Baltic Drift Championship 2017 // Riga

First event of the season is always special: everybody worked hard during winter and now drivers can test their cars and see what competition has to offer.

For fans it’s also exciting: they get to see what drivers were building during the off-season, see new names in the drivers’ list, especially since some teams like to sit low and don’t post a lot of updates on Social Media.

I’m glad to see that Baltic Drift Championship finally took a proper shape with about ten drivers representing each country, hoping that all of them will keep the momentum and visit the remaining two rounds – in Estonia and Lithuania.

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There was one black sheep in the paddock – Janis Eglite. Latvian driver is used to more serious competition, running Drift Allstars events for a number of years now.

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Practice session looked like the first day of school, although track layout didn’t change in many years, so many drivers very making small errors and struggling to keep a perfect drifting line.

One sad moment happened just in front of me: Kristian “Sallu” Salmre spun his #surematu (ironically translated as Immortal) and Henri Kivimägi didn’t manage to stop before hitting the old 5 series in the back. Luckily everyone were unharmed and Henri even managed to fix his 3 series before the qualifying.

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Top Estonian to qualify was Mihkel Norman Tults (5th), Lithuanian – Andrius Cibirka (2nd). Janis Eglite, representing Latvia, won the qualifying.

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Then, suddenly, out of nowhere Formula D drivers Geoff Stoneback and Chris Forceberg appeared and made the show much more interesting…

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OK, kidding! Ha! After a small brake, main competition started. I was rooting for the dudes from Estonia, but mainly waiting for properly close tandem battles.

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Weather was “drift-typical” for our region – sunny without any sign of clouds, which makes photography unpleasant to say the least – too many reflections, overexposed tarmac or dark parts of the car..

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Harold Valdma, with a new kevlar body for his E46, was looking good and didn’t have any problems to move to Top 16. He would face off Egle which I thought is promising – similar cars, both fast, grippy and developed in a bigger shed than usual grassroots guys out here.

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Team Ghost updated their livery and were looking awesome. Some were saying, that 2016 will be the last year for Kristian Klemets and Jarmo Luht, but so far they’re here – “only two” Estonian drifters, who don’t drive a BMW.

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Mihkel Tults performed well in qualifying and did even better in competition. 3rd place overall.

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Now it was time for the final battle, Chelsea Denefa running against Matt Field, two FD veterans.. haha.. sorry, trying to fill the post with more action.

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Real final was between Janis Eglite and Mantas Kulvinskas. Winner was decided after an OMT battle and only the mistake of Lithuanian driver made life easy for Janis Eglite.

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