Kirsty Widdrington – IDC Round 5 Mondello Park “The Final Flood”

In the words of Kirsty,

“After Round 4 being an emotional roller coaster for myself I was really looking forward to getting back out in Syril at the final round of our adventure over in Ireland this season which has had up’s & down’s for us. I really wanted us to flex our muscles & show that we are a force to be reckoned with & leave a mark.
As always my fantastic & supportive partner & chief mechanic David had already got Syril to the track on Thursday day time , prepped Syril & put the gazebo up etc, Then I arrived at Mondello Park on the Thursday night bright, breezy & ready for action. It was great to catch up with the other drivers prior to the test/practice day on the Friday.
We woke up to bright sunshine & blue skies (has been a fairly rare occurrence this season) so it was a pleasure to see, after signing on & drivers briefing of the track layout ready for tomorrow & Syril being scrutineering we were ready to rock! But first a walk of the track is always important to check out the key areas & visualise your line prior to getting on the track in your car.

Friday’s practice felt amazing, we were relaxed & in the zone. (As you can tell by the picture below also like a kid in a sweet shop with excitement)
With a bone dry track we were creating some new clouds of tyre smoke & switching between the lead lane & chase lane to gain some great practice with the crazy Irish boys.
Syril was looking as swish as ever!
Friday’s practice saw us gently “running the wall” like a demon, thus gently un-pealing Syril’s bumper off of him & leaving the lightest of wall scrapes on my specially made carbon fibre end plates. *Video evidence available upon request* He He
A few stitches later & Syril was as good as new (well very nearly except for his oranges & lemon cable tied stitching)
I love meeting the fans but having them ask to help polish Syril was a first for me – bless them 
So they carried out an amazing job then we took a photo of us all together. They were such lovely boys & so interested in Syril & myself – this was the first drift event that they had physically attended.

A while later one of the boys came running back asking if I would sign his new hat that they had just purchased specially.
Of course it was my pleasure to do this & I also let them sit in Syril to gain the full experience & feeling of the inside of a competition car.
Saturday morning came & from the early hours the weather was terrible & sadly it did not get any better as the day went on.
All of the drivers went out for our morning practice session prior to qualifying to get a feel for the soaked track with all of the rubber that was laid down yesterday to make final adjustments to the set-up’s ready for qualifying – but with 69 drivers in this class alone seat time was limited thus most drivers only saw 4 practice laps in this 1.5 hours session.
As you can see the conditions on track were atrocious & it was a great test of man & machine (or in my case woman & machine) really working as one! So we had to push the boundaries in the practice session to gauge how far we could go.
So into qualifying we went & to pass the time whilst waiting in the queue it would have been rude not to do a #startlineselfie plus I was also trying to keep my nerves at bay & to a minimum as this track had caught me out massively in the wet at Round 3 on the very 1st corner as it is like ice once wet!
Lap 1 qualifying was disappointing for me as it was not as good as we had been in practice as I was slightly off of clip 5 & also clip 8… So this run gave me a mere 54 points.
I had to do better so I gave myself a talking to & Lap 2 qualifying was much better on the clipping points & boxes which gained us a 69 point run sitting us in 14th position currently until everyone had finished their battles.

So with 69 drivers the anxious wait carried on until we had a drivers briefing to ascertain who had qualified for the Top 32 battles.
So off to drivers briefing & I had done it finally after all drivers had qualified (with some big names in Ireland not even qualifying due to spins) We had qualified in 20th position & so on to find out who we had in battles.
I was paired up with a guy called Dan Moorhead who it later transpires was an ex-judge & ex-pro class driver. From all of the feedback I was given about Dan’s driving it was going to be a tough cookie to crack but Syril & I were up for the challenge.
Off to the battle field we went it was Syril vs Dan Moorhead’s burgundy & green R32 Skyline with an ex-pro driver at the helm.

Drivers find different ways to cope with nerves & these two lads certainly made me smile & relax.
Our first battle was a tightly run battle with a few minor mistakes on both sides, After both runs we sat with baited breath at the finish line waiting to hear who had one, who was parked up for the day or if we were to run a OMT (One More Time)
After what felt like 10 minutes (but was probably only 3) the judges had made their decision, it was too close for them to call it so a OMT was to go ahead.
With my adrenaline pumping & the fact that I have taken Dan to a OMT I was pumped & could see a win if I could keep it all together so back to the start line we went.
So with Dan leading into the 1st of our re-run’s I stupidly missed my initiation point as I was too focused on Dan & what he was doing thus causing me to over rotate on the 1st corner but managing to carry on the run. (We live & learn)
The 2nd run which saw me leading was much better than the 1st battle lead run but without Dan making a mistake it was his for the taking – obviously his pit crew advised him to make a safe run behind me & then he has it in the bag.
This was the case & sadly I was knocked out of the competition but still happy that we had left a mark & that people in Ireland are now aware of “Kirsty & Syril”