MCNSPORT & D-Mac: The year that was 2009

[MCNSPORT.com]

Just thought id give an insight into myself and my company and the progression we made in 2009

2009 will be remember by me personally as the proper development year of the Falken Tire, Sears Auto Centre Saturn Sky. The car went from mild to wild, if you can call a 700+bhp 1000kg car mild

Let start in Feburary when i flew to Charlotte North Carolina to test the Sky after the off season changes

This was my first time at ASD, the people that build the Sky, Mustang and 350z. These guys are the best in the business and also the best bunch of guys you could ever meet. Pretty impressive shop they have but they have since moved to a bigger facility which im looking forward to spending time at in 2010


First of the new changes was the lovely new lower control arms fabbed by the guys. This control arm sadly met its end in Irwindale later in the year R.I.P lol


Another addition was the second EDFC, which allowed me to control the suspension stiffness of all four corners from the drivers seat


Moving onto the rear. New upper control arms were cnc'd by ASD and a new rear anti-roll bar was integrated into the roll cage which is pretty cool. It also makes it very easy to change roll bar sizes. This was by far the best set-up change for 2009


Test day 1 was at an industrial area pretty close to the shop. This turned out to be more of a shakedown in a wide open Tarmac area


Here it is wearing its new shoes for 2009 courtesy of SSR


A nice shot of the rear. All the right bits in the best modern drift chassis available


Day 2 was a bit more interesting. We headed to what was known at the time as Lowe's Motor Speedway for some proper full on testing


Lowe's is a proper motorsport facility. Not only does it have the Nascar oval, with inner Road course and karting track but it has a 4 lane Drag Strip and........


A half mile dirt oval!!


Here she is sitting in the paddock in Long Beach at Round 1. Long beach turned out to be a disappointment. Although we qualified second, the new suspension changes caught me off guard and i had a spin in Top16. The Long Beach street course with all its changes in surface is definately not the place to develope suspension!


Atlanta was next on the schedule. Atlanta had been good to me in the past, its where i first made my Formula D impact in 2007 in the trusty ae86 with a 2nd place podium finish. And with the new suspension parts we made quick progress with the Sky, we ended up with another second place which was much needed and the car started to handle really well, but if anythin it lacked a bit of forward bite


Falken also turned up in Atlanta with my giveaway guitar and it looked pretty dam cool! 4 leaf clover n all, how stereotype of them lol


And here is the lucky competition winner. Would have liked it for myself but he seemed pretty chuffed about winning it, so i signed it and he signed up for lessons i hope


As for MCNSPORT, we launched our incredably successful ae86 suspension which has hit nearly every continent in 2009. Well proud of the performance of these things and its MCNSPORT's first developed product and even more proud that its not made in China and just painted in our colour like all the other kits on the market

[MCNSPORT.com]

Back to more drifting. The Sky turned up at Wall New Jersey with a wider stance but you would have to look twice to notice it but by the end of the event i think everyone knew we had made changes. With what we learned in Atlanta the car took its biggest development leap forward yet. With the almost telepathic understanding between myself and my crew chief Ian Stewart (owner of ASD and general car genius) we made all the right changes and it resulted in an unbeatable car at Wall


And thanks t a stroke of genius all 3 Falken cars built by ASD with the same crew chief finished first, second and third. Will this ever be done again? What an amazing achievement. This cemented Falken Tire as a real force to be reckoned with


My headwear also seemed to be attracting a lot of attention in New Jersey and after the win it hangs in the Falken rig as one of my "lucky charms" so to speak


It was nice to see Ian the Kiwi mastermind getting into the Irish swing of thinks aswell. Maybe ther is some Irish in him as he burns very badly in direct sunlight


Meanwhile back at MCNSPORT, my growing love for the Rotary engine led me to build or first rotary motor which im happy to say runs like clockwork. Doing the rotors is quiet time consuming


But so worth it for the finished product. This is one of the coolest things ive done i think


And just to add to our global ae86 reputation we decided to stick it into our N2 ae86 thus converting it to our RE86


And here she is, Irelands possibly Europes first Turbo Rotary ae86 to add to our sr86 which was another MCNSPORT first and is Europes most successful drift car. RE86 is for sale now she will be missed. I think we have done everything ae86 now time to move on to other interesting cars.....


It wasnt all good news in 2009 though. This is one of only a few shots from Las Vegas as we blew the engine in practice which was really upsetting. I was so excited about giving the new look car a good result to add to our 28 point championship lead. I mentioned the Sky went from mild to wild in 09 and the carbon doors, front splitter, rear wing and black rims really made a difference


I was left to take out my frustration on our rental for the week


A BMW M6 convertable. Nice car, a little slow compared to the Sky


Back in Ireland MCNSPORT were attending a hillclimb that Prodrift champion Mike Deane was competing in. From left to right is mechanic "Happy Darren" as apparently im "Grumpy Darren" and of course Peden. This was something we were thinking of getting into and still may but it has taken a bit of a back seat for a while


I love this picture of Mike (papa) Deane Senior. This is pure Ireland Green grass, cows and a bubble arch'd Mk1 Escort RS1600


Across the Atlantic again to Monroe Washington. A nice shot of me and Rod who i became quiet friendly with in 09 through Need For Speed Shift and Speedhunters.com. My loss in Monroe to Chris Forsberg and poor result in Sonoma (A track i dislike so much im not gonna even put up a photo from there) gave him an advantage in the championship i never clawed back


I arrived to Falken HQ in Fontana California to see the final development addition to the Sky and prepare for finale at Irwindale Speedway.......


An aerodynamic change to a larger rear wing from APR, looks much better.
Unfortunately i crashed heavily in Irwindale for the second year in a row in practice and bowed out in the top16 to team mate Dai Yoshihara


Final pic is of my buddy James Deane floating around the Falken pit area at Irwindale, while Freddy Aasbo invaded our space welding in his seat braket, good old Falken Hospitality

Believe it our not thats a brief look behind the scenes in 2009. Whats 2010 going to hold?

I have a feeling its going to be a good one!

D-Mac

[Greg]

Cool thread Darren. Looks like it was an amazing year over all(bar the couple of crashes), and hopefully 2010 is even better to you.

[way2fastforu]

savage read darren...looks like you had an unreal yr...good luck for 2010 man

[damo86]

well done man, good year, hopefully this will be the same or better

[Stevo]

Fair play man good read,best of luck this year!!