This is my own posting of the article I did for Fitted Life the Automotive blog, if you haven't checked it out then please do so :D great bunch of guys and always stuff on there that's worth a read!
Their main blog page can be found here.
And the actually blog post I did for them can be found here
Anyway on with the story....
Earlier this month I was invited along to an open evening at JDModified in Hampshire.
They are a team of highly skilled experienced mechanics and tuners who once specialized in Toyotas and who are now opening their doors to other Japanese machinery. Their huge workshop is incredible to behold, its massive!
The reason for my invite to this open evening was to take some pictures for their new website, and the event was to celebrate the sponsorship of a couple of drift cars for next years Open Drift Championship, ODC for short.
These two very aggressive looking Skyline R33 GTSTs you can see in this post are the cars in question!
The male and female drivers of these two intimidating drift machines are actually a couple (how cool is that?!) and plan on hitting up the UKs drift circuits next season in full force!
Anyway I found Cole and Emma, who are the two drivers extremely interesting! So I’ve been asking a few questions and I can now reveal to you exactly who they are, and what has driven them to get to this point now!
Cole who is the driver of the R33 with the black camo custom decals is a 28yr old ex squaddie, his drift career started back in 2006, where he initially starting skidding in a Nissan 200sx s14, but will admit that he was never consistent at it, and kept killing engines due to lack of knowledge on running Japanese cars.
However he didn’t let that defeat him! Or put him off! Since Japshow 2009 in June of that year he has been going from strength to strength!
So lets have a look at the car he picked after the 200SX, which has become his new tool of the trade...
When Cole found a stock R33 GTST he could only describe it as a immaculate as far as the bodywork was concerned, a completely rust free example, something that kills off way too many of our Japanese classics. However the down side to this car is that it did have a blown engine, but again this didn’t put him off as he sourced a new one, and had a fully running Skyline for a bargain price!
It was then time to see if this car he’d chosen could be his work horse, at first he wasn’t 100% sure he wanted to drift it, but he started to modify it none the less, so on went the Coilovers, the HICAS was removed and then it was taken to Santa Pod and drifted for the first time, the result... not good, he was not happy with the way it handled at all, adjustments were needed!
Some tweaks and changes to the suspension were swiftly followed by bucket seats and harnesses, he then returned to the track for some more practice.
It was better this time round but still not perfect, he then realized, the car didn’t need anything else! It was in fact him that needed some tuning!
So he spent the rest of the year improving his own driving, to great effect! To be honest from my experience thats what you hear most drivers say eventually, and you know they are heading to another level when they realize it for themselves!
Back to the story, in June 2009 he did some demo work with the Santa Pod guys and has improved quickly and has now earn’t a place in the actual Santa Pod drift demo team giving out passenger rides to show goers!
2010 has therefore been his most successful and full year of drifting!
So what started out as some practice has turned into him taking people out for drift rides and shows all over the UK, getting paid and provided with free seat time to hone his skills! Doing exactly what he loves! Can’t beat that.
So the car was picked, he could see that this Skyline R33 was going to be his drift car. He now had to make it how he wanted it...
At the start of 2010 he decided the Skyline was too tame looking, so went about looking for a bodykit and graphics, the bodykit was sourced second hand and then cut to fit how he wanted, and a company called “JDM Graphix” down in Devon were spoken to so as to give the R33 a one off look.
In fact the camo design was chosen to show Coles support for the British Forces, since as mentioned he is a former squaddie himself.
As well as all this drift work, the car has also done its tour of the UK car show scene, making an appearance at Fash Show, Performance Tuning Modified Show, Performance Vauxhall Show, Japshow, Japshow Finale, Modified Live at both Brands Hatch and Oulton Park, Flame and Thunder, Ultimate Street car, Japfest, TRAX, Japanese Tuning Show... seriously the list goes on!
The sponsors then started to really come in for him during this year, he quickly found himself sponsored by “Ultralite Wheels”, “Competition Clutch”, and he is is now ending 2010 by gaining sponsorship with a reputable tuning company in Hampshire, which is JDModified! And he has also just gained sponsorship by a bodykit company called Carbon Copy, no more custom body kit modding for his Skyline ;)
As with most drift cars the list of modifications is huge, ranging from a HKS front mount intercooler to a Japspeed short shifter, awesome spec for a true drift machine!
