CHARLES Chen, chairman of the Jamaica Race Drivers Club (JRDC), was cautiously optimistic about the returns from the Seaboard Marine Total Drift Invasion held on the Labour Day weekend.

Chen was speaking at the JRDC prize giving held at KIG’s Spanish Town Rd showroom on Tuesday. He said traditionally Labour Day race meets have been a loss leader on their books for several years now, but the last meet looks “promising”.

“We haven’t had time to fully analyse everything, but from the looks of things it was a promising turnout,” he told Auto.

Chen added the club was also dealing with the short time between meets.

“When the meets are this close in the calendar, a month apart, it’s difficult to encourage patrons to come back,” he said.

He made no bones about the role the addition of the overseas drifters played in bucking the low attendance trend, especially in the face of the continued absence of the usual headline battle between Doug Gore and David Summerbell Jr.

“The drifting helped the event tremendously in bringing old and new fans. We already have calls to bring them back already. There was clearly a healthy appetite for something new in the market,” Chen explained.

The JRDC chairman confirmed that the Ter-Tech drift team has already been booked for August 2015. Nu-Gen Motorsportz, which partnered with the JRDC to bring Ter-Tech to the island, indicated that the next show will be even more spectacular.

“What people saw was a small part of the team. We’re going to bring as much of them as we can,” Kevin Chok of Nu-Gen Motorspotz said.

Chen also lauded the rule changes in bringing the racing closer, making it more exciting for the fans and competitors alike, as well as putting some fresh faces on the forefront. This was most prevalent at the prize giving, as the top four were a mix of old and new with Andre Anderson taking the lead in the overall championship as the only driver of the six last meet to score full points for a total of 64.

“Sticking to the plan,” Anderson said.

New were Vivian Mitchell top B29 and Thundersport 1 racer, and bikers Kyle Reynolds and Jason Campbell.

“The club has done a lot more for us this year, accommodating four motorbike races. For me, it was a good weekend on what was very nasty circuit, but there was strong competition making it exciting for the crowd. So I’m looking forward to the next meet,” Reynolds said.

Kevin Archer was the best of Bracket 45N while his compatriot Kayde Walker took B45T. Consistency was key for Cecil Munroe, netting him top B39 driver. Kirk Diaz claimed B35. Top Modified Production class one racer was Kishore Williams, with MP2 going to Sebastien Rae. Lincoy Small topped the MP4 table. Top class B rider was David Bell.