Scoobynet sets drifting record!
Announced in EVO magazine, Scoobynet's Simon de Banke recently set the Guiness World Distance Record for Driving Sideways. What the attempt required was for a car to be in a constant skew in a drift around a circle track for a duration of time without stopping or straightening out. De Banke, also known as Simon de Sideways, originally conjured up the idea after convincing a four-wheel-drifting nonbeliever that it could be done for extended periods of time.
Guinness was called up, and they agreed to it and the project got well under way. Scoobynet's forum users suggested that a charity could be raised in conjunction with the attempt and was done so, raising around 7,000 pounds. The autogroup Listers supplied an MY01 Impreza WRX, equipped with Toyo T1S tires which proved to show ample wet grip with gradual release, which is essential for any drift. The WRX was also equipped with a hands-free radio for communications between Simon and coordinator Ian Watkins throughout the event. MIRA provided a concentric circles track 300m long. The track's surface simulates dense snow using pebble compounds and a constant even spray of water. Since no attempt has been previously made for this record, Guinness set a target time of 15 minutes for Simon.
Starting out at a 35 degree angle with the motor running at 4000 rpm in 2nd gear, de Banke needed only to make small corrections to the steering wheel (which was set at straight) and the accelerator. 15 minutes came and went without any problems, but de Banke came out on this day to test the limits, as well as set a record. At 28 minutes, the water temperature gauge showed an increase due to the fact that the engine was running hot without proper head-on ventilation in the radiator. Through the radio came a solution to turn on the car's heaters and see if enough of the heat could be vented into the cabin, however it wasn't enough. Needing to lower the revs, de Banke switched to third gear and it did help cool down the engine, but in this torqueless range of the powerband, the car's angle was also reduced to 28 degrees. At the 1 hour mark, fuel became a concern (and could not be monitored since the centrifuge of a car forced the fuel to the side of the tank) and original predictions drew out a full tank would end the attempt in an hour. As tired as he was, de Banke kept the drift going until he realized that the switch the 3rd gear would conserve much more fuel. Until the WRX did finally run empty, there were no further complications.
Simon de Banke set the record at a lofty 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 18 seconds, much higher than the original mark at 15 minutes.
Pictured below is the record-holding Scoobynet/Listers WRX:
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