The Trafford center Manchester..A good place to spend your Sunday afternoon, perhaps get yourself the new pair of skinny jeans you have been promising yourself or indulge in a bit of coffee culture in one of the multitude of over-priced coffee chains contained within…

… Or go watch the craziest cars and drivers Europe has to offer as the JDM Allstars circus rolls into town for the opening round of 2010!

Shopping was defiantly not on the menu for myself and Paddy McGrath as we arrived bright and early Saturday morning to bring you a series of features from the opening round of JDM Allstars 2010.

10am Saturday morning and Manchester was engulfed for the first time ever in the sights and sounds of professional drifting with the technical ‘street style’ course instantly providing some spectacular smoke laden runs.

Heavy smoker of the day was Mark Luney in the Sandy Arthur Supra, driving with an aggression that i haven’t seen from Mark since the days of his old black R32 nissan.

Team Driftworks were out in force fielding all 3 cars and debuting the new livery and look of the 2jz powered S15..

… And Ben (Bon) Broke-Smith in the 1jz R32 that he had finished building the night before the event.

A few new faces to the championship for 2010, Simon Perry in the shocking pink R33 was looking very threatening from the start with near perfect run after near perfect run..

Mat House in at the deep end in his first year of competition with his LS3 powered RX7 was putting in some strong runs among some serious competition.

Jon Calvert making his JDM debut in a borrowed R33 Skyline was deeply impressive.

With Luke Fink Absent from Saturday practice James Hudson at last stepped back into a drift car and reminded people just how good he actually is getting to grips with the Severnside imports PS13.

Dan Chapman was by far the man to watch throughout practice! crazy all four wheels off the ground initiations into turn one followed by super fast run after super fast run.

Team Japspeeds Ant Cahill claimed the top spot in unseeded qualifying with 3 flawless runs.

Sunday morning heralded the arrival of Luke Fink. Luke had started his Journey to the UK from Australia 5 days earlier  but due to the Icelandic volcanic cloud marauding around Europe at the minute found himself stranded in Spain, hiring a car he had driven across Europe to arrive in Manchester at 11:30 Saturday night. A mix of sleep deprivation and jet lag didn’t seem to make a great deal of difference as he jumped in the Severnside imports car and blitzed the course on his first run and went on to qualify first with a 99 point run.

Mark Luney claimed the second spot with a 98 point run with Dan Chapman in third spot with a 97..

First up in the top 16 was Matt Chiappa V’s Luke Fink with Fink taking the win.

Martin Ffrench V’s Ant Cahill was a close call. both recording 5-5 on the first runs the battle went OMT with Cahill taking the win.

JDM Allstars new boy Jon Calvert was getting stronger and stronger thought the day with some amazing wall rubbing runs, he progressed though to the top 8.

In the battle of the Brads, Hacker got the better of Mcqueen to go through to the top 8.

Chapman was victorious against the ‘Dublin taxi’

Another close match between Perry and Wills in the 700hp turbo M3 with perry victorious.

Once again meeting in competition Mark Luney and Alan Mccord went head to head in the top 16 with Luney taking the win.

First up in the top 8 Ant Cahill met Luke Fink with Fink taking the advantage and a place in the semi finals.

Dan Chapman ended Simon Perry’s day and progressed along with Jon Calvert and Mark Luney to make up the final pairings of the day..

First up in the semi finals Mark Luney met Dan Chapman. A judges decision on Dan taking a unfair advantage off the line and Mark taking the advantage on the following run saw Luney secure a place in the final. Luke Fink suffered a mechanical fault problem in his semi final battle with Jon Calvert but with a huge effort from Team Severnside managed to make it out for the second of the two runs, Following Jon into turn one Luke span and Jon progressed into the final with Luney..

This was battle that everybody wanted to see, Chapman V’s Fink..it might not have been for the overall win but that was not to make it any less epic!

Swapping paint in run after run Fink V’s Chapman was battle of the day..

In total the battle went OMT again and again until the rapidly deteriorating PS13 of Fink finally let go and Dan Chapman secured 3rd place.

First time in a JDM Allstars event in a borrowed car and Jon Calvert found himself up against European Champion Mark luney fighting it out for the overall win..

With Mark running a little too shallow in the final turn Jon Calvert took the round 1 win.

With JDM Allstars round 1 over the gauntlet has been thrown down and with the arrival of the Dutch for round 2 JDM Allstars 2010 will without doubt be a truly epic season! Round 2 is on the Newcastle quayside on the 12-13th June and will be unmissable. Paddy will be along soon to bring you the next installment from JDM Manchester.

http://www.jdmallstars.com/

-Ross.