It’s been a hectic week at Team Japspeed getting ready for Japfest – the UK’s largest Japanese car show. Not only were we taking part in the team drift challenge, but for 2011 we also unveiled the new Team Japspeed trailer – an area dedicated purely to showcase all the quality Japspeed products, stock goodie bags and allow you punters to come chat with the staff and drivers all day!
After Round 1 of the BDC the three Japspeed drift cars required very little work to be ready for the Castle Combe circuit… apart from Shane’s S15 which (thanks to the mighty V8) needed some serious exhaust silencing to comply with the db limits – it seems a shame to drown out such a glorious noise, but nowhere near as bad as Shane not competing on the day.
By Friday morning we’d loaded up all the essentials – drift cars, Maxxis tyres, tools and most important LOTS of Monster Energy Drink! With a few hundred miles to rack up on the way to Bristol it was good to see Team Japspeed fans snapping our convoy en route to Bristol – including the Scene-Media.com guys in a rather tasty Audi RS4 estate recently bought from Scotland! By early afternoon we reached Japfest and began setting the stand up, including the new Shotgun Exhausts and D2 ‘Black Edition’ brake kits on display for the first time.
Saturday morning and with the show finally open the crowd size was completely phenomenal! Alongside the thousands of show, track and club cars on display, another 10,000+ punters arrived on the day to make Japfest one of the biggest and busiest shows we’ve ever been to. The Japspeed trailer was absolutely swarming all day, and with the team drift battle about to take place it was awesome to see such a buzz and crowd for professional drifting! In the Japfest team drift battle, groups of three drivers need to drift as closely as possible to one another and generally provide the biggest entertainment to the crowd to win. A slight mishap on the day caused a bit of damage to the Japspeed 1JZ Impreza, but nevertheless the team still pulled it back to take the 3rd place trophy on the day – not a bad effort at all! By the time you’re reading this, Baggsy’s Impreza is already stripped down and being straightened ready for BDC this weekend!
Overall Japfest turned out to be a massive success for Team Japspeed on the day. It was good to meet so many Japspeed fans and get so much use from the new trailer. Big thanks goes to Quaife who provided us with a model of their sequential-shifting gearbox – forget promo girls and goodies, if you want to draw a crowd to a stand… give ‘em a sequential gearbox to pull the lever on!!
As always, Japspeed would also like to thank its sponsors and Maxxis Tyres for all the help the team receives throughout the year. It wouldn’t be possible without the help of the whole team, drivers and people behind the scene – we’re not just called ‘Team’ Japspeed for nothing.
Make sure you get yourself to the Maxxis BDC Round 2 @ Norfolk Arena this weekend to see us back in action – Norfolk’s a crazy little circuit and a proper laugh over the weekend – we’ll see you there.
