Japfest 2009
This was the fourth year Sky Insurance sponsored Japfest; one of the UK's largest Japanese performance car shows on the calendar. The Sky team consisting of Jae, Ollie, Luke, Danny and Alex were all set up by 8.30am after an overnight stay in a local hotel and the show was already starting to get busy, Japfest grows year on year and this year there was a record breaking crowd of over 13,000 in attendance.
Dan Fergent (Flamby) has very kindly allowed to us to provide a link to his excellent photo-albums from Japfest - thanks Dan
Track Events Show Photographs
Our thanks also goes out to Lui Sorrenti who has also provided us with a link to his photo album with a selection of the vehicles that attended the show.
The weather was hit and miss to start but it brightened up after 11am and the sunshine soon dried the slippery track which had already claimed a victim and had caused some amazingly spectacular near misses; Quarry Corner in particular appeared to be the most dangerous. When the sun came out the Sky team took the opportunity to have a walk around and meet with some of our customers. Our affiliated Car Clubs were out in force displaying some of the best examples of Japanese modified cars in the UK. The way the cars were presented by the Car Clubs is an awesome sight. The MkIV Toyota Supra Club stand was particularly well laid out, and it was great to see the two large MR2 owners clubs having a combined stand.
The tricky Castle Coombe Circuit claimed one of the Team Driftworks cars in the second round of the Drifting displays. Driver Dan Chapman carried a little too much speed into Camp corner, kissed the grass and then hit the tyre-wall backwards in spectacular fashion. Luckily both driver and passenger were uninjured despite the high speed impact. This incident caused the nerves to set in for Sky Insurance's Director David and that of Sky's customer Lui who were ready and waiting for the imminent Drift passenger rides. As it happens, David was right to be a little nervous; on Lap 1 of his passenger ride he remarked to the driver that the cabin was 'getting a little hot', by Lap 2 there was a little smoke and a lot of heat, by Lap 3 the car was ditched in the pit lane for the fire marshals to put out the engine fire whilst an alarming amount of smoke billowed from the engine. Thankfully, Sky's customer Lui's drift passenger ride was less eventful but spectacular none the less!
Just after midday Luke from Sky Insurance took the Sky Toyota Celica GT4 for the first of our pre-booked track sessions and despite the GT4 being down on power, Luke was mixing it with the best of them and was more than putting the car through it's paces. David from Sky took the second of the track sessions in his Nissan 350Z and was noticed to be improving his times each lap until having to retire early due to feeling slightly nauseous from the fumes and heat from his earlier experience.
Throughout the day various Car Club officials took advantage of the Sky Insurance hospitality area and enjoyed the great views of the track action as well as the endless cups of tea, coffee and biscuits. Thank you to all of the Car Club officials for coming over and meeting the Sky team. Throughout the day the Sky Insurance Girls had been approaching visitors to Japfest getting them to enter the Japfest 2009 competition to win a year's free car insurance. Good luck to all those who entered the competition; look out for an announcement in the next few days naming the Winner!
All in all, Japfest 2009 was a great success with a huge amount of car enthusiasts in attendance who all enjoyed an action packed day of track action and a fantastic display of the UK's finest Japanese modified cars.
We would like to thank Sky Customers Lui with his Toyota Supra and Ben with his Toyota GT4 for displaying their cars on the Sky Insurance stand. Roll on Japfest 2010!
Roll on Japfest 2010!
Ollie Frost
Sky Insurance
18th May 2009
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