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Our Story

Our Story – The journey so far (Darren “Dmac” McNamara)

Darren 'D-Mac' McNamara is a professional drift driver and race engineer from Cork, Ireland.

1995 - 2002

Darren started his motorsport career in short oval racing at the age of 11 and went on to win multiple stock car championships over the coming years.

2000

In 2000, Darren’s passion for rear wheel drive cars started when he bought his first road car, a red Toyota Ae86 which he would daily drive to school. By 2005, Darren had converted his road going Ae86 into a SR20 powered drift car and started competing in professional drift events such as the Irish Prodrift series and D1 Great Britain. Darren would go on to win the Irish Prodrift series title in 2006. The Sr20 powered Ae86 can be seen in our Group-D museum.

2005

Darren launches his performance parts and fabrication shop MCNSPORT. With the increasing popularity of drifting in Ireland and the rarity of sourcing specialist performance parts, Darren wanted to use his experience of building a drift car to support others who wished to get into the sport of drifting.

2006

After a stellar performance in the 2006 Silverstone D1 Grand Prix exhibition match where Darren finished 8th out of 32 drivers, he was invited to compete at the 2006 D1 Grand Prix World Series in Irwindale, California. Once again, the 21 year old Darren out performed his piers and finished 5th in a grid of 32 world class international drivers.

2007

With his car still in California, Darren was invited to compete In the 2007 American Formula-D Championship with Team Falken Tire. After a difficult opening event in Long beach, Darren would go on to finish 2nd in Road Atlanta and win the 2007 Formula-D “Rookie of the year”

2008 – 2012

Darren debuts the 800 bhp V8 powered Sears/Falken Tire Saturn Sky nicknamed “the bullet”. 2008 was a development year but the Saturn Sky would go on to win multiple events and challenge for the 2010 & 2011 Formula-D championship. Unfortunately the car had a heavy accident at the opening round of the 2012 season at Long Beach California and was retired from competition.

2011

Darren builds the Need for Speed rotary powered Ae86 in partnership with Speedhunters and EA Games. Darren and fellow team Speedhunters drivers Freddie Aasbo and Mad Mike Whiddett would participate at select events across Europe including the Gatebil Festival. The Need for Speed Ae86 can be seen in our group-d museum and is immortalized in the Need for Speed Shift 2 computer game.

2012

Darren finally locates and purchases one of his dream cars, a Black Limited Toyota Corolla Ae86. Since owning his first Ae86 Darren has been trying to locate and own the iconic black limited. This Black Limited Toyota Ae86 can be seen in our Group-D museum.

2013 - 2014

For the 2013 Formula-D season Darren drove a freshly built 1250bhp V8 powered Nissan S14 obtaining multiple podiums and winning round 4 of the 2014 championship at Evergreen Speedway.

2014 – present

Darren debuts his Professional Drift Team program supporting the Ford RTR mustangs from Saudi Arabia.  In the coming years he would  support Sultan Al Qassimi in his BMW Eurofighter, Nissan S15 & Aston Martin Vantage. Followed by Bas Mul in his 2JZ powered BMW E46 & Ali Maksheed at the FIA Motorsport Games in Vallelunga, Italy.

 

2015 – present

2015 saw the launch of our Drift car rental program working with world class international drivers such as:  Forrest Wang, Chris Forsberg, Robbie Nishida, Alex Heilbrunn, Ahmed Daham, Dai Yoshihara, Matt Powers & Piotr Wiecek.

2016

Darren drives the iconic 1400bhp Nissan GTR, the Worlds fastest drift car at the Goodwood festival of speed. During the same year he would take Olympic gold medalist Chris Hoy for a passenger lap in the Nissan GTR.

2017 – present

Darren rebrands MCNSport to Group-D and launches Group-D at the Autosport International show, debuting the Audi Quattro S1 project. In the same year Group-D would move into its new and current premises.

 

2018

Group-D completes 2 high end drift projects with the 750bhp 2jz powered Group-D 240sx and the 650bhp LS7 Westlake Tyres Toyota GT86.

 

 

2019

The Group-D 240sx is shipped to the Middle East and competes at the Oman Oil International Drift Championship . Group-D would also travel to the Gatebil Festival supporting Pro driver Sultan Al Qassimi in his LS powered Aston Martin Vantage.

2020 – present

Group-D launches its performance parts range & maintenance services.