Lwi Edwards to support Team UK at FIA Motorsport Games in Valencia
Lwi Edwards is to represent Team UK at the forthcoming FIA Motorsport Games in Valencia in the drift category
The FIA Motorsport Games brings nations and drivers together every two years from more than 70 countries for the Worlds biggest festival of motorsport and gives the opportunity for drivers to win Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for their Nation.
For 2024 the host City Valencia, Spain will have a spectacular opening ceremony to start the Games on 23rd October.
After winning the 2023 MSUK Drift Pro Championship, Lwi was chosen to represent Team UK for 2024
The team is working flat out to upgrade the E36 LSX V8 and Lwi is at the top of his game to get a good result for Team UK
The first 2 rounds of the MSUK Drift Pro Championship headed for the first time ever to Anglesey in North Wales. Our home track, Trac Mon in Ty Croes, an amazing technical circuit set on the coast of the Island.
Fresh from 6 months of engine rebuild and upgraded safely equipment to FIA spec, after a few hold ups with parts, the BMW E36 LSX was finished the evening before the event with no opportunity to test.
Round 1:
Saturday, with amazing spring sunshine, practice started on the technical layout that had never been drifted before. All the drivers quickly got to grips of the layout and speeds increased towards the end
Qualifying:
Getting to grips with the layout and Lwi put two solid runs in to top qualify with 95.33. Due to some drivers unable to start, Lwi was handed a bye run for the Top 16 battles, so straight into Top 8.
Top 8:
The top 8 battle was to be against Ian ‘Bizz’ Philips, who had been really fast all day. Lwi put on a clean lead for Bizz to chase but unfortunately Bizz fell off the track on the last fast corner due to driveshaft failure. Lwi took the win
Final 4
Final 4 was against a new young driver, Harry Love, a talented name to watch out for in the future, Lwi put on his clinical lead as always, the chase was nice and clean with Harry putting a nice lead. Lwi took the win to move to the final.
Final
The final was against the awesome driver and friend Dave Bastin in his Nissan, the battles are always close and fast and today was not different. Lwi put his perfect lead and Dave was close to his door, but Lwi had the edge. The chase was fast and smokey, Lwi pushed to gain close proximity and disaster.. on the very last bend the differential mount shattered and Lwi straightened. Dave took the deserved win!
Lwi finished the day in second position, a good position to be in the first round of 2024. The team regrouped, replaced the rear differential and prepared the car for round 2, the next day.
Round 2
Another amazing spring day, slightly cooler than the day before, but dry and sunny. The layout was changed slightly from the day before with the start line extended. All the drivers had improved from the day before in practice and it was going to be an even faster layout.
Qualifying:
Once again Lwi put a couple of clinical runs to top qualify with a 97.3 point run. This again allowed him a Bye run in Top 16 so it was though to the Top 8.
Top 8:
Top 8 battle was again against Ian Bizz Philips who was determined to take Lwi down this time but unfortunately on his lead he went far too hot into the final bend and ended up on the grass : Lwi took the win again.
Final 4:
Final 4 battle was to be with another young driver, Zak Parker, who is smooth and accurate in his style, another name to watch out for in the near future. Lwi’s experience shone through and although Zak put up a great fight, Lwi took the win.
Final:
The final battle was to be against Joel Conlan who had been getting faster as the day progressed. This was the first time Lwi had battled Joel but a mistake on his lead sealed the win for Lwi.
Lwi finished first at the end of Round 2 , another fantastic result for the start of the season and puts Lwi 20 points ahead in the championship already, a nice little buffer.
A 2nd and a 1st with two 1st in Qualifying, it was a good weekend, plus, it was a special weekend to win our home circuit in Wales. The first Welsh round won by a Welshman!
Next round is Cadwell Park on 6th May
Thank you to our partners friends and family who make this possible:
Haltech, Bilstein, Race Winning Brands, Allitalia Wrexham, TPW Engineering, Learn2Drift, Billys Speed Shop, Gizfab, and Family and friends
After a fantastic season of the MSUK Drift Pro Championship competing around the circuits of UK, Lwi was crowned Championship winner at the last round at Snetterton.