Now lets look at the second car, yep the mean looking Skyline that is adorning the pink camo design, yep that’d be a girls car! Or to be exact, it is Emmas.
Now Cole and Emma met through a car forum, perfect really, a lot in common! Emma used to drive an import manual bright yellow Mive Misubishi FTO when Cole met her, which was kitted up and slammed on coilovers.
She was very much into her cars back then, and after driving Coles then new R33 she had to have one!
Since her purchase of one they have basically been in competition with each other over mods and performance increases, they started out stock, but as you can see... both are far from it now, truly tailored to the needs of each individual driver!
Emma has only recently got into drifting, with her first few goes having happened in October of this year, she has now done three “drift what you brung” days and is hoping to enter the UK ODC next year alongside her partner, but in different classes naturally.
Now as mentioned Coles plan for 2011 is to enter the UK ODC, now this differs to the British Drift Championship (BDC for short) due to it being a competition for drifters on a budget, for those who want valuable experience in competing without some of the expense of roll cages, and certain levels of safety equipment as well as the big entry fees that can occur when competing at another level.
He also assures me his presence will be known at all the shows he attended in 2010, and plans on attending many more!
Emmas plans for 2011 is that she is hoping to continue learning to drift but is aiming to achieve a level where she can also take people out for rides and more importantly twin drift with Cole on track! Which I think would be awesome to see!!!
Another thing I found really interesting whilst I was doing this shoot, was one of the stickers that came up a few times on their cars, “Devils Creed” now this is actually a community, a group of people within the drift scene who share an interest and help each other out! I mean seriously this awesome! And exactly the kind of thing I like to see happen among like minded people!
Cole went on to tell me that everyone has their skills, one of the members “Rads” is a dab hand with spanners and helps us all out when things go wrong, another member “Haddow” knows lots of people in the scene and is also a top body repairer and sprayer. He describes himself as a media whore for the group! He knows a lot of people and companies and is very good at blagging free stuff!
Its just fantastic to see a group of like minded people group together, share the same passion and enjoy living the drift lifestyle.
Soon to be wearing JDModified decals on the Skylines, for 2011 Cole will be able to be found at Santa Pod all show season destroying tires and generally keeping it sideways with as much lock as he can! He’s also always on the look out for further sponsorship, a tyre one would help hehe ;)
Now I love the drift scene here in the UK, its an extremely friendly atmosphere where everyone is more than willing to help out or chat about tips and hints and so on, and as a photographer I have been lucky enough to get involved in the scene a few times over the last few years, I love it.
JDModified were very kind to host this evening though, which has allowed me to get to know these two drivers and their cars, and hopefully I’ll be able to follow them next year to see how they get on throughout the shows and at the ODC.
Always a pleasure to spend an evening with a good bunch of people, some great cars, of which there were many in the garage! I snapped a few shots of the other ones on show there so as to show the range of Japanese cars JDModified are putting their skills into. I especially loved the engine bay work on this Civic, very impressive :)
Anyway I will now leave you with a very short little video look at Coles car from that night :)
*Reposted due to having the wrong company name in the video, hehe oops :P
Ok firstly I apologise for the brief nature of this video, I did have a lot more footage, but being the 7d and dslr video noob that I am at the moment I didn't have it manually focused properly... hehe.
So this is what I have managed to salvage! and it gives a up close view of one of the R33 Skylines that I was taking pictures of on that night!
As I learn more how to use my camera for video I hope to offer more stuff like this showing the atmosphere and goings on at various shoots!
As well as hopefully put together something cool for you all to see ;) got to have a plan! hehe.
Music is "Get Smashed Gate Crash" by Hadouken
hadouken.com
This video was done at Toyota GT / JDModified in Hampshire during an open evening to celebrate the sponsorship of a couple of drift cars for the 2011 season.
www.toyotagt.co.uk
www.jdmodified.com/
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JDModifieds new website has just gone live and can be checked out following the link below!
If you liked the pictures then feel free to head over to my flickr set where you can check them all out in full from that evening!
A few shout outs :)
Thanks for looking!!!
Companies are constantly developing and improving ways to advertise their product, and they NEED someone like you to show off their ads on your vehicle.
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By advertising this way, companies get their product shown to a core demographic that they are targeting!
You could make $300 a month by simply driving to work everyday! Imagine making money for something you already do all day long!.
Easy work and easy pay that could really help with the bills.
http://adfoc.us/37141461146992
Thanks,
Sarah Johnson