Tegiwa Racing

Snetterton – Round 8

October 25, 2022

After 7 rounds of hard fought contesting, and the first under the ‘Tegiwa Racing’ name, it was time to conclude the 2022 motorsport season. So, for the final time, we got ready to head to the final venue on the Time Attack calendar, Snetterton. The weather forecast for the day, as you’ll see in the images below, was torrential rain…

Luke Sedzikowski – Tsuki Honda NSX

After a successful day of testing prior to Time Attack, Tsuki looked to be working just fine and dandy. However, after Luke’s initial out lap in the warm up, the car wouldn’t select any gears. Try as the team might, it looked to be an unsolvable problem so an early exit was made. Now the off-season is here, Tsuki will be getting an overhaul ready for next year, complete with a Hollinger sequential gearbox that should solve the transmission issues we’ve been suffering with. Make sure you stay tuned to our blog as we bring you updates on Tsuki throughout the course of the winter.

David Lawrence – Leon Cupra

It’s fair to say that Dave had also had a pretty turbulent year himself too. Suffering from engine failure in round 2, Dave had worked tirelessly to get the car up and running again. After a 4th place finish in the final at Snetterton this saw Dave finish 3rd in the Club 2WD class.

Aaron Adams – BMW M4

Despite battling the elements early on, Aaron put in a massive shift this weekend after having plenty of ups and downs throughout the course of the season. Finishing 3rd in the final was enough to secure Aaron a second place finish in the Club 2WD class.

Ilya Kyrlov – Turbo Renault Clio

Ilya’s trusty Clio had changed rather a lot from the start of the 2022 season, with Ilya upgrading the car at every given opportunity. As the season went on and Ilya gelled with the car more and more his times continued to drop. However, it was a challenging time in the final round as despite not getting the results he was after, he still managed to bring home 3rd place in the Club Pro class.

Michael Hume – K-Swap Renault Clio

It’s also been a tough year for Michael too in the pocket rocket class. For 2022 Michael switched from the F4R to a Honda K20, however, it’s not been plain sailing as like other members of the team, Michael had suffered from engine failure earlier in the year too. This season has been about Michael getting to grips with his new found VTEC power, and he’ll be keen to push on even more next year.

Ian ‘Bizz’ Phillips – LS3 Nissan 350Z

Representing the Tegiwa Racing team in the Drift Pro Championship this year was Bizz in his supercharged 350Z! We caught up with Bizz after Snetterton and here’s what he had to say:

The final round of Drift Pro at Snetterton was the only wet round of the season, it was a complete wash out. A lot of people often think that drifting is better in the wet but the random levels of grip as we cross the racing line makes trying to anticipate what the car will do at speed challenge even the best of drivers.

Practice for me started with a nice 360 pass the judges tower and a spin into the tight hairpin, which prompted me to drop the pressure in the tyres down to 15psi in a hope of gaining some grip. Watching the other drivers launch from the line, I could see that almost everyone was struggling to gauge how much speed and angle to carry into the first corner. The amount of rain was changing by the minute as well, meaning any line that was starting to dry out quickly disappeared. Just before practice finished I came in for fresh tyres and a quick chat with Yogi. I fully softened off the rear suspension to get a bit more weight on to the rear under load. This did help but I still wasn’t feeling too confident going into qualifying.

The first lap of qualifying was very cautious into the first corner, with the entry speed being slower than I would’ve liked and not as close to the first clip. The rest of the lap was OK, feeling more confident in the mid section to carry more speed into the hairpin and through the transition up to the final corner. I got 79 points for that lap. For the second lap I thought I had to push a bit more to improve my score. Unfortunately, with the extra speed it felt like the car was going off track so I stayed off power for too long which made the rest of the lap quite messy. People could tell I was annoyed as the rest of the lap was done on the limiter!

I qualified 11th which is definitely not my best score of the season, however, I was in the game and first battle was against Mike Marshall in his awesome BMW 1 series.

He was the higher qualifier so he led into the first corner. I knew Mike had a lot of experience drifting in varying conditions so I had to be close on initiation. As he pulled on the handbrake I mimicked but then started to see him understeer massively, I started to brake and go for the under take at this point thinking he was going off circuit. Somehow, he managed to wrestle his car back in front of me and we continued the lap with him waving, apologising for it being such a difficult lap to follow. My lead run was clean and I took the win.

Moving into the Top 8 I had another battle with fellow gent Dave Bastin in his awesome AE86. I had been watching Dave all day and he was fast! I chased well, even with him throwing his rear bumper at me after a little dirt drop which I quickly sent back into the gravel. When I led Dave was at 100% but was a little too hot into turn 1 tapping me 3 times on the rear bumper with his wheel causing him to stall his drift and I pulled a large gap. It wasn’t the win I would’ve liked against him as clean battles are always the most fun and most satisfying.

In the top 4 I came up against Martin Richards, “King of Riga”, DMEC Driver, highly experienced, etc. I have always had great respect for Martin and was excited to battle with him even in such terrible conditions. His lead was pretty good, having a wobble on initiation causing me to hang back a bit but was able to reel that back in by the tight hairpin. The track at this point had a couple of dry areas so we could pick up more speed. My lead went well, knowing there was a drier patch in the centre section of the track I could commit harder to the tight hairpin and started to pull a gap on Martin giving me the win!

This now meant I was in the final against Axel Hilderbrand. I have never battled Axel and saw that he had been really consistent on his initiations all day. We set off side by side and as predicted, his initiation was great, pulling a slight gap through corner 1. I had to use the dry section to close the gap so I went all in, keeping the power on as long as I dared but ended up on full handbrake, totally locked up, sideways heading towards him into the hairpin. Luckily instinct kicked in at the right time to release everything and get straight back onto the power, so we completed the lap nice and close together.

Last run of the day was for me to lead in against Axel. All season I had been practicing launching the car with minimal wheel spin, heavily slipping the clutch and this paid off for this. I looked in the mirror and I left Axel behind on the straight. The initiation went well and ended the run actually producing some smoke from the rear tyres, which was a first all day and obviously with my hand out of the window!

After a ridiculously hard day, with a few wobbles at the beginning, I took the win! Myself and the team were over the moon, not believing how my driving had progressed through the day. It was an amazing end to the season and the additional points meant I came 4th in the championship overall.

A huge thank you to Tegiwa, Alloy Wheel Shop, Coilovers.co.uk and all my other partners for making it possible for me to compete in this awesome Drift Pro Championship. We’re already looking forward to 2023 and something a little special for the beginning of the year.