After attending the London Drift Allstars round which was held on a purpose-made track outside the Olympic Stadium, I was looking forward to seeing what the plans would be for 2015. With suspense building for the event, things seemed to go quiet, information that was once there had begun disappearing. It was at this point that rumours were naturally circuilating around social media that the new location had run into a problem and that it was most likely going to be rescheduled, or possibly even cancelled.
Refusing to make the worst of a bad situation, it was announced just a weekend before the event that instead of another purpose-made street track elsewhere, they’d opt to use the track at Arena Essex. This sparked its fair share of controversy, while exciting events have been held at oval circuits in the past, it wasn’t what the fans were hoping for.
As plans for the event begun to appear, it became clear that they wouldn’t be running a typical layout, they’d be adding a strip of tarmac across the centre of the track which would allow for alternative layouts to be run. Upon observing the added tarmac, I realised that this could potentially be a bit more exciting than expected. I’m unsure if it was intentional or not, but with the tarmac not being level it would make for some interesting outcomes since drivers would have to navigate over a small jump when initiating into the final turn.
After some early adjustments to the layout since the jump was causing both mechanical issues and also problems for some drivers, they opted to play it safe and tell drivers to ease off when entering the final turn.
Overall it was a good event, I felt that DA did the best they could with minimal time and as usual, drivers such as James Deane, Luke Fink and Janis Eglite would put on a spectacle for the crowds. It was also a great opportunity for some local drivers to get the chance to enter after the late announcement had struggled to get it’s usual lineup.
