Paul Vlasblom – International Drift Series
Hometown – Uden, Netherlands
Car – 95er BMW, M3 Touring
photo courtesy of Alok Paleri
I started racing Porsche and BMW in 1999. Some victories in the Porsche Series, and winner of the BMW Cup 2002. In 2003 I entered the Autovisie DriftChallenge (the annual sideways-challenge) with a standard BMW E30 323i with a welded diff. and got 11th place. The year after I decided to do better and bought myself a BMW E36 M3 coupe. In the end I won the 2004-edition by drifting all the turns with one hand out of the sun-roof of the car!!
In 2005 I bought my BMW E36 Touring and converted the car for drifting. With that car I entered the NL and BE-drift-series and several other events in Europe. In August 2005 I decided to go to the D1-drivers-search on Silverstone-circuit there and see. In the end I was one of the 6 chosen drivers and I was very pleased to obtain my provisional license.
On the way back from the UK we stopped over at Warneton Speedway in Belgium,where the King of Europe championship was held that weekend.I the field of European drifters I proved to be the best and was crowned King of Europe 2005!
I converted my Touring to match-up the D1-regulations and that year I won the Belgian Drift Series Championship In the end of 2005 I converted the Touring to the GTR-looks and installed a rollcage for the D1 Great Britain-season 2006. During the season the Japanese held another D1 GrandPrix match at Silverstone, and again I was one of the licensed drivers. I managed to qualify in 14th position and was matched up with Ueno driving a 600hp Toyota Soarer. By reaching top-8 my provisional D1GP-license was upgraded to a Full D1GP-license!!! In top-8 I met Ueo, but I couldn’t keep up with the speed of the lighter Corolla AE86. I’m still very proud of my D1GP license, as I’m to only European to have it!
In the end of the King of Europe championship 2006 I was invited to enter the final round on Spa-Francorchamps. In the strong field of Polish, Croatian, Belgian and French drivers I took the 1st place and by winning the finals I was send out to Dubai to enter the Dubai DriftChallenge and won the Challenge!
In 2007 I entered the King of Europe Drift-edition and the German IDS championship. The KoE took me to France (1st place), Czech Republic (3rd position), Hungary (1st place), Finland (1st place) and finally again in Hungary (3rd place).By these results again I became the King of Europe championship winner for 2007.
In September 2007 I got an email from the D1 organisation; the invitation for the D1 All Star World Match 25th November at Irwindale Speedway. As I’m a D1GP License-holder I can also enter the D1 GP-Finals on Saturday the 24th of November.
My car left the port of Rotterdam in a container October 17th, and arrived in the Port of Long Beach (Los Angeles, California) November 13th.Unfortunately the DHL-shipping company didn’t get the paperwork right for the US Customs, so the container couldn’t get cleared and returned to the Netherlands unopened.
Very sorry to have to watch the D1 World Match from the side, and not being able to compete.
In the 2008 season I’m competing in the International Drift Series (the German championship) and so far I won the season-opener at Hockenheim, also the 3rd and 5th round and I’m the current leader in the championship. I also did all the DTM-demo’s with IDS this year, which is a great opportunity to bring drifting to the attention of a big audience.
In June I went to compete in the 2nd round of the Hellenic Drift Championship in Greece, and got 1st place. In July I did a big demo in Moscow, to show Russian people what drifting is!
Last weekend I won the European Driftbattle at Poznan-racetrack in Poland.
My further plans for this year; the finals of the Italian Driftseries in Varano and….the RedBull World drifting Championship in Long Beach in November!
