Crest Motorsport

The Little Guys

There's no denying people want to hear about big important teams and people in drifting. Mitto, Low Origin etc. However, today I want to take a step back and talk about the little guys.

Crest Motorsport is a small modified Toyota specialist in the north west of England. Run by Tom and his tiny team of 2 mechanics, they are, amazingly, the UK's leaders in JZ, 1G and UZ solutions. The group builds some silly stuff and some sensible stuff as you'd expect from any garage. But what is amazing is the effort put in by the guys. Regularly pulling 20+ hour shifts to complete work, and exhausting every last resource they have, to make Crest bigger and better.

Now despite this insane work ethic, I don't think I've ever seen any of the lads not smiling. Even in the hardest of times, when things are looking bleak, Crest beats on like a heart that refuses to stop. The guys all love Japanese cars. That's it. Whether its a Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, or any other brand you can think of, they want to get their work hardened hands all over it.

I've been lucky enough to spend a good amount of time with the lads, at events, at the workshop, and even one night of touge blasting in shop owner Tom's IS200 Sportcross. I can say without a doubt that they are all brilliant people. They're not in it for the money or the fame, they're in it purely to make peoples modified car experience better.

These are the people that complete UK drifting as far as I'm concerned. It's very easy for mechanically competent people to say "if you can't fix it don't do it", but what is the fun in that? Crest and a bunch of other small, non-moneygrabbing companies are what keep the uncompetetive, grassroots drift scene alive in the UK. Making those all important repairs possible and not bank breaking. To me, everyone, regardless of skill level, regardless of financial limitations should be able to have a go at drifting. You don't need to be some billionaire playboy master technician to be able to do it. Drifting truly is the people's motorsport.

Now, to deviate from this sounding like an advert for Crest, Which it is not. I want to talk about their plans for the later half of 2020. They have recently been given the opportunity to enter Driftcup, and until the lockdown were due to in the 2020 season. However this doesn't mean the Driftcup dream is dead. for the latter part of the year they are going to refine the cars they have already been building, making sure they are as absolutely perfect as they can be. Hopefully I will be able to catch up with them on one of their test days in the near future.

This is an exciting step up for the boys at Crest. All their hard work is finally paying off. They are about to have a (hopefully) competitive team, with fantastically built cars, all developed, modified and set up in house.

To a lot of Motorsport teams already in full swing this doesn't sound much of an achievement. But Tom, company owner, is only 23. He spent the last few years moulding his company to what it is today. And being able to say he's team boss, crew chief, and head mechanic at that stage in life is a HUGE achievement. He doesn't let the pressure get to him, and channels everything into his work.

That's what I love about the UK drift scene. Even the little guys are pushing their hardest. Trying their absolute arses off to make a difference. We all love the same thing, and these really are some of the coolest guys I've met so far in drifting.

So if you are from the North West of England, or anywhere from that matter and want some work done on your car. Please get in contact with the lads at Crest, they'll be happy to help.

Thank you for reading, please stay home, stay safe, and keep growing.

The original potato, Tom

The Little Guys

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