With the first round of the 2013 British Drift Championship fast approaching we’ve been working flat out to get the cars ready in time. It’s not easy building and maintaining a drift car (let alone five of them), so in order to iron out any niggles and inevitable issues we decided to head down to Lydden Hill at the weekend to join in with a track day that they were running there.

With the 2JZ Lexus and V8 S15 in tow we gradually made our way south…

…and did quite a bit of filming on the way.

We had to make a couple of stops on our way, the first of which was Protuner in Redditch so that we could pick up the freshly remapped Scooby. Greg from Protuner has had his work cut out recently as he has had to map both the V8 S15 and the Scooby in the last few weeks. His PS13 was also in the workshop; it’s fair to say that this car is a work of art and we can’t wait to see it competing in this year’s BDC.

Paul Smith’s 1JZ S15 was also on the rollers, having been dropped off earlier in the day.

We hung around to watch a couple of dyno pulls but unfortunately had to dash to our next destination before a final bhp figure had been reached.

Our next port of call was Monster Energy HQ in London and, while we were there, we couldn’t resist firing up the V8 and letting Shane loose…

Our Monster exhaust tips also seemed to go down rather well while we were there!

Once Shane had decided that he’d laid down an adequate number of doughnuts for one afternoon we made our way ever further south towards Lydden Hill. After a few pints, a decent night’s sleep and a rather peculiar hotel breakfast (chicken sausages anyone?) we arrived at the track bright and early to get the cars unloaded and to make the most of the time available to us.

The Scooby’s front bumper has been painted black since its last outing – what do you think?

Pro BMXer Ben Wallace was also there, ready to clock up some more track miles in his R33.

While we were in the pits we had to admire the bravery of the owner of this pristine 240Z; he definitely wasn’t holding back while ragging it around the Lydden Hill circuit.

Josh’s new haircut earned him a few new nicknames, the publishable ones ranging from “Tin Tin” to “John Travolta”.

The aforementioned Greg from Protuner was on hand during the day in order to map the flat shift system in the V8.

It’s no easy feat making adjustments on a laptop while hurtling around a track!

There were many familiar faces in the pits; Ross I’Anson of Doristars fame and the legendary Bon Bon being among them.

Mark “Sweeps” Buckle was also in attendance to give his AE86 its first ever shakedown after five years in the making.

With the engine from his S15 yet to be rebuilt, Sully was alternating between the Scooby and Lexus…

…although he wasn’t the only one. Our new driver was also switching between the Scooby and the Lexus; more details will be released shortly.

The new map on Smokey’s S15 was working wonders as he was able to give his Maxxis MA-Z1 tyres absolute death all day long.

The Scooby also had no trouble leaving trails of smoke billowing out behind it.

Bon Bon was also chucking his E36 around like there was no tomorrow.

Shane and the V8 S15 were having a few issues during the day but the track time was still very useful in order to resolve these niggles. It’s much better to find out about a problem at a practice day than at an event!

With four cars and plenty of track time it was inevitable that plenty of Maxxis tyres would meet their demise.

The freshly installed Shotgun system on the Lexus sounded absolutely wild as it amplified the gorgeous 2JZ tone.

It was interesting to see how the car responded to various setup changes as the team tried to find the best balance of speed and consistency.

Overall we enjoyed a very productive day of testing and are looking forward to the first round of the BDC even more than ever.  As always there are still a few niggles to iron out over the coming weeks but we will definitely be back and firing on all cylinders come the start of the season. We can’t wait!