Back in November 2007, I was invited to an off-season exhibition match in Teeside. The event was a relaxed affair that pitted some British, Dutch and Irish drivers against each other. It was during the morning practice session, I spotted a tidy white over black AE86 Levin. It wasn’t until this guy was on track that I got a first hand account of just exactly how hard he could drive this little 1600cc AE86.

Coming out of the first wide hairpin, onto a straight away, the driver was flicking the car from side to side, dropping one wheel onto the grass as he went before catching the perfect line through a tight chicane around and up a hill and out of sight again. Breathtaking. The 4AGE motor could still be heard long after the car was out of sight, singing on the rev limiter the whole way until it came back into view again.
Fast forward five months and I’ve just had an interview with the man himself, Mr. Dan Chapman. Having just debuted his new Driftworks Nissan PS13 at Mondello Park for the first round of the Prodrift European Series, he seems happy with his ‘cheating’ car. He says ‘cheating’ because to this guy anything that isn’t a normally aspirated Toyota, is just going the easy route.

Dan started back in 2006 when his best mate, Jon Beezy, bought an S13 200sx. This was his first taste of drifting. Like so many others, looking at drifting videos on YouTube only briefly satisfied the hunger for more. Dan had decided he needed to drift himself. He picked up his now infamous panda AE86, as a fresh, low mileage Japanese import and had his first drift day at Lydd in December 2006. ‘Open diff, stock 16-valve with standard seats, I drove there and home on the same set of tyres and I bloody loved it! It went against all my knowledge of car control as coming from a grip racing background, making the car go sideways but still taking the racing line seemed so messed up to me, but my god the most fun ever, from that day on I wanted to just drift 24/7, just as fun at the time, with no thoughts of competitions!’
Because Dan learned to drive a car with considerably less power than his rivals, he had to learn to push the car harder and harder to keep up. By going this route Dan depended on his driving skills, rather than pure horsepower, to keep his car sideways. He maintains that because he learned to drift with so little power, it’s what has helped him develop so fast as a driver. ‘Starting out in the 16-valve open diff, stock seated AE86, I think that’s what made me learn so much so fast; from never owning a RWD car before to now never wanting to be without one,’ he laughs. ‘The Corolla to me has such a fine balance and the harder it is driven the better it performs, I left the Corolla stock for as long as possible because I believe that you do not make any modifications to the car until it is holding you back.’

Dan will be competing in the 2008 Prodrift European Series, competing under the well established banner of the Driftworks team. ‘Being sponsored by Driftworks and also being apart of the team is amazing, something I never expected or felt I deserved. Here is a group of friends like Drift Republic that love drifting and everything about it. They have all been around since the start of drifting in the UK to my knowledge, and have so much experience between them, that I know I can just call any of them up and ask a question and get a good honest answer. Having the feeling of backup makes things a lot easier, not only are they all top guys but they can all drift so good, and they have asked so little of me, they just want me to have fun and do my best, knowing that again makes competing more relaxing for me, and stress free, lets me concentrate on myself and not worry about others!
I still find it a little embarrassing when people mention Driftworks and me together. As Driftworks has had such a role in the UK and European drifting scene and I’m still such a new person on the scene, I feel I have not earned the right but hopefully will do so this year! Of course being the new boy, I am here to represent Driftworks across Europe on my travels as they compete in different championships, so little old me is here to represent everywhere I go. I love them long time!’

Watch out for Dan flying the Driftworks flag at Prodrift European Series Round Two, Saturday 24th May at Teeside Autodrome, Middlesborough, UK.

words & photos by paddy@prodriftseries.com

Tags: AE86 | corolla | dan chapman | driftworks | driver | european | Interview | levin | nissan | prodrift | ps13 | retrodan | series | toyota