15/05/2022
THE WAIT IS OVER!!
Press Release
May 14th, 2022.
For Immediate Release
Irish Drift Championship – Irish Open – Event Schedule 2022
Since its inception in 2013, The Irish Drift Championship has long been viewed as one of the world’s most competitive championships. Backed by the support of the immensely passionate Irish drift community, the IDC was created as a platform for the next generation of Irish drift talent to shine.
Although some resemblance of normality has returned, the effects of the pandemic and the War in Ukraine are still impacting our plans for this year’s championship.
Suitable venues have always been a problem in Ireland, and as the years have passed these difficulties have increased, noise and smoke, pressure from councils and neighbours have closed some venues to us.
There are only five suitable venues for Drifting in this country, one is not available this year due to noise complaints, one is being used for ongoing covid related use, and one is being used to process Ukrainian refugees (a far more important cause than ours).
That leaves two, Mondello is heavily booked due to honoring bookings that were pushed back due to the covid restrictions, and unfortunately, the only dates available didn’t work for us as they were clashing with other events, we are involved in.
So that leaves us with just one venue, Kartworld Watergrasshill, where we have decided to run the three-round Irish Open Championship this year.
Whereas it's not ideal to run three rounds at the one venue, especially for the drivers and fans from up the country, Watergrasshill does give us the opportunity to do three different layouts to spice things up.
So, for this season we will be running, The IDC Irish Open tripleheader, a three-round championship with the aim of crowning the 2022 Irish Open champion across four classes, Pro, Pro 2, Rookie, and Junior.
IDC 2023: We are currently in talks with Mondello to secure two Rounds, and we are hopeful some of the venues not available to us this year will be freed up so we can run a full five-round Championship is in 2023.
With that in mind, we are delighted to announce the full details of these three rounds,
Round 1: Kartworld, Watergrasshill, Co. Cork – June 11th/12th
We kick off the season in Munster’s premier motorsport venue, Adventure Park at Kartworld. The tight and technical layout always produces close battles, and with us running the normal “down the hill” layout that all drivers are familiar with, we can expect close door on door action to kick off the season.
Round 2: Kartworld, Watergrasshill, Co. Cork - July 23rd/24th
The second round involves a layout never run before, this is sure to test the drivers and take away any advantage regular drivers may have. It's subject to testing, but we see the possibility of cars catching air as they complete the run. On a track that always produces close battles, expect this layout to produce some of the best twin battles in the country this year.
Round 3: Kartworld, Watergrasshill, Co. Cork - August 13rd/14th
The final round’s layout is “up the hill” A driver and fan favourite, this layout incorporates a wall run and always produces close battles with the big dive onto the door into the first hairpin right in front of the spectators. We expect paint to be traded as the driver's battle to be crowned the IDC Open champion 2022.
Driver Registration for the 2022 IDC season is now open on the link below.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1SIUbUj4emUf7U1HLVG_jjZDHJfL9hrljMCPTZiYNU98/edit
Irish Drift Championship, in association with TS Driftdays.
