Duanne McKeever Archive

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Report – (Round 4) Independence Day Action

Independence Day Action

Sunday 4th July saw the action packed program of the 4th round of the Sideways Racing AMA and UDC Championships and the much anticipated Supra V’s Skyline challenge on the drag strip at Bishopscourt airfield circuit.

Due to a clash with round 3 of the JDM AllStars in England some competitors were missing from the entry list but this didn’t diminish the action and excitement on track, and as a special treat (Apart from the Promo girls!) was current European Drift Champion Mark Luney who was there to provide an expert eye for the judging.

A very wet start to the day proved to be a real challenge for the drivers during the practice sessions and there were plenty of spins on track but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the AMA – and with some of them in newly face lifted cars they looked anything but amateur! Thankfully the track began to dry out just in time for the battles and after some amazing action and just as amazing tyre wall contact the AMA podium were Tim Smith (1st), Philip Duffy (2nd), and Conor Cunningham (3rd)

The UDC top 16 provided some epic battles and as usual the lads gave it guts round the infamous figure 8 track. The top 4 was Rob Barnett V’s Jamie Russell and Chris Brady V’s Josh Moffett and the hard fought for places in the final went to Rob Barnett and Chris Brady who put on a great show with plenty of big angles and bigger smoke. Rob Barnett finished top of the pile for the second time this season but it was Chris who stole the show with a small brake disc fire after doing donuts round the car of a celebrating Robbie!

The final part of the program was the drag racing and there was the usual massive variety of speed freaks testing their metal on the quarter mile but the highlight was the Supra V’s Skyline challenge which was won by a very special car and driver – so congratulations to our very own Wayne in the SWRC Skyline!

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King of the Court Champion 2009

KOC  Daily Mirror

The ‘King of the Court’ has been for the past 3 years the biggest event on the UDC calendar. Indeed it is the one event out of them all that drivers want to win. As a one-off single day championship event the appeal seems to be the feeling that on the day, anyone can walk away with the title. Nowadays with the Bishops Court track honed to near perfection, to carry this title means that you have mastered a mammoth task ahead of all-comers. Making his return to competitive drifting for this very reason was Chris Brady, who has been absent from the scene shortly after being promoted to Div 1 back in 2008. A lot has changed under the skin of the green S14 drift machine since last we saw it, with the familiar sound of the RB25 Skyline plant exiting from the rear. Chris over came initial bugs in the system (not least the fact that the steering wheel kept coming loose!) to squeeze in a clean run in qualifying to give himself a fighting chance.

Progressing well through the first round of battles, the changeable weather conditions changed again, for the worse, just as the top 4 battles got under way. This favoured the more tried and tested machines and a lack of rear end grip saw Brady’s progress halted when McKeever pulled off a pass on the exit to the hairpin. The tremendous rear grip on McKeever’s car meant that fellow finalist Rob Barnett also fell foul to Duan’es now signature manoeuvre and he too had to give best to the teenage terror. We had a new boy King (of the Court).