Horseless Carriage Sliding – SATS Cosworth at round 3 of the British Drift Championship from Ciaran Smith on Vimeo.

Team SATS Cosworth were at Teesside Autodrome on the weekend of 2/3 July for round 3 of the Maxxis Tyres British Drift Championship

Having suffered some engine issues at the previous round, the team worked hard over the course of the past few weeks to have the car ready for the event. Team Mechanic Simon Edwards told us,
“The engine was taken back out, checked, and we found a couple of things wrong. It was nothing major, just stuff that needed to be addressed. So while we were there, we took the time to rebuild and refresh it, and made sure that it was built to the same tolerances as the last engine.”

So with the car ready to go, Mark went out on his qualifying runs, and pulled off some awesome displays, staying within inches of the clipping points. However, he was marked down heavily for using the handbrake too much on the straight; something he didn’t know would be an issue until speaking to the judges afterwards. He qualified in 9th place.

The team put the result behind them, and got the car ready for competition the following day. His first opponent was to be Simon Perry in his Nissan Skyline.

In the first run, Mark was chasing, with Perry leading. Both drivers almost had their cars backwards exiting the first corner such was the angles they were pulling. At one point, Mark straightened slightly, as he had to brake to avoid a collision with Perry. However, this was the least of his worries.

With so much smoke emanating from Perry’s tyres, Mark lost sight of the track and clipped the tyre wall with the rear of the car, ripping off the bumper in the process. As a result, Perry scored 10-0.

Knowing that his chances at progressing to the next stage of the competition were slim, Mark went out anyway on his leading run, and put on a show for the crowds, driving possibly one of the best runs of the day, leaving his opponent Perry in the distance.

Afterwards, Mark told us,
“Qualifying wasn’t as we expected. 9th place just wasn’t what we were looking for. It seemed that even though we had fast, consistent runs, it wasn’t the lines that the judges wanted.”

On his drive against Perry, he said,
“We knew we had the worst draw in the top 16, up against Simon Perry. We went out and gave it everything we had on the first run, but just got it slightly wrong on the last corner, ran wide, and caught the tyre wall. It’s caused quite substantial damage to the back of the car. Even though we beat Simon on the second run, it wasn’t enough to beat his 10-0”.

With the work performed on the engine since the last round, Mark was full of praise for the car,
“Mechanically, the car was fantastic. The new Cosworth engine fitted to it ran really good. The car was brilliant all weekend, but it just wasn’t to be.”

So a disappointing result for the team, but you can be sure they will be back, and raring to go, and one of Mark’s old stomping grounds, Knockhill.

-Release and Media prepared by SATS Cosworth