ABOUT
My name is Josh King,
I am the owner of JKServices. We are mechanics who work on the likes of cars & commercial, agricultural plant and machinery even to the ends of building customers cars.
I started drifting about 5 years ago as a little hobby on the weekends but it turned out it was something I was good at and wanted to pursue. So I took just over a year out of driving to build a car. I was then told I should start to compete.
So that prompted me to enter the UK's feeder series, Drift Cup.
I competed in two rounds and did extremely well and was promoted straight up to British drift championship Pro-Am competition.
This year I did a full season of Pro-Am and managed to achieve a 3rd place season finish. With mechanical issues that year this was a huge accomplishment which seen me promoted to the Pro class of the British Drift Championship.
Less than 2 full years of competing and I am into the Pro class contending with some big team names and cars / drivers. These are the guys I looked up to when I started drifting and now I was on the start line next to them! Teams with 6 figure budgets and insane cars. With a spec list I could only dream of.
Over the two years I've been competing I have realised that to remain a competitive a driver, what you need is to not just have financial support but a lot of moral support. A driver can only do the best he can, but without the right team behind him he wont be able to focus on the number one task, the competition. In my time drifting competitively I have had little to no help. This means along with being the driver, I am also responsible for the maintenance and repairs between runs, refuelling, Loading and unloading the car, changing tyres and being my own critic and motivation at the same time. With so many plates to keep spinning and so much to deal with I managed to finish the Pro-am season with 3rd place after only competing 4 out of 6 rounds and was proud to say of these 4 events I managed 3 1st place finishes.
2022 SEASON
Sat in 3RD after 6 rounds
Round 3 Brands hatch 2nd
RD5 Oulton park 2nd
RD6 Donnington 1st
LZ fest came 2ND after fuel problems on the last battle and the car was shown in front of 30k people over the weekend and on live stream for the rest of the world from a celebrity YouTuber (biggest drift event ever)
2022 SEASON
1st round - knocked out of top 16 due to getting to know the car and new set up coming up against a procharged V8 which left me up the hill while i was in 2nd gear and should have been 1st to keep up with his instant power and i had to wait for boost.
2nd round Qualified 2nd but knocking myself out for going to aggressive and knocking myself out of top 8 against Oliver Evans and getting myself caught up but knew had to push hard against one of the best. Getting to grips with the car.
3rd round Brands Hatch qualified mid pack 9th and then ended up on the 2nd step of the podium after a close battle with Oliver Evans. But a good day in the office.
4th round Brands Hatch knocked myself out of top 16 by running wide in the corner and leaving the track to go lawn mowing. My own fault
5th round Oulton Park ended up finishing 2nd again against Oliver Evans
6th round Donnington Park. qualified 6th with a 89 point run and managed to take top step on the podium after a hard day in blistering heat where the car was seeing over 70 degree intake air temps which was pulling timing and making the car slower but it pulled through and took us to win the final.
LZ Fest went to LZ fest Ireland for the first time over seas with the car and managed to take 2nd place. Blocked fuel filter in the final forced a ECU safety trigger costing me the win but so pleased to get on podium against some of Irish.
7th round Brands Hatch - qualified 1st and after the judges taking the time out to say they recon with the driving I was doing I was their pick to win the day we had to go a make it true and after battling on with Britons best we managed to take him down and secure top spot on that podium once again
8th round, the final after torrential rain all day we won our top 16 battle and then came up against Martin Richards again after taking him down in round 7 he came back with vengeance and after a few mistakes by both judges deemed Martin to go through knocking me out of competition but after not driving in the wet for so long took a lot of adjusting to get to grips with floating around on a wet circuit.
After the full 8 round we took 2nd place over all after an average season and now going to push harder this year 2023 to take top step at the end of the year
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
2018 first competitive Season:
Drift Cup Second round placed 8th due to a broken differential carrier but was enough to let us go try out the British Drift Championship
BDC - PRO am Round 2: Had to qualify to gain licence, after sheering a prop shaft we welded it together and qualified 8th with no practice and a single qualifying run. After going into battles the rear CV shattered from the prop twisting previously breaking the casing but was happy to gain my licence.
Round 4 Pro-Am: Qualified 1st and came 2nd overall due to sync-rho failure in the gearbox else a strong chance of finishing first, it just was not meant to be this time but having a stand on the podium was definitely one to remember.
Round 4 PRO: As I finished in the top 4 of the Pro-Am class the day before, I was given the opportunity to compete in the pro class. I came 6th came up against Duane Mceever who has won the Irish drift championship 3 times so a hard contender. My car was out paced at the time but we gave it our all.
2019 season:
BDC Pro-am Round 1: 1st place finish
Round 2 and 3: The engine was out of the car due to mechanical failure at Silverstone and needed a new head fitting to the car. Due to this, I used my spare car. This car was not set up properly for competitive drifting and is mainly used for shows and events.
Round 4: 1st place
Round 5: 1st place
Final round: Knocked out top 32 due to judges missing lead car dropping wheels covering my screen in water which wasn't safe to carry on as wipers were not on. I managed managed to take a joint 3rd over all in the championship which I was thrilled with due to the issues that I had come across during the season,
I strongly believe if the car hadn't of dropped a valve I think I could have took 1st with a considerable lead. The car is now pretty much bullet proof and ready to take a gold at every possible opportunity!
CONTACT
