A Clancy Experience - Juiceboxforyou

It was just another rainy miserable day in the so called sunny south east of Ireland. I get a phone call to meet up in the usual spot where people have congregated for over a decade at certain times to chat about cars and perform a spot of mental cleansing…. Roughly this time last year we put this video up on the site, being generally stoked about the drivers situation and skill level, we didn’t really give much of an explanation as to what was going on and many viewers took this up the wrong way.

Through all the years of being interested in cars, I’ve come across some pretty interesting characters. For some reason, in Ireland as similar to Japan, you stumble upon many different types of personalities, walks of life all bonded through the interest of something with four wheels. Clancy is pretty insane when it comes to being behind the wheels of a car, anyone who knows him will tell you that.

Yes, I have a habit of continuously talking about how influential the Japanese car scene is in Ireland, but when you sit back and try take in what exactly it did to the bracket of people from 16 years age of to roughly 40 for nearly the last fifteen years, it’s a little overwhelming.  This Levin was just another random purchase for Clancy, always someone who can pull a car out of the woodwork and sell it on a few weeks later. For years, guys like Clancy had a fondness towards the AE86. A car that shapes a driver skill with a steep learning curve, pretty much most of best drivers I’ve ever come across either own one or have owned one.

It was another awesome 2 door Levin, brought in from the land that has given us so so much.. The car had a little more than the typical auction package, a classic looking 90’s AE86, sitting deep SSR mk2’s… and rocking a rather unusual wing. The car probably has so many stories if it were able to speak, already being owned and driven by another very talented AE86 driver who now runs the yellow two door (Adrian Walsh). That week this car was just going to become another part of someone else’s timeline.

With awesome little goodies that I couldn’t help but freak out about, Clancy let me shoot the car, just like many other cars that I try to capture, as I know they won’t be around forever, the site itself is used as a mere archive for many cars that may not even see the next ten years.  I always poke myself around this stuff and remind myself not to take any of it for granted. In the space of a week last year, we decided to give the car a little shoot and attempt to make a video, a proper street video.

Things never quite work out as planned; especially when trying to make a street video… anything we have made that you have seen on the streets has been usually a one night happy go lucky video. The weather was shit, and Clancy decided he wanted out of the country and the car exchanged hands again…. The small video we had up on the site, we took down… Because the world is always split between opinions of people who can’t appreciate another’s form of escapism as it does not conform to their beliefs and I sort of left this feature and video off. In fact I had no real intention of putting it back on the website… I felt that the keyboard crew who have no real interest in cars just wouldn’t get it..

If you play sports or have some sort of adrenaline craving activity in your life, you know exactly what we are trying to get at here; sometimes you just need that escape. For most people, they never know that feeling of heading down to a section of road in the middle of a night, when everyone is asleep or doing whatever and forcing a car like the 86 to dance back to back tandem runs. Clancy has been doing this stuff for years, as well as many of his best friends… one even went on to compete in Forumula D (Dean Kearney)… Guys like Clancy have been doing this as a true form of escapism just like someone who surfs, mountain bikes, skateboards or plays hurling.. It’s something that only a fortunate amount of people in this world can say they have had the chance to do, the rush to sliding a tin can on four wheels against the complete unknown.

I can’t begin to explain the madness that was going on at the time for Clancy, but as always he used cars like this humble little Levin to clear his mind, his character is easily seen in the video, someone who has been shaped by the love for drifting messing and the AE86. The video itself is a small example of the kind of street subculture that has gone on for years in this country for decades all over but is almost impossible to capture, a culture that was brought over via the internet, games and videos… Japanese cars sailed to our green isle and helped form many friendships, made people happy and changed people’s lives forever… Why have we had so many good drivers competing worldwide in drift competitions? This was just another day, another miserable rainy day, and even though the video sort of sucks and glitches, it was such a pleasure to chase one of the most talented street drifters I’ve ever encountered down our neck of the woods, in one of the worst situations in his life, he was doing what he does best in this 86, and he was happy as fuck…

It all sounds a little mushy but it’s a memory I’ll be taking to the grave!