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Ah, Barcelona o Barcelona: the city that indulged us with its beauty and its soul; the city that is truly in the heart of every artist, designer and performer. Now it enters the heart of the drift artists of this world, inspiring them to perfect their drift art and deliver true masterpieces.
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This month Barcelona hosted the second round of 2012 King of Europe Drifting competition at the beautiful hillside Parcmotor Castelloli Circuit. More than 40 drivers came from across the globe to perfect their drift art, and Drift UAE was duly present to represent the Middle East‘s growing passion for this art form.
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The main objective of Drift UAE‘s visit to the King Of Europe Drifting competition was to view the updated technology the organisation has adopted to improve the accuracy of telemetry measuring each car’s speed, drift angles and lines. With such high drifting skills and very close competition on display, it becomes more difficult for the human eye to accurately catch all the variables in those drifts, especially when they are happening at 140kph.
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After two days of practicing and qualifying with a lot of hardwork done by the participating teams, the third day entered into Tandem Drift competition which was just amazing. As the elimination rounds ticked by, the competition was getting more intense, keeping the fans on their feet, the cheers for their favourite artists never waning.
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What impressed us most was the level on technical know-how and driving skills that was present. In many cases we saw simple old cars, but when we looked closer saw high level engineering and a huge amount of professionalism. In other cases we saw nearly stock cars. But the way those drifters performed their art was just a talent to admire.
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The presence of the Japanese drifters (Daigo Saito, Mitsuri Harunguchi, Tetsuya Hibino) also created a great vibe, since everyone else wanted to see how these guys performed. Don’t forget that professional drifting originated in Japan, and the other competitors were keen to surpass their skills. Big respect for the King of Europe team for inviting these drivers, since it contributed massively to raising the level of competition.
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At the end of the day the Japanese drifting artist Tetsuya Hibino surpassed everyone in his beautiful and catchy 540hp white Nissan Silvia S15. But he was closely followed by the famous French drifter Benjamin Boulbes in his V8 Powered E36 M3.
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Third place went to Roman Kolesar from Slovakia in his Blue BMW E46 M3, after a fierce battle with Misturo Haruguchi’s red Nissan Silvia S15.
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After experiencing this event and assessing it, we will be bringing a lot of know-how back to the Middle East. We learnt a lot from this experience, and we know this new knowledge will contribute positively towards the fastest growing competition in the region, the Drift UAE challenge.
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In the end, Drift UAE is not too far off becoming one of the international drifting scene highlights. With a little bit more focus on raising the technical understanding, we will have drivers from this region competing at the highest international levels. The Art of Drift is going to grow and will change the way we look at cars.
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A big thanks to Michael Procureur from King of Europe for the invite. And also to the Drift UAE team – namely Mohammad Alfalasi and Samer Khadra, Omran Alowais, Abbas Alawi, Robert Galotti and Spyros Antoniou – who made the effort to go to Spain. Believe me, there will be some surprises in store when the new drifting season starts up in November!
– Mohammad Al Falasi