Monday, 13 January 2020

Dean Martin - Get My Drift...



Having watched him put on a spectacular display during the recent Retromania event at Mondello Park I thought it would a good idea to catch up with Dean as he prepares for the next event in his 2019 season. Round 4 of the Drift Games Extreme Championship takes place this weekend at the Irish Motorsport Festival in Punchestown and Dean will be competing in his faithful E36 BMW M3.

This is his 5th season competing in the drifting, having spent the first 2 competing in the NI Drift AMA Championship. He is full of praise for the organisers and fellow competitors who gave him a great grounding in the sport with plenty of advice and support to allow him to continually improve his skills.

After talking to him for 5 minutes it's quite obvious that he is totally committed to the sport with every spare hour and cent spent on having the car running as smoothly as possible for the high-speed blasts around the very demanding courses. He acknowledges that it wouldn't be possible for him to compete at the highest level in Ireland without the support and help of his family, friends and sponsors

He started competing with a BMW 323 ( Type E36 ) in 2014 in fairly bog-standard spec. The first big change to the car was when the engine was replaced with an M3 Evolution unit. He made various changes to that car over the next 2 years before he made the decision to reshell it into a 1997 M3 shell.