Season Report 2011

Jap Drag Series 2011 Championship Concludes

The final round of the Jap Drag Series took place at the JapShow Finale on Sunday 18th September at Santa Pod Raceway. Despite forecasts of significant rain, the weather mostly stayed on-side and the racing ran its course.

Congratulations to the 2011 champions in each class:

JDS FWD: Adam Buckley, Honda Civic
JDS Street: James Willday, Mazda RX7
JDS Fac Mod: Stuart Williams, Toyota Supra
JDS Pro: John Bradshaw, Nissan 350Z

JDS Front Wheel Drive

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Adam Buckley in his Honda Civic in the Front Wheel drive class. His highly experimental car was capable of punching into the 9’s on a good day, but he left it until the last race of the last round of the championship to asset his authority over title-competitor Douggie Gemmell. Adam actually only won one round of the championship, but regularly scored big points for getting to the finals and securing low-ET and high-TS.

Winning his first round at the last event, and also securing the championship was a sweet victory at the end of a really hard-fought season. Adam’s Honda Civic uses the original factory steel monocoque chassis and a 2,000cc 4-cylinder turbo engine.

JDS Street

Another championship that hung in the balance until the last race of the last event was the JDS Street class. James Willday fought off a class that grew in size at every round and finished the season with 15 competitors. The class was so competitive that James didn’t even qualify for the final round, and had to just sit back and watch as his championship lead was torn into by fellow Mazda RX7 driver Mark Salem. However, Mark threw away his hopes of beating James at the final round of the final race, when he lost out to yet another RX7 belonging to Rob Blackshaw.

James endured a real nail-biter of a finish to his season, but took a well deserved championship win by consistently scoring big points and always being a serious threat in his street-driven, 9-second Mazda. James’ Mazda RX7 uses the original steel monocoque chassis and a 2-rotor turbo-charged 1,300cc engine.

JDS Factory Modified

The Factory Modified class was dominated by one man, and Stuart Williams’ rookie year really put a cat amongst the pigeons. Stuart’s Toyota Supra looked good from the very first event, and was putting in steady and convincing performances.

But as the season progressed, he started to leave 2010 champion Mark Moselely wondering what he needed to do to keep up, and by the final rounds of championship, Stuart was running unbeatable 8.5s and launching with phenomenal ferocity. Stuart Williams races a Hauser Racing “back-halfed” Supra with a Ford rear axel and a turbocharged 3,000cc straight-6 engine.

JDS Pro

The Pro class features the very fastest Japanese race cars in existence, and the winner of this year’s championship, John Bradshaw, has the fastest of the lot. His 350Z looks like it is going 100mph when it’s standing still so it came as no surprise when the car was hitting 200mph+ early in the season.

As the championship progressed, John’s closest competitor, Leon Green, got a few wins in, but the performance gap widened, and John finished the season with a 6.63 second run under his belt, and a top terminal speed of over 211mph. Consistent points throughout the season meant a convincing championship win. John races a full tube chassis Nissan 350Z equipped with a turbocharged 3,800cc V6 engine that develops around 2,000bhp.

The round points and season standings table are on the main 2011 Points page.