Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to Prodrift RD 2 on Saturday for the amateur and non seeded pro classes but did make my way down on Sunday morning for the pro class. It was a great day and thanks to the sun gods the rain stayed away. I spent most of the day treading around the paddock constantly shooting and trying to get to grips with the camera. I’ll bring you those shortly in another post and give you an insight into what was going down in the paddock area.
Nigel Colfer and Alan Sinnott during practice.
Conor Lenihan dropping in hot!
As for the on track action I shot everything from behind the wire and was struggling a little with the pace! It was my first time shooting any sort of action and in the beginning the right index finger was just not connecting with the brain! As the day went on I was improving slowly. The Drifting proper started with the Superlap and it was fast and ferocious with Christy Carpenter in his 15 taking top honors with Gavin Lenihan and Nigel Colfer closely behind.
Christy Carpenter on his Top Superlap.
Chris Brady on his Superlap.
The ‘Box’ essentially an outside clipping point or scoring zone at the exit of the second last turn.
The majority of the top 16 battles were pretty clear cut and whilst I wouldn’t say the judges job was easy the battles scored themselves. Moving into the top eight the drifting got closer, tighter and faster. At this point for me the competition really started to heat up. First up in the top 8 Alan Sinnott in his newly sponsered Hachi beat Mike Deane. Nigel Colfer then took out Michael Swan. James Deane went through after a local derby with Alan Lenihan and also through to the top 4 was Gavin Lenihan.
Alan Lenihan smoking it up!
James Deane heading for the ‘Box’
The top 4 saw Gavin Lenihan pitched against Alan Sinnott and Nigel Colfer against James Deane. All four of these guys were absolutely on it and up for it, definitely the four best of the day. The battles between Sinnott and Lenihan were both controversial and frustrating for the spectators and I reckon for at least one of the drivers too. I am not going into here but after a rerun Gavin Lenihan went through to final.
Sinnott smokes the track!
The second battle with James Deane and Nigel Colfer was an absolute thriller and was drifted like a final by both guys. It went OMT twice and in the first run of the final battle James made a mistake ultimately sending Colfer through. In the final Colfer only needed the one battle to dispatch of Gavin Lenihan. He was like a metronome all day and recorded the fastest entry of the whole day of 116kph. With a 2nd in the first round from Fermoy and the victory on Sunday he now leads the Championship. I can see this turning into a ding dong battle between Colfer, Deane and Sinnott for the 2010 championship…its far from a three horse race but these guys are shining early.
[...] out the Report from Prodrift Round2 in punchestown here done by Driftbloggers.com writer Dan Cahill!!! Good Work [...]