After 8 rounds on the iconic race circuits around the UK, Lwi took the win at 4 rounds and finished on the podium on all but 2.
Lwi results gave him a lead after the 7th round that couldn’t be beaten.
An amazing result for a young driver with a small family team behind him.
Our thanks must go to our partners who help make this happen.
Round 1 and 2 of the Drift Pro Championship was held at the incredible mountain section of the Cadwell Park circuit.
Round 1 wasn’t going to plan, a mixed bag of weather and some conflicting opinions on the judging saw Lwi qualify a lowly 7th place and finished the day getting knocked out in the top 8.
Day 2 and Round 2,
Things improved for everyone. People settled in and results became more consistent.
Lwi qualified a respectable 2nd place battled through the field to take the top spot with a close battle in the final against Martin Richards
The first win of the 2023 season and the first podium carrying the Bilstein name, our main sponsor for 2023.
We thank all our partners who help make this happen, check out our partners page and support those who support us.
After a short and difficult 2020 season due to Covid, we are now looking forward to 2021 being closer to some normality if it is possible.
The good news is the dawning of a brand new championship to the UK, The UK Drift Championship to keep everyone entertained. Every round will be streamed live on social media and the circuits are challenging and fast.
Young Lwi has taken up the invitation to compete in the Pro class against some big names from the past and future .
This season is going to be busy making up for lost time last year, competing in both Pro Class of the British Drift Championship and the New UK Drift Championship.
The British Drift Championship season starts in May and Lwi will be looking to improve on his 6th place overall finish in the Pro Class in 2021.
The weapon of choice will be the BMW E36 LSV8 for most of this season while the new build is going through the motions, hopefully this should be out in an event before the end of the season ready for a full 2022 season.
The season kicks off at Three Sisters Circuit this coming weekend 17/18th April with the UK Drift Championship first round, look out for the livestream and check back here for a full report very soon.
Round 2 of the British Drift Championship at Three Sisters circuit in Wigan, 12 months to the day when Lwi made the podium for the first time in the ProAms and almost qualified top in the Pro class, so he was looking forward to a good result now competing in the Pro class for 2020.
Practice day was booked for the Thursday prior to the event but a minor scare saw main sponsor Allitalia stripping the gearbox out of the car on Wednesday evening after a noise developed in the transmission while moving the car ready to load on the trailer. After checking the clutch and flywheel, the gearbox was replaced for the spare to avoid any failures on race day. The BMW LSV8 was given a clean bill of health and loaded ready for a later start on practice day.
Practice day ran smoothly and gave Lwi a chance to get used to the new Accelera 651 sport Xtra 100 TW softer compound semi slicks supplied by partner for 2020 Tirestreets UK now mounted to some new 1 Form 18 inch rear wheels. We dialled in some different settings to gain some more grip and tried some different tyre pressures. Some new cooling fans fitted after the problem in previous round turned out to be much more efficient and kept the temperatures down by about 20 degrees to around 90c, even when driven hard which was a relief. The car ran faultlessly until it suddenly cut out while waiting in line at the start. After being towed back to the paddock it turned out to be the main kill switch, brand new this year, which had failed! After searching the paddock, Luke Barker’s team came to the rescue with a new one, all fitted and ready to go in under 30 mins. The rest of the day was uneventful, Lwi just cleaning up the qualifying line ready for race day
After chilling out watching the Pro2 class it was time to get the race face on for the Pro day on Saturday. Fuel up with Sunoco race fuel, new Accelera 651 rear tyres and morning practice, the weather was good with a damp start but forecast was dry so it was going to be fast and furious all day for sure.
