with a fantastic 96 point run ahead of Mike Marshall, Shane Lynch and Marc Huxley, all of whom were tied on 92 points.

Saturday would see the running of the Top 32 battles for each class and, weather-wise, it looked like we would be in for another scorcher of a day. After each class had been whittled down to 16 drivers following the first round of battles a meet and greet was held on track with the fans and drivers.

The afternoon saw some fantastic battles taking place in all three classes, with the massive crowds being treated to some extremely fast and close driving. In the Semi-Pro class, top qualifier Adam Simmons found himself taking home the 1st place trophy ahead of local driver Tony Walker and Andy Arnott.

In the Pro class, Irish driver Barry Hennesy took the victory after a series of nail-biting battles ahead of Paul Cheshire and Jay White. Heading up the sharp end of the Super-Pro class was Mark Lappage ahead of 2nd place man Marc Huxley (the two having enjoyed a thrilling final battle) and Mike Marshall in 3rd place.

 Come Sunday it was time for the Team Triple Drift competition and the incredible weather showed no signs of worsening any time soon. There were a few sunburnt faces in the pits but nobody could think of anything better than three days of competition level drifting in the sun.

After a morning of practice it was time to get into qualifying. The teams had three runs each to impress the judges and it was essential that all three drivers in each team performed and got as close to their team mates as possible. With only the top 16 teams going through to the battles it was crucial to succeed in qualifying and plenty of teams rose to the occasion.

Come the end of qualifying, Acorn Infinity Motorsport drivers Mark Lappage, Stephen Biagioni and Martyn Lowe had secured the top spot ahead of Team Treads (Marc Huxley, Chris Hawkins and Darren Rickaby) and Team Lassa (Simon Perry, Jo Fletcher and Richard McCourt) taking 3rd place.

 The battles were run with each team putting in a run and the judges scoring both accordingly. The way some teams gelled on track made for fantastic spectating, especially so considering some teams formed and drove together for the first time on the day of the event!

Once the dust had settled, the hastily formed Team Reprobate (Chris Smiffy, Richard Grindrod and Phil Morrison) found themselves on the top step ahead of Slide Motorsport (Adam Simmons, Matt Stevenson and Ben Manuel) and the aforementioned Team Treads.

 After treating the crowds to some incredible six car drift train action it was time for the trophy presentation that signaled the end of another brilliant round of the 2013 Maxxis British Drift Championship. We would like to thank all of our sponsors for allowing us to continue to organise and run what has become one of the most highly regarded drift championships in the world.

The next round takes place on the 10th-11th of August at Lydden Hill in Kent - we'll see you there!