On October 6-7, in Slovakia on a Slovakia Ring racing track, the final of the European series on a drifting of King of Europe, where were gathered the best drifters of Europe and also venerable visitors from Asia, took place.
The Marchenko Racing team, together with the Goluboi Ogonyok (Blue Spark) racing team (Dmitry Illyuk and Alexey Holovnya), went on this event to represent Ukraine. In Lviv Nikita Shikov, the Vice-Champion of Russia joined them.
The road to a venue was improbably heavy, 1500 + km and some additional waiting hours on border, simplification brought only by the fact that each crew was going in a caravan line.
Therefore, on Thursday evening “the magnificent four” arrived to a city of race and gone resting.
On Friday, after woke up, all headed on a track, simply amazing with the infrastructure and the organization! The sport cars sleeping in boxes, a track covering, scale of all… it is very difficult to transfer impressions with words!
Walking on territory of the future closed park, our heroes met visitors from Japan. They are the legendary people in the Drift world. We were acquainted, had a talk, and looked at cars, prepared by Japanese minds… Very much surprising was the approach of Japanese in preparation of cars that cardinally differed from Ukrainian, Russian and European in general! It is quite unusual to see a carpet on a floor or some old personal things in a luggage compartment. We are used to “korchi” cars (“stubs” cars, ripped off all unimportant stuff for minimal weight) without a torpedo inside, but in their cars was even possible to turn on the interior light. As Daigo Saito had presented his Toyota Chaser: “a stock car with the engine of 600 horsepowers”. It is Japan!
After a lot of communication with Japanese, as it appeared, we became the first participants, arrived on a location. Ukrainians and the Russian passed procedure of registration, arranged cars and tents in the closed park and gone to have a rest, because trainings were not planned this day.
Saturday — is the first day of competition. Participants divided into two groups A and B, the Ukrainian pilots found them all in group A. Departure of a group on a track occurred through pit-lane, along all boxes and coming to an end with a traffic light on which signal the cars were issued on a track. “Passing this little particle of a track, you feel yourself, at least, like a Schumacher” – Vladimir Marchenko expressed his emotions.
Very much pleasing was strict respect of the timing by organizers. Just minutes of delay! In a zone of a traffic light was the time clock with readout of time of trainings, and as soon as the board showed “00:00”, nobody was on track.
During the first part of training races, Vladimir Marchenko felt certain instability in work of the one of car drive gears. During a break between training sessions, the car passed inspection and as it went out – it was necessary to repair a drive gear. We got a repairing help by Vadim, the mechanic and friend of Dmitry Illyuk. The Marchenko Racing team expresses the big gratitude to Dmitry Illyuk and his team for the help and support “in the field of fight”!
During second training session any damages noticed, all units of the car worked smoothly, and the pilot had successfully adapted to a track!
In the day of race, an hour of training been given to all participants. Weather was not pleasing – cloudy, wet and improbably slippery track, “throwing out” practically every second car in gravel. The evacuation of the each car took 7-10 minutes, and due to this inconvenience, departure on a track had met Vladimir Marchenko with a red light of a traffic light and the request to go to the closed park.
All pilots prepared for qualification.
The qualification races of the Ukrainian pilots had passed with stability, without any happenings or incidents. As a result –Vladimir Marchenko got the 8th place in qualification! Dmitry Illyuk won first place in qualification, Aleksey Golovnya – 6th, Nikita Shikov – 26th. Thus, all of our teams were qualified for a final stage of competitions.
In a Top-32, one of top pilots of a series, Roman Kolesar, had tried to resist to Vladimir Marchenko, but in this race, Vladimir was stronger and passed in Top-16. At this time, Dmitry Illyuk, Alexey Golovnya and Nikita Shikov had won their races, thus all four passed in Top-16.
During a series of Top-16, the rain started and additionally complicated the conditions on a track. In Top-16 Vladimir Marchenko met the Polish pilot Maciej Jarkiewicz, and in hard conditions of a slippery track won a victory and a place in Top-8. The victory was gain also by Dmitry Illyuk and on “grid», two Ukrainian pilots will find out among themselves who will be the one of the four winners.
In the same time, the rain and a wind amplified and race forced to stop. After some hours, organizers already were considering variants of cancellation of race, carrying it either over next day, or over distributions of places with respect of results of qualification… However, the nature calmed down and a decision to continue the race taken. To continue in the conditions of full darkness and a wet covering, after all on a track was not any light column. The minimum illumination was only on an accelerating straight line. Nikita Shikov gave his technical car for illumination of last turning movement, and on the first rerun, pilots guided by a pool, formed on a track. So-called, “Drift on devices”. Unfortunately, photos with this part of action were not present, as photographers were not ready to such turning movement of events and did not prepare enough lighting elements for filming.
Throughout Top-16 series, Aleksey Golovnya had passed further Daigo Saito.
In Top-8 Vladimir Marchenko passed forward Dmitry Illyuk, who, following the results of race, became the fourth.
Nikita Shikov on just 5 working cylinders had reached to the series of Top-8, where he conceded to Adam Kerenyi, who became the bronze prizewinner of event.
In the final, racecar failed Daigo Saito, and Dmitry Illyuk proposed him to use his own Nissan, but due to weather conditions of zero visibility, he thanked, but refused.
Results of action:
1. Marcin Carzasty (Poland)
2. Daigo Saito (Japan)
3. Adam Kerenyi (Hungary)
The Marchenko Racing team congratulates all winners of a series of King of Europe, and brought the congratulations to Daigo Saito with the Champion’s title in the prestigious championship of Formula Drift.
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