Qualifying Runs:
First qualifying run and Lwi was on it from the start, a nice clean line hitting all the clips and gaining a score of 94,holding top spot for a while but finished finished 2nd
Qualifying Run 2:
Never happy with his run and always chasing that perfect score, Lwi was advised by judges he needed to put more flare in his style, so this run was more smoke, speed and pushed out to the clipping points. Something was amiss this time though and a lesser score of 92. Back to the drawing board to chase the perfect score. However, Lwi did finish the qualifying in 3rd position which is pretty amazing for his first year in Pro’s
Top 16 Battles:
Due to Lwi high qualifying score he advanced through to the top 16 and his fist battle was to be with one of the most experienced drivers on the grid Martin Wonnacott in his awesome high spec Toyota Chaser, this was going to be a good one. Lwi pushed hard and put his usual flawless lead run which may have caught Martin on the hop but he caught up quickly on the chase run. Turning around and Lwi made a few mistakes on the first few clips so the judges voted for a OMT (One More Time) to give a chance for a cleaner run from both drivers.
Top 16 Battle OMT:
Lwi pushed hard on this battle, it was close and entertaining until Martin was forced into a mistake on the last few clips, running off the track and allowing Lwi to take the win and advance into great 8
Great 8 Battle:
After battling Martin, the great 8 battle should be more even with young irish driver Dylan Kehoe who had advanced through from Pro2 with a very nice spec Nissan with similar power to Lwi. It was very close and tidy battle which Lwi took the win to advance through to Final 4
Final 4 Battle:
Well, this was going to be a mission, Lwi was now up against the experienced and fellow welshman Ollie Evans in a much higher spec Nissan who was determined to win the championship. Lwi pushed as hard as he could, it was close and fast with Ollie losing his bumper on transitions but Lwi just couldnt beat Evans and the lost the battle.
Third Place Playoff:
Lwi had one final chance to make the 3rd place podium and his opponent was the young driver Max Cotton, who had stormed the field of Pro2 to this position in the Pro class. The battle again was close with both Lwi and Max rubbing doors but the win went to Max, so Lwi just missed out on a podium place. Well done Max!
Lwi finished the weekend with a 4th place o/all finish and although disappointed in not getting another podium at Three Sisters it was a great result after some hard battles. Currently sitting in 5th place in the Pro championship, once again it it a great result for the first year in the Pro Class
Always looking for consistency like last year in Pro2, if Lwi can stay in top 5 for this season it will be a great achievement, but who knows what happens, with so few rounds of the championship, things can change quickly.
Huge thanks to everyone involved with the team from sponsors Accelera tyres, tirestreets UK, haltech, Sunoco fuels, Driven Oils, Learn2Drift, 1Form Wheels and bank of Nana and John, as well as all the Team Driftfam who all make this possible.
Always looking for support on this journey, please get in touch if you can help out in any way at support@lwiedwards.com
After a long break due to the Covid 19, the British Drift Championship managed to pull everything together and run a shortened championship for 2020. This started with the first round at the legendary purpose built drift track at Driftland in Scotland
After winning the 2019 Pro Am Championship (Now called Pro 2) in the UK and also finishing 6th in the 2019 Drift Games Nationals, Lwi was promoted to Pro level for both UK and Ireland for 2020
The trusty BMW E36 M3 has had a major upgrade while the new Pro drift car is being built from scratch. Out with the M3 Evo engine and transplanted by Allitalia Ltd with a modified LS2 engine with full Haltech custom ecu pushing approx 500 bhp to keep competitive.
The long trek to sunny Scotland started on a Thursday ready to spend a Friday practice day in the new upgraded BMW, and things didnt go to plan at the start, the weather was very warm and still, which caused the temps to rise in the engine bay, then a brand new cooling fan decided to fail, luckily Lwi always keeps a close eye on data, so the practice was aborted until the problem could be fixed. A search around the paddock found a new fan, although slightly smaller than original it kept the temps down.
Practice day was spent dialing in the grip level, running a mix of tyre brands to test before committing to one brand. Extreme tyres that Lwi was awarded as part of championship win and a newcomer on the block, Accelera. At the start of the day Lwi felt he had too much grip but by the end he was using more of the huge V8 grunt to push the grip level to the max on 17 inch rims, this was something that was going to become apparent on race day.
Sunday and Pro race day, Lwi had 2 hours practice honing his qualifying line, which was faultless as always, but it became apparent that he was struggling to hold proximity with the top driver due to loss of grip. With the help of the drift fam as quick change up to 18 inch rear wheels and some new Accelera tyres transformed the BMW allowing Lwi to push harder on chase runs.
