Prodrift Round 1: Ennis Pt2
Waking up early Sunday morning and looking out the window to see another day of glorious weather was a rare feeling. Just as things got underway the track claimed another car as we saw a collision between Damien Short’s Corolla and Nick Quealy and his R32. Sadly for Damien the 86 would not make it back onto track for the rest of the event.
You would almost think this picture was taken in another country. The weather was beyond good and the same could be said for the cars. The only flaw was Mr softee lurking behind the fence and the chip van! This was shaping up to be another good day for drifting.
James Deane already looked to unstoppable scoring a high 27 in the superlap driving the Low Brain S13.
It seemed that Nigel Colfer was more then up for the challenge running a 28, just enough to take Deane from the hot seat.
The first run of the top 16 saw Chris Brady and his newly finished SR86 pitted up against Colfer who had just scored highest in the superlap. This battle was nothing short of epic. A word that I hate to use but it really does describe how this battle played out. The Judges had to make the drivers run two more times to figure out who would come out victorious. Nigel Colfer would come out on top in this battle but both drivers showed some amazing drifting and this easily could have been the final battle.
The battle between Christy Carpenter and John Paul was a close call as both drivers had made some errors. John Paul made the bigger error of hitting the wall and Carpenter would advance to the next battle.
Meanwhile….. haha
Barry Leonard the Non seeded champion would have just enough to shake Micheal swan.
Alan Sinnott closed in on Wesley Keating who regardless of losing had an excellent weekend overall.
Gavin Lenihan would end Nick Queally’s more then impressive weekend who had advanced all the way from the amateurs to the top 16.
The Young Duane McKeever seemed unstoppable as he took out veteran driver Mike Deane
Both Dan Moorhead and Alan Lenihan put in very impressive runs but it was Alan who would come out top in this battle
Next we saw James Dean in the s13 battle Shane O Sullivan in the Japspeed s15. James already felt at home in the s13 and with a mistake from Shane it was enough for Deane to move forward.
Both Nigel Colfer and Christy Carpenter made errors in their battle which kicked off the great eight but Carpenter would be the one to advance.
Barry Leonard just couldn’t shake Alan Sinnott who was on a mission in his sr powered ae86.
Next up was Gavin Lenihan against the 15 year old Duane McKeever. Both Lenihan and McKeever were on point throughout the weekend which made this an interesting battle. McKeever would be the one to go ahead from this battle due to a spin from Gavin Lenihan in his first run.
The ending of this story already looked predictable as we saw James Deane take out Alan Lenihan.
But Alan Sinnott wasn’t going to back off as we seen him take out Christy Carpenter.
Deane went about disposing of McKeever, who had a more then impressive weekend earning serious respect from the crowd being a 15 year old up against many of the top drivers in his 760+ brake rps13.
The Prodrift girls came out to show some love and get the crowd ready for the final two battles.
Christy Carpenter killing off whats left of his tires with a celebratory burnout taking 3rd place over Duane McKeever.
Both James Deane and Alan Sinnott were on their game in battling for number one. It seemed that Alan Sinnott was on point this weekend having just enough over Deane to take 1st place of the first round of Prodrift 2011.
The crowd cheered as Alan was called out as the winner of Prodrift round 1 in Ennis. A more then impressive start kick off to the 2011 series of prodrift and if its anything like Ennis its going to be a good one.
See you at Fermoy.
2 Comments