CLIPPING POINT: The story of local James Deane

A new documentary film featuring drift driver and Castletownroche native James Deane, has been released.

Titled ‘Clipping Point’, filming began in 2019 as James and his team prepared to win the Formula Drift Championship for the third time in a row. Their win made James the first ever driver in the sport’s history to pull off a 3-peat - a win of three consecutive championships.

With the win in the bag, the film was due to wrap there. However as 2020 brought with it Covid-19, it also brought a shock for the Formula D champion as his team, the Worthouse Drift team, announced they would be withdrawing from the 2020 season and Mr Deane would no longer be driving with them.

Speaking with TheAvondhu, James appreciates that 2020 did not pan out the way he anticipated.

“How does a guy who wins the championship three times in a row suddenly have no team to drive for? It seemed like we were on cloud nine in 2019, and then we went to the team splitting up. None of us saw it coming. It was definitely a hard time in my career. We were scratching our heads and thinking, what’ll we do next?’”

The film, undertaken by UK based filmmaker Josh Allen, follows not only the 2019 season win, but also the driver’s subsequent move to the Russian AIMOL Drift Team, participation in the Russian Drift Series, and a little bit of history.

“My dad and my uncle used to rally back in their day in the 1970s and ‘80s. The film covers them, and some of the stories of motorsport in my family. Then it’s about my own story, and how I stumbled into drifting, and it covers my career so far.”

After winning the Drift Championship three times, James had to find a new team, and ended up in Russia, something completely unforeseen when filming began in 2019.

“At the time of filming we had no idea that team would break apart. We planned on finishing it in 2019, but then Covid came, so he decided to keep it going and see where it goes. It features something we were all very surprised by!”

“The film deals with me being the first driver to try to win that championship three times in a row, a ‘three-peat’. We had won it in 2017 and 2018, and then the challenges of trying to win it the third time consecutively. Then goes into 2020, and the team I was driving for pulled out because of Covid, so just a weird time going through and driving for a new team in Russia, and taking on a new world championship.”

“Really, it goes through the highs and lows of my career and finished on a high!”

The film not only features James, but also near neighbour Jack Shanahan from Killavullen, the current championship title holder of the Russian Drift Series GP 2021 and brother Conor Shanahan, who is a regular winner on the British and European drift stage.

WHAT’S AHEAD?

The three Cork lads travelled to Scotland last weekend for training at Driftland outside Edinburgh, a handy trip as James notes the return flights are so cheap as to make it more effective than travelling to Mondello Park!

The next few weeks will now be spent preparing the car for the next season, and getting general fitness levels up.

“At the moment, our car that we are competing in Russia with is expected back in Ireland this week. So we’ll be stripping and rebuilding over the next 10 weeks and then it’ll be shipped back to Russia. Training consists of getting the fitness back, and more seat time - the more time you spend behind the wheel, the sharper your control.”

“With the film, there’s a lot of people after watching it, and we’ve got a lot of good feedback and people tell me they’re loving it.”

Clipping Point is available to rent or buy at vimeo.com