Awesome! 2nd place Podium in JelgavaDrift.

In the past weekend we went to our second race in this season in Jelgava, "Rullits" race track.

The new layout of the track has become very technical and much faster in comparison from other years- with new asphalt and a new configuration which included two, very fast, long corners, a huge jump at the first corner exit and a very technical and challenging Backward corner in the end of the track.

In trainings I experienced some little problems with finding the perfect line, but as we had more and more runs to find the best setup, tire pressure and suspension adjustments, I felt more and more comfortable with the track layout.

In qualification, I managed to drive two almost equal runs and score a 5th place in the overall qualification results- which is a very good spot to start the race from because- the higher you qualify, the potentially weaker opponent you will get in the first tandem to warm you up for the further competition.

TOP16

Because only 17 of 24 registered Drivers qualified- and we had a TOP16 bracket to start from, my first opponent in TOP16 was Evaldas Siliauskas from Lithuania. After our first try, the judges rated our performance with a "One More Time". This is where Evaldas made a mistake in his "One More Time" leading run and went off track. So after these intense tandems and Evaldas mistake, the Victory was mine.

TOP8

In TOP8 I met with Kaspars Skrinda, who is a local driver from Jelgava. In the first tandem run, I had to chase, because Kaspars qualified one spot higher than me in the qualification. In the runway to the entry of the first corner- Kaspars didn't get his car in the right gear so it was a disadvantage for him as I didn't make a mistake despite his slow initiation. When we changed places and I was leading, he made another mistake in the last corner of the track and straightened his car. So I advanced to the TOP4.

TOP4

This is where I met my good friend and un-officialy my teammate this year- Arnis Namnieks. We both knew that this will be very interesting and challanging battle as we both haven't raced much this year. One more thing I had to take in consideration was that Arnis was the winner of qualification so I had to be totally focused and not make any mistakes. The first run was for me to chase so I did it with a quite decent gap between both of us and without making any major mistakes. So everything was left to the 2nd run to decide. When leading and Arnis chasing me, everything seemed identical to my chase run, as Arnis was as close to me as I was close to him but then... Arnis made a mistake and spun out in the last corner. So this meant that I was going to the FINALS!

FINAL

In the fight for the winning spot on the podium, I was against Kristians Burkovs whos car produces twice as power and torque as my car does- so I knew that I need to be on his door right from the start to even have the slightest chance not to lose distance and win the tandem fight. So this is what I did. I made my initiation not from the back of his car, but from the side- that's why I was able to hold a quite decent distance throughout the whole track and not make any mistakes that could cost me a loss in the tandem fight. So it came down for me to lead the party. All day I had one problem- when my tires overheated, they lost A LOT of traction and I felt like a duck on ice. This is what happened right after the initiation. I just lost grip and started to slide too much to the outside of the track and to the track boundary tires- so I had to straighten my car not to hit them. This meant that I had lost the final fight.!

Scroll down to see full video recap from the best filming crew JEF STUDIO.