Sweet Oblivion
Aidan is 30. He has a job as a mechanic at a garage
in Essex and has done since he left school. However, one of the motorsport
events held at Arena Essex grabs his attention a lot more than the others:
drifting. The reason Aidan has such a big interest in drifting is that the
garage he works in helps in the preparation of cars for the main grass roots
drifting teams that are based at Arena Essex. There is a problem with
this though. 10 years ago, when he was just 20 and his brother John was 22,
John was killed in a banger racing event when the Ford Granada he was driving
suffered a head on collision with a wall at the Arena Essex raceway. Aidan
witnessed this accident at the age of 20 and at the time he was so overcome
with emotion and grief that he vowed to never take part in any form of
motorsport again. Ted (Aidan’s father) has more than John’s death as a reason
for not wanting Aidan to go motor racing though. When John was doing banger
racing, Ted served as his mechanic, and he is wracked with guilt as he feels
that perhaps his workmanship (or lack of) when repairing the brakes on John’s
car could have caused his sons premature death. This is the real reason that he
does not want his younger son to go motor racing, as he feels that another
substandard mechanic could cost Aidan his life.
However, Aidan, like his late brother, has had an
interest in motorsport from an early age, and so it was inevitable that one day
he would follow in his brothers footsteps. After being away from the track for
10 years, he attends a drift day as a spectator with a couple of his friends
and his dad. His dad is very apprehensive about attending as this will be the
first motorsport event he has attended since the death of his eldest son a
decade ago. The day is not hugely successful, as Aidan is very worried about
what could happen to him if he were to become involved in motorsport himself.
As well as this, there were people that knew John at the event who were openly
making comments about him being a poor driver. This angers Aidan and Ted, as
they do not like for one minute people talking about a member of their family
like this. Aidan gets very wound up and has to be physically restrained by Ted
to stop him leaping of one of the other blokes and giving him a good beating.
From here on in, the family experiences a
rollercoaster of events. Aidan is invited to a further drift day by friends of
his at the garage, but declines their invitation as he worries what his father
will say if he finds out he has attended. On the contrary though, there is a
girl that works at the garage with Aidan called Chloe that he likes that is a
regular attendee at the drift days. She does her best to convince Aidan to come
along, and there is a large part of him that is very tempted to attend, to prove
to himself more than anything that he is not scared of his father and he is his
own man. He is now faced with a dilemma. Does he attend the drift day in her
company to impress her, or does he obey his father and stay away? After being
invited to a couple more drift days, Aidan decides enough is enough and he has
to make his own decisions without worrying about what anyone else thinks. So,
he tells Chloe that he accepts her invitation. Whilst watching the drifting,
Aidan realises that he wants to be on the track taking part, not on the
sidelines spectating. He tells Chloe this in confidence, as he knows his father
will disown him if he tells him his true intentions.
As time goes on, a strange turn of events unfolds,
as the seller of the BMW 328i that Aidan wants to buy is the very same bloke
that sold his 2.8i Granada to John to go banger racing in. He recognises Aidan,
and they chew the fat and discuss how and why Aidan wants to get back into
motorsport, but drifting instead of banger racing. Aidan explains that he went
to watch the fifth round of King of the Ring at Arena Essex. Obviously now that
he has made the decision to get back into motorsport, he has to keep it from
his father as he fears his reaction should he find out. Once he has bought the
BMW, he decides that before he attends a drifting event, he needs to learn the
basics. He could practice on the roads, and decides to do this as it gives him
more of a buzz. The preparation of the BMW is fairly straightforward. Strip out
the interior to save weight, weld the rear diff so that both wheels turn
together constantly, and fit a hydraulic handbrake that will lock up the rear
wheels to facilitate a drift.
Once the car is drift ready, Aidan gets round to
practicing on the road. Roundabouts are a good starting point for this, as they
provide a constant corner in order to keep the car sideways as long as one has
the nerve to. However, this proves to be Aidan’s undoing as he over does it on
one particular roundabout and ends up spinning out and crashing backwards into
a lamp post, writing his car off in the process.
However, despite writing off his first drift car
and his dad’s fierce questioning about the cause of the accident. Aidan elects
to carry on with drifting, and sets about finding another car, ideally another
3 series BMW. After another couple of months searching, he finds another car
that he considers suitable for the role. This time it is a 325i, so slightly
less powerful, but still a very capable drift car nonetheless. Despite this
crash though, Chloe still has faith in Aidan and he maintains that he is
capable of drifting, and simply requires more practice.
However, Ted is not prepared to accept Aidan’s
version of events regarding his crash, and starts to wonder if he was really
responsible for John’s death, so he goes to the Arena and asks if they have
footage of the race when John was killed, as he was stood in the crowd, so he
would not have had a clear view of the whole track like the cameras would have
done. Upon watching the footage, he is totally shocked when he notices
something peculiar. John was travelling a lot faster than the rest of the cars
in the race when he had the crash, and it was obvious from the speed he was
carrying down the straight that he would not have been able to slow down in
time for the corner, so it was his recklessness and exuberant style of driving
that caused his accident, and not Ted’s poor workmanship and lack of skills
when preparing the car.
As time goes on, Aidan gets to a point where he
wants to take drifting seriously and so he attends his first drift day event at
Arena Essex. This is a particularly poignant moment for him as this is the very
track where his brother was killed. Sitting on the start line in his BMW, he is
overcome with emotion but still goes ahead with the event. Once he starts to
get into it, he gets a huge thrill out of it, as he has finally found something
that he is genuinely good at. When he finishes the first round, he goes to find
Chloe, telling her he will practice as much as he can. There is definitely a
rebellious side to Aidan being revealed here as well, as he is going against
his father to do what he loves. Chloe is still not entirely convinced after his
crash, but is still willing to support Aidan in any way she can.
The story moves forwards to a year later, where
Aidan is taking part in an event that he and Chloe have helped to organise, a
memorial event in memory of his late brother. By now Aidan and Chloe are an
item, they started dating when they began to spend an awful lot of time
together due to Aidan’s involvement in drifting and also the fact that Chloe
was a lot more supportive of Aidan than his father.
The story comes full circle at the end, as Aidan
puts his all into the event, and is successful in winning, thus proving to his
dad and most of all to himself once and for all that motorsport is a safe and
incredibly rewarding sport to take part in. It is when Aidan wins the trophy
that he goes to his father and presents it to him, revealing that his father is
the true rightful recipient of it as he only ever had his best interests at
heart.
Elevator Pitch
Standing in the way of Aidan’s goal to become the
ultimate drifter is his dad. He is opposed to motorsport after Aidan’s older
brother John was killed in a banger racing accident. Aidan is faced with a
dilemma: does he follow his dream and risk his life on the track, or does he
follow his dad’s wishes and play it safe?
Addendum
Chloe’s father owns the garage that Aidan works in.
Her family are very heavily involved in motorsport, particularly drifting, as
the garage is within walking distance of Arena Essex. She keeps trying to
convince him to become involved as a drifter in the arena, but at first he is
not too sure, however she convinces him to get into it behind his dad’s back.
As the story progresses, she takes a liking to him and she makes it clear that
she wants to take things to the next level with him, but again he is not so
sure.
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