Team Orange Dominate Japaneseusedcars.com EDC round 4

The 4th Round of the 2008 Japaneseusedcars.com European Drift Championship took place at Santa Pod raceway on a specially constructed “Street course” The track layout would not be the fastest this season, but was offset by being one of the more technical tracks to be used. Relatively narrow and very unforgiving, this track managed to replicate the streets where drifting was born.

This round saw the return of Team orange from Japan once again bringing their Subaru Impreza drift cars with local support coming from 2007 Time attack champions, Zen Performance. Also new to the championship were New Zealand champion, Adam Richards and BDC wildcard drivers Matt Carter and Stewart Hansford.
Qualification began and once again, Team orange set the standard with Tanaka scoring 97 points out of a possible 100. Kumakubo also set a score of 94 making everyone believe that they would claim the top spots. This was until Phil Morrison of Driftworks appeared and put in a fantastic performance which tied him on points with Kumakubo. In the event of a points tie in qualifying, we look at the next best score which for both drivers was 92 and due to a spin by Kumakubo on one of his runs, gave Morrison 2nd place in qualification. Kumakubo would have to settle for 3rd. Phil Morrison drew Nobushige Kumakubo in the first round for the second event in a row. Morrison was starting to get to grips with his new Driftworks S15 Silvia but Kumakubo was right up inside his rear bumper when leading and was unable to keep up with Kuma’s speed when following giving a small but significant advantage and win to Kumakubo.
Kazuhiro Tanaka faced Adam Richards in the next battle and it was Tanaka to lead in the first run. Richards did everything he could to try and keep up with Tanaka but was struggling. He eventually had to straighten the car through the hairpin giving Tanaka the win after the second run was declared even.

The Final was an all Orange affair with both Kumakubo and Tanaka being faultless all day. Kumakubo normally has the upper hand when it comes to battles between these two drivers in Japan, but Tanaka was on form and looked ready to take the win. With both drivers using Subaru Imprezas with similar engine specifications and on the same Yokohama Advan Neova tyres, this would be purely a battle of driver skill between the two. The first run saw Tanaka dive down the inside of Kumakubo and stay there giving him the advantage in the first run. Kumakubo answered back with a similar run getting his bumper right onto the door of Tanaka. It was clear that this one would have to go one more time. Into the third run and as they made their high speed transition from right to left, Kumakubo unable to countersteer the car quick enough spun his car with Tanaka narrowly missing the car in front but continuing his drift and took a 10-0 advantage. This contest was Tanaka’s for the taking. The fourth run saw Kumakubo applying pressure from behind as per the second run and Tanaka tried to respond by pulling away. In his attempt to get away, Tanaka applies a little too much throttle and his Impreza is pointing in very much the wrong direction. It was as if déjà vu had occurred with Tanaka spinning in the same place that Kumakubo had in the previous run. With a 10-0 advantage going the other way, another sudden death was called. Tanaka chasing couldn’t get in on Kumakubo who was gradually increasing pace and so would have to settle for a 5-5 score. Kumakubo continued his ways by getting right in on Tanaka at the hairpin giving him a small advantage to settle the match.Japaneseusedcars.com sponsored driver Ben Broke-Smith above still leads the championship after round 4
Final results for Santa Pod round 4 1st Nobushige Kumakubo 2nd Kazuhiro Tanaka 3rd Tim Marshall.

Full Event Report Here

Full photo gallery here


DRIFT SILVERSTONE 2008 HD from Clashproduction on Vimeo.


SILVERSTONE DRIFT TEASER from Clashproduction on Vimeo.

On the Sunday after round 4 the EDC held a Team Drift Event and again Team Orange were victorious the Full Photo Gallery Here