Qualifying: Lwi has gained the reputation of being a line driver in both UK and Ireland and he hadn’t lost his skill in the down time since last season. First run and score of 91.5 was not enough for Lwi so he pushed the envelope for the second run and improved the score to 95 points holding top qualifying until Luke Barker and Mckeever knocked him off the top spot, can’t grumble too much. The grip level was improved with the 18 inch rims and new Accelera.
Top 16 Battle :
This was Lwi’s first battle in the Pro class this year and Oliver Silcock was a worthy opponent. Lwi laying down the perfect lead line once again allowing a good chase that the judges ask for but the chase run for Lwi was a little harder, still learning the grip he was judged as shallowing the track to gain proximity. Maybe should have been OMT to fight it out but it wasn’t to be. So Lwi lost the battle.
A successful weekend with a lot of positives, the LS conversion is reliable and the handling of the chassis remains unchanged with the extra power. We will now be running 18 inch rims with the bigger 265 Accelera tyres. Some extra cooling needs to be addressed although autumn will soon be here for remainder of rounds and sure the weather will be cooler.
Thank you to everyone who supports the Team from family and friends to sponsors and companies. If you would like to be part of this amazing journey please get in touch with us at support@lwiedwards.com
Round 6 of the British Drift Championship was to take place at Buxton Raceway, high up in the hills so everyone knew that this would be a challenge with unpredictable weather and a tight oval circuit, to make it even more interesting the races would be battled under floodlights late into the night.
This was the final round of the BDC and anyone in the top 4 could take the championship, it couldnt be any closer after some amazing battles all year, and Young Blood, Lwi Edwards had turned out to be the ‘fly in the ointment’ sitting in second position going into this last round. Fresh from his return from the Tullyroan Oval in Ireland, Lwi was confident of a good finish but needed luck to be on his side to take the win, and for once, things went in his favour. Non of us had thought of crunching the numbers to work out where he had to finish, Lwi always looks towards the top step and top qualifying, so we decided to let things pan out by the end of the night.
For the last time this season, the trusty BMW M3 was given a clean bill of health by main sponsor Allitalia Ltd, Wrexham and fitted with a few mods such as LED lighting to help when it came to the night battles at Buxton, some fresh race fuel from our recent 2019 supporter Sunoco UK and a mixed stock of tyres to test from Extreme, Westlake and Triace for the changing conditions. Still testing the brands to see which suit the power and Lwi’s driving style. The car was then loaded for the hard slog up the hills to Buxton Raceway on the Thursday night ready for the race day on Friday
Friday morning and torrential rain, horizontal at times, played havoc with practice. Lots of standing water on the circuit in places and for a short while it looked like the whole event could have been a washout. Lwi spent as much time available getting familiar with the circuit after only been here once before to test the BMW earlier in the year, but the grip level was mixed and this could potentially cause problems for all the drivers when competition started officially later in the day. This weekend the extended family had also ventured across to support Lwi at this last round but one special guy, Heath Bamford was missing from the gang after having a serious accident on a motorbike a few days before, a shout out from the judges was a nice gesture.
Qualifying 1 : With darkness starting to fall and the circuit starting to dry it was time for Young Blood, Lwi Edwards to get his game face on and start taking this seriously, all the drivers were given a sighting lap due to the mixed surfaces and Lwi used this to put an almost perfect run before the actual qualifying lap. The usual clinical line from Lwi put the first score of 84 to put him in 3rd position. Well happy with that one, nice and safe
Qualifying 2 : And the floodlights were now changing the atmosphere in the arena, once again, Lwi put a really strong precise run but the judges didnt think it was a top qualifier and he didnt move from his 3rd place finish. Still happy with the result and put him in good place ready for battles.
Top 32 Battle : And this is where lady luck started to take part and Lwi had a by run due to his opponent having problems with the car and unable to start. So one lap of the circuit and back to prepare for the next battle
Top 16 Battle : Lwi Edwards Vs Karl Farrar. All the battles from now on were going to be hard, Karl was very experienced and his 500hp Mazda had been flying all day around the oval. Lwi put his usual clinical lead on the qualifying line but Karl also ran a tidy line, however, it was judged that Lwi took the win by 1 point with even one judge calling one more time… it was so close and some great battle with Karl, Lwi would have been happy to take a one more time, to do it all over again, but through to the Great 8 he went.
