The making of driftmas

Youve seen the good bits and the bad. here's how it happened

5y ago
24.9K

I can generally tell how much fun I’ve had on a job by the number of photos documenting it on my phone. The recent Audi R18 drive? Millions. Mostly rubbish but they’ll be forever cherished. What of the 12 days of Driftmas? So many cool cars, so many fun/scary memories, moments of utter frustration and quite a lot of laughter. So my phone should be bursting at the seams with images of the AE86, that awesome Evo VI Tommi Makinen Edition, the completely evil SLS Black Series and all the rest.

One of many amazing cars of which I failed to take a photograph (this one is Dean Smith's, obviously)

One of many amazing cars of which I failed to take a photograph (this one is Dean Smith's, obviously)

But I’ve just checked. I have six. None of them of cars, just photographer Dean Smith’s broken iPhone (he dropped it on circuit and I subsequently squashed it) and the hugely expensive camera/lens that a fire marshall ran over in his van. Admittedly this double-whammy rendered me unable to speak I was laughing so hard, but it also shows that Driftmas was run over a pretty tight schedule. I had barely a second to even pick up my phone, let alone start snapping away at 675LTs and Clio V6s.

I had barely a second to even pick up my phone, let alone start snapping away at 675 LTs and Clio V6s

Jethro Bovingdon

So here’s a brief glimpse behind the scenes. We shot Driftmas over two very short days – Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th December. So six cars per day with the track opening at 9am and light disappearing for good around 4.30pm, which gave us an hour and fifteen minutes per car. Lunch? Ha, good one.

That sounds easy enough, right? But we needed a perfect in-car GoPro run (and time to rig the car with cameras), probably four passes for the drone guys from CineCloud, a further six for the static cameras and then some runs behind a tracking car (which also took time to rig as we used a Ronin gimbal system). Add in the inevitable spins, messy half-slides and (don’t tell anyone) understeer disasters and it’s very, very tight. Then there’s the unexpected: A GT3 RS puncture and a Maloo that popped its tyre and needed to be recovered. Plus a 10-minute break to stuff a sandwich and guzzle a fizzy drink, the difficulty of rain rolling in and out on day two making the conditions ever changing... All this stuff creates a situation where you're seriously short on time. Of course it was still bloody good fun and I’m not moaning for a second, but the schedule does rather explain the lack of phone pics. And why I look like I’ve just been tortured in most of my mini interviews about each car.

Best bits? Reacquainting myself with the SLS Black Series again. This car has nearly killed me twice (a story for another time), but I still adore it. Our Verdict was ‘Bad Ass’ and I think that perfectly describes it. Getting to grips with the Clio V6. It took a while and when you’re short on time panic sets in and stupid mistakes follow. But when it worked it felt so satisfying. The Evo because it reminded me how great those Mitsubishis are. The Maloo just because driving around the circuit after each pass and the smoke still hanging in the air was funny every single time. And the 350Z Nismo S-Tune because it brings back great memories and was so easy to slide… We deliberately mixed up our contenders with lots of cars that are tricky to slide, but it was nice to jump into such a fun, forgiving car.

Worst bits? The RS puncture was a massive disaster that was only averted by Porsche’s brilliant PR team swinging into action and getting the car back to us just in time. The horrible creeping darkness on day two when we hadn’t finished the scary, flame-spitting Litchfield GT-R and I was under intense pressure to get it right in a very difficult car to slide cleanly. And the pure frustration of the 675LT. This is a brilliant, magical, crazy car and it’s easy to drive it well beyond the limit, but I chose a tricky corner just as the rain came and went and then blew back in again. To get it right I had to turn in to the right-hander in 2nd, give it loads of throttle to quickly build the angle and then upshift to 3rd as I put on the corrective lock. With grip changing all the time the window for the perfect upshift was about a millisecond wide. I swore. A lot. But overall it was a fantastic way to spend a couple of days and to avoid the hell of last minute Christmas shopping. Which I did in near deserted stores on Christmas Eve, as usual.

Photography by Dean Smith and Henry Catchpole

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Comments (7)

  • 2015 Honda Civic Type R is to end it run, with a limited 100 black and red edition reports car magazine. it will cost 32 grand and have a few extra part on it Jethro as a man who driven the type r i thought you be interested.

    the 2017 generation should be intersting, as the horsepower figure is up from 306 hp to 355 hp i heard that a lot for a front wheel car to handle Jethro maybe to much horsepower causing a lot of issue for that car to be solved.

      5 years ago
    • Sorry, missed this. I remember when we all thought 200bhp was pushing it for front-wheel drive but the tyre tech, electronics and diffs have come on so much... 355bhp will be a big test but I actually rather enjoy the fact super powerful front...

      Read more
        4 years ago
  • Amazing! good work, what cameras/mics did you use?

      5 years ago
  • Good use of Toyota UK's heritage fleet AE86. I approve. :)

      5 years ago
  • Would like to see you drift a W12 Golf. That would be some sight to behold.

      5 years ago
  • Good set of cars for drifting ! I would have loved to see your 996 in the group !

      5 years ago
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