Champion car drifter Louise Ridley at the wheel of her Nissan Skyline competition car.
CAR fanatic Louise Ridley is on track for more glory in one of Britain’s most extreme motorsports – after showing the boys how it’s done in her debut season.
The delivery driver for North-East-based car dealership Sherwoods was the rising star of the Euro Drift Pro-Am championship, finishing sixth in her inaugural season, despite being the only female in the competition.
Louise, from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, also scooped two trophies and lived out a dream as she raced around the famous Silverstone circuit, in Northamptonshire – and she is now set to make the jump from amateur to professional drifter.
The sport is rapidly growing in popularity, with competitors using all of their driving skills to “drift” their rear wheel-drive cars round up to four corners as stylishly and gracefully as possible, in a bid to win points from the judges.
Louise, who works for Vauxhall dealership Sherwoods with showrooms in Darlington, Stockton and Northallerton, regularly practises at the Teesside Autodrome circuit.
She developed an interest in the sport through reading car magazines and decided to take it up herself after watching an enthralling competition at Silverstone.
She took part as an amateur in her first season, winning the one-off British Open Drift Championship at Teesside and being named Entertainer of the Day at another event for her crowd-pleasing displays.
Driving a specially-adapted Nissan Skyline, she competed against more than 30 men throughout the season, eventually finishing sixth.
And she has now been rated talented enough to step up to professional level in the upcoming British Drift Championship.
Louise, who will be part of the skylinepart.com team, said she was relishing the challenges ahead, particularly as the sport – which is huge in Japan and the US – starts to take off in Britain.
“I’ve been doing it for just over a year now and it’s still such an adrenaline rush, I absolutely love it. When you hear the reaction of the crowd, it’s just fantastic,” she said.
“It’s such a friendly sport, everyone gets on really well and you can always go to one of the more experienced drivers for advice. I’m hoping to do even better this year and I’m really looking forward to it.”
