Project 328i - a lot to learn

[sideways-theonlyway]

The car never moved from round 3 until 2 days before round 4 when I brought it down to McKeons Garage for a quick check over. Gotta love reliablity and hassle free cars



We left longford at 4am Saturday morning, passed through loughrea at about 6am and I noticed one of the trailer tyres was completely shredded! Then I realised I had forgotten the spare for it



Ended up unloading everything from inside the drift car into the Jeep and limping the trailer to Ennis on three wheels.

I felt good going into the early morning session and after a few runs and a few pointers from my great spotter (the wife!) I was farily happy with my line and felt confident going into the qualifying stage.

Qualifying run 1 I scored around the 65 mark I think which I was happy with for my first run.

Qualifying run 2 I scored a 65.7 which saw me taking 22nd place, happy days, into the Top 32 for the second event in a row.

Here's the qualifying runs from the livestream and also from inside the car.

Livestream footage:



In Car Footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Di0...RIrw-5zBWUpsJw

On to the battles and of course it started to piss rain!

Top 32 battle was against James Spillane, he lead out and I followed reasonably well, straightened a bit at clip 2 but finished out the chase ok from there. My lead run was solid, got out to the walls and I think James spun so I got though to top 16!

Top 16 battle was against an on form Tom Murphy. His power and grip just left me sitting from the start line and I couldnt reel him in so I stuck to a good line along the walls and completed the run. On my lead run I went in to fast and washed a way out after clip 1 allowing Tom to pass me on the inside, I knew I had lost the run then so for the craic I went on a very inside line and passed him out and finished off across the line Tom got though of course.

My goal was a top 16 finish at IDC and I'm delighted to have done it. Now really excited about round 5.

I've set up a facebook page, give ye a bit of what I am about and that.

Feel free to follow and share it out. Thanks a million. Paul

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paul-..._type=bookmark

[sideways-theonlyway]

This happened last night while I was asleep

https://www.facebook.com/cube.king.1..._t=like_tagged

Thanks to the lads at Cube King, really looking forward to working with them.

[sideways-theonlyway]

After round 4 the car was looking pretty rough but as usual I didn't get a chance to work on it until last week.

Few raps of a hammer, new lights, bit of a sand and spray and it was a bit tidier looking.










I decided to try using new tyres for round 5. Ended up getting Hankook 195 50 15's at a good price from Nallys Tyres in Ballymahon.



Morning practice on Friday went great, got the track fairly well dialled in early on and loved the high speed entry, I really just had to throw the car in as hard as I could with as little use of the handbrake as possible to allow me to get out to clip 3, there was a few hairy moments!
The best run was when myself and Stephen Coakley ran together, two of us nailed it and it was good close drifting, pity I hadn't the go pro mounted for it.



Friday afternoon came and I put on the new tyres. They really changed the car & it took some getting used to, a lot faster speed through clip 2 & out to 3 so I had to learn to drive the track again.
On the last run my throttle pedal got stuck down and wouldn't pop back up, spring must be broke.
On Friday morning I ended up parking beside David and Barry, only for these lads for the two days I would have been f**ked, so thanks for all the help lads.
Barry ended up making me a new throttle pedal and fitting it during briefing on saturday morning so I could get out for the practice session



Morning practice was going great after I adjusted tyre pressure in the rear tyres, I put in a few solid runs and was really feeling confident about qualifying. Near the end of the session I cut clip two a bit to tight and when i got back around to the start line I realised that the car was pissing out water
So I flew back around to the pits before it boiled and we realised a stone had gone through the radiator and also through the electric fan and the bottom of the radiator had got a bad hit from the kerb.



This was half ten, qualifying started at 12, so I was running around the pits like a mad man looking for a radiator! Nobody had one so I rang Dave and he got me a number for Valdas in Dublin, he had one so I sent my brother racing into Dublin for it.
In the meantime with the help of all the lads we took out the radiator, realised that it was only a fairly small pin hole in it, the lads luckily had some sort of putty that set like concrete and once that set it sealed the radiator!
So back in with the rad, fixed the electric fan and we were lined up for qualifying at 12.05!

Qualifying run 1 was reasonably OK, I dropped a wheel and was shallow on clip 4, and had the wrong line coming at clip 5 so scored 54.5 which I knew wouldn't be enough to get into top 32.

Qualifying run 2 I pushed way too hard, little early on initiation which meant I jumped across clip 2 and the car just bounced across the track and hit hard into the dirt!

Here's both runs;



And the photo's









The car seems to be ok after it, haven't had a chance to get it off the trailer yet but it drove around the pits and onto the trailer no problem.

So that's the year over, I have to say it was just epic, I never expected that the car would do what it has done and I think it surprised a few people and put a few smiles on faces.
I achieved far more than I had set out to achieve on a basic car & budget so I am more than happy

Big thanks to everyone that helped out at events, giving advise, spotting, my sponsors, family, friends and without the support of my brilliant wife, who was also my spotter at every round, I wouldn't have been able to attend every round this year.

What will happen in 2015????

[ELV-iS]

fair play on a great year man...

wish more drivers did threads like this to be honest...

[sideways-theonlyway]

fair play on a great year man...

wish more drivers did threads like this to be honest...

Thanks, really enjoyed the year. IDC has really stepped up. I think there will be a big influx of drivers next year, how that will be managed is another thing, separate series for rookies??

ah sure it's hard for lads to get time I suppose, I'm lucky as I'm in front of a computer all day so I can get the time to update things.

[sideways-theonlyway]

Some in car footage from Friday practice

[derek89]

Ye fair play dude u had some year and still can't believe some of ur runs being a 328. I'd say if u got ur self an m3 running gear u would definitely be up there. Keep it goin dude.

[sideways-theonlyway]

Ye fair play dude u had some year and still can't believe some of ur runs being a 328. I'd say if u got ur self an m3 running gear u would definitely be up there. Keep it goin dude.

Thanks man, ah yeah but they are gone big money now. Just gonna see how things work out over the winter, not gonna put myself in debt over a car anyway

[sideways-theonlyway]

[IMG]Irish Drift Championship - Round 5 - Final Fight by Dan Fegent, on Flickr[/IMG]

[sideways-theonlyway]

Last couple of weeks I've been trying to get prices on fibreglass front fenders, doors, boot lid & bonnet.

Before I made up my mind I wanted to see exactly what weight saving would be achieved by replacing with fibreglass.

Bear in mind I have cut a lot of weight already from the doors, bonnet and boot lid so these are the weights measured with that extra weight cut out.




So as you can see it would be around 47 KG's saving if the above parts were replaced with fibreglass.

Is saving 47kg worth approx €1,000 - €1,100?????

For me, at the minute, it's not. Maybe next year, I've better ways to spend that kinda money.