The number of overseas competitors signed up for the Prodrift Series Finale at Mondello Jap-Fest on September 11th continues to grow with Team Falken UK drivers, Paul Cheshire and Matt Carter, the latest to announce their participation. The Irish Time-Attack championship round at the same event also has an impressive entry list, with twenty six cars set to make up a record field.
Team Falken will join Team Need for Speed drivers Fredric Aasbo and Darren McNamara, Driftworks' Phil Morrison, Japspeed's Steve Biagioni and two Irish drivers currently competing abroad, James Dean and Nigel Colfer, to bring the overseas contingent to eight. These star names will be joined by a huge field of local competitors for what will be the biggest Irish Drifting event for many years.
While Mondello Jap-Fest is a single day event the Prodrift season finale will take place over two days. Saturday will be taken up mainly by qualifying for the Amateur and Pro-Am drivers looking to make it through to Sunday's main event. The seeded professional drivers will also have the opportunity to get in some practice on Saturday afternoon before their competitive action starts on Sunday morning.
The event kicks-off with Time-Attack practice at 09:00 and Sunday’s Drifting gets underway at the later than usual time of 10:45. The late start is designed to allow spectators more time to take up their favourite vantage point before Prodrift take to the track. As the centrepiece of Jap-Fest the Prodrift top sixteen run-off, where the results will be decided, will be the final action on Sunday afternoon and the climax of a full day of track activity.
The Irish Time-Attack championship will make up a large portion of the remainder of the day with three practice and qualifying sessions before the all important single lap final. In the final drivers will have one chance to get it right with a single flying for each competitor in this session being the only one to count towards the result. A record entry of twenty six cars has been secured with almost half of these being made up by the extremely quick cars from the 'Pro' class and the new, anything goes, 'Open' class.
Rounding out the track action will be the Drag Sprint competition and two Track Time sessions for high performance road cars. The competitive side of the event will also continue off-track with a record number of cars vying for the car of the show title in the Show 'N' Shine contest.
Tickets for Mondello Jap-Fest are currently on sale with a free grandstand seat worth €5 being offered to anyone booking in advance. Bookings can be made by contacting Mondello Park or through the Mondello Park web site at mondellopark.ie/japfest, where the full timetable can also be found.