Great 8 Battle: Lwi Edwards Vs Stu Jones, and lady luck number 2 was on his side again when unfortunately, Stu damaged his car going into the first bend and was unable to repair it in time to start the next battle giving Lwi the path into the Final 4. Things were now looking rather interesting with the championship but we tried not to get distracted by the points and Lwi just continued to take one step at a time.
Final 4 Battle: Lwi Edwards Vs Martin Cowley, the battle that could make or break the championship, Martin was on form all day and you could tell that he was hungry for the win. Lwi struggled to keep proximity on the chase and this was going to go in Martin’s favour but to confirm this, Lwi actually span on the final roundabout finish!! Put down to combination of loss of brakes and grip coming into the bend after having to work so hard to keep up with Martin. Lwi took the defeat and Martin had to work hard for the well deserved win.
Final Battle Playoff: Lwi Edwards Vs Fitzgerald. The final battle for Lwi to take third position and this was another case of ‘giant killer’ mode. Lwi now needed to finish 3rd to have chance to take the championship and Fitzgerald had all the gear and experience to take Lwi down but Lwi switched up a gear to run a perfect line as always and it looked good for Lwi to take the win, however, we would have to wait until the final podium celebrations to find out
The final podium celebrations and results announced! Lwi takes 3rd place finish on the day which was incredible against the odds, but the crucially takes the championship win overall by 1 point … 1 point lead after 6 rounds of the championship in his first ever year of competition .. what a result!!! And still only 17yrs Old!
Huge thanks has to go to everyone who has supported us this year and also to the British Drift Championship team who gave Lwi the chance to qualify at the start of the season and give him the platform to compete, no-one could have predicted the outcome of the championship with Lwi being the underdog all year and now the next challenge is to take a win in the Pro class in 2020, I am sure this will be more difficult and we will be looking for a select amount of companies or individuals who would like to get involved with the team in this new chapter.
Below are selection of videos and images from Buxton 2019
At the start of this season we couldn’t have predicted the position that Young Blood, Lwi Edwards has found himself in going into the last round of the British Drift Championship at Buxton Raceway. Currently sitting in 2nd Position of the ProAm championship after being knocked off the top step by Josh King but still only 5 points behind and he has extended his lead over Martin Cowley who is now in 3rd after knocking him out in a head to head battle at the last round at 3 Sisters.
This goes to show what a young new driver can achieve with consistent results all season, only one podium finish, but always qualifying high and reaching the Great 8 in every round. Lwi has been in stealth mode gathering crucial points which have carried him to the top of the championship, and it hasnt been easy, Lwi has had to work hard with his relatively low powered M3 engined BMW against a field of higher powered cars. It was planned at the start of the year to keep the spec of the car realistic for his first ever season in the ProAm class so Lwi could prove his talent behind the wheel against the odds and he has exceeded all expectations. The Pro class is calling for 2020 and a completely new Pro Spec car build is on its way.
Round 6 will take place at Buxton Raceway, an oval circuit up in the hills, which Lwi has driven only once. However, fresh from his return from the epic Tullyroan Oval in Ireland, he has had some experience of battling in an oval with walls that can ‘bite’. Only 12 months ago when Lwi was still 16yrs old, he finished on the podium at the very last Iconic King of the Ring at Arena Essex, another tight oval circuit. This circuit layout looks challenging and technical and the BDC Team will be putting on a great show for the last event of the season. The weather at this time of year could be unpredictable and Lwi will be avoiding any hard impacts to the walls. It is a tall order for Lwi to win the championship, the top 5 are so close in the points table that it could go to any one of them, but he has now proved that he is a contender for the championship.
Friday 11th October is the main day for ProAm class running under floodlights and the winner will be decided at around 10pm. The event Continues on with Pro class on Saturday and a Battle Royal on Sunday for all comers.