So friday was the day I Brian taught me how to repair (read not make perfect) fiberglass body kits. In the past I had only used zip ties and duct tape, and that worked fine. All I can say is this... I was never itchy for days when repairing with zip ties and duct tape.
So I also had this knocking noise coming out of the rear end of my car. I knew I had destroyed an axle at vegasdrift rd. 4, but I didn't know I destroyed my diff too. I broke the welds on the spider gears, and 6 teeth off of the pinion gear!!! Great work Dan...
Also the drain plug looked like my hair.
Cracked welds, and metal chunks... mmmmm mmmmm good. This sucker lasted 4 years of hard abuse!
The fresher diff.
We needed to apply some tow hooks to the whip, so Brian set out to bend some pipe and weld it on to some other things that attached to the car. Technical, I know.
We attached a strap and I now have a rear tow strap. All I need now is some stickers that say "Here is the strap that is sticking out of the rear bumper, it is a tow strap and should be used as such".
My first time judging in a long long while was a great experience. This event set itself apart from all others, and the NM drift scene seems to be picking itself up off the floor. Lets keep all of our events this fun from now on... KTHXBYE.
Congrats to Andy Barrow for taking 1st, Anthony Ciocca for taking 2nd and Jeff Osborne for taking 3rd. Dave, I love you you are extra rad :)
Quick video I made from Daniel Quanz's Contour HD (Thanks again by the way)
Yet another great event in the books from the crew over at Justdrift. Congrats to Ryan Clemens, Steffan Moy and Ryan Bell for rounding out the top 3! It wasn't the fastest or most technical track out there, but it was extra fun and was the first time I have ever driven an oval with a wall at the top of it. Talk about a great learning experience. Huge thanks go out to Dave and Allen for the help this weekend, couldn't have done it without you. I'm getting ahead of my self, so on to the happenings of the weekend.
3:30am, ready to meet Dave and Allen at Car Crafters to pick up the trailer and head out on the 13+ hour drive to Cali. We spool up the F350 and head on out. 3 double doubles later we are leaving Kingman, AZ and I forget to get diesel (was hopped up on in n out).
I ask Dave to google how far barstow was from our current location, 85 miles. The distance to empty on the truck is reading 58. Oops. We slow down to like 35mph, turn off the AC and coast down every hill I could find. The DTE drops down to 10, then 7, 2, 1, 0... Nothing in sight. We ride 0 miles to empty for around 8 miles, and finally see a gas station over the hill we'd just climbed. We coast all the way down, and all the way to the pump.
At first Dave was like: Then he lol'd:
We make it to the hotel, eat and crash out. Cool story bro.
On to the event:
Home base - We pitted next to Ryan Bell, Matt Field and Daniel Chow and pretty much made the most rad/boss/badass pit ever known to pro-am. Many nutty buddies were consumed. Made for good times all day and night.
Just look at that tiny block of shade he is sitting in.
Everyone gets settled in and the drivers meeting starts a bit late. Charlie proceded to scare everyone by letting us know someone had died on this track earlier this week. Thanks Charlie!
Now that the mood was set the judges laid out how they wanted us driving the course. Somewhat similar to this crappy recreation I made in photochop.
They explained it as a mini irwindale, and it looked pretty damn fun. Well, it was.
As stated above, this is the first time I have ever drifted near a wall around a bank. I use the term near loosely as I was far from near to it lol (does that even make sense? I didn't think so). I learned a ton, and the experience alone was worth the trip out. I get quite a bit of practice runs in before qualifying and am feeling ok.
Ryan Bell was in full destroy mode all damn day and night. So rad to watch him drive.
Steffan was making so much damn smoke, and drove amazing.
Qualifying:
Everyone seemed to have the track down solid, so it was going to be a tough battle to see who would move on.
We change tires to a fresh set, and I head out to qualify. First run I enter too early with not enough speed, and ride the inside line (read shitty line) on the first outer clip. I transition and I end up high on the wall like I'd been trying to do all day for clip number 2. If only I could do them both at once.
I manage to complete the rest of my runs, and felt pretty good about qualifying. I ended up qualified 8th, so I was pretty happy with that.
I got pitted up against Carlos Cano in his F20c powered AE86.
My lead run went pretty well, I was high(er) on the walls than I was before, but I was sloppy in my transitions in the infield.
Vid of lead run:
My following run was another great learning experience, and I need to learn to be more aggressive by far. Not straightening out might help as well.
Vid of following run:
On that run I also had my first wall tap. Well, more of a wall hit, but it didn't make me bobble or wreck so im counting it. You can see it wasn't just a tap evidenced by my tail light falling out in the infield lol.
Carlos is one hell of a driver, and in the end he moved on to the great 8. I made quite a few mistakes while following (not aggressive and off line, not to mention I straightened for no damn reason) and he was super consistant.
Everyone drove like serious badasses, and I had such a great time. Big thanks to Mike Bolanos for the positive words of encouragement. You make the events kick much ass good sir!
Random pics:
Tyler Wolfson almost completed an entire event without something weird happening to the car, and is always killing it. Plus, he is repping a driftexchange.com sticker on his ride. What a badass.
After the event, we went to some horrible casino and had the worst service known to man. I left the waiter the first .2c tip in my entire life, and did not feel bad about it in the least. We crashed out, had some amazing mexican food the next day, and set out on the 13+ hour journey home.
Awesome driving with everyone yet again, see you for round 4!
So, I have been kicking this idea around in my head for quite some time. Here are the reasons behind this project.
1) I normally go to an automotive forum to browse the classifieds... I'm sure a lot of you do the same. I wanted a place to go where I didn't have to sift through a ton of BS to get to the good stuff.
2) Not all of us drift the same type of car.There are tons of car forums out there that have to do with a specific make, but none of those allow users of different makes find parts easily. I want this to be a one stop shop for users to find parts for their drift cars easily and quickly.
Get a new car but a different make? No need to join another forum once you register here, just pop into the different makes sub forum!
3) Eventually, with enough member and vendor support, my goal is to begin sponsoring amateur drifters, giving them the assistance they need to attend pro-am level events.
So, please, check it out http://www.driftexchange.com
I also got bored and decided to make (read re-skin) this pixelcar s13, to match my current livery. I like!!
First off, a huge thank you goes out Jim Guthrie and Brian Dewitt from Car Crafters and Guthrie Racing for making this weekend a possibility for me, without the support from the team (including borrowing a truck and trailer) I wouldn't be able to do any of these events, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Another shout goes to Erin over at Pulstar plugs for hooking it up with a set of copper 2 stage colder test plugs (which performed flawlessly by the way) :)
Last but not least, a gigantic thanks to Ed and Santiago for trekking out to vegas with me and helping out. Couldn't have done it without you guys :)
The Trip
Now, on to the weekend put on by Nick Dizon and all the crew at VegasDrift!
We left albuquerque almost 3 hours later than planned and didn't arrive at the hotel until 1:30am, so we did what any right minded person would do. We went out, drank and got crazy until 5am, only then deciding that sleep might be a good idea for the day ahead.
Peeling ourselves out of bed at 11am the next day wasn't much fun having gone to bed just a few hours ealier, but we were all excited for the days slidey wagon competition. We headed out to a gas station to fill up on 100 octane (<3 you for that Vegas), and blasted down the hiway to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and set up camp in the pits.
Random filler snap from Kyle Pope, at some point during my qualifying run.
The Event
It was pretty hot, but not anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Thanks to eds tireless efforts with the water sprayer the car never got over 215 degrees (Thats a first).
The course was super fun, combining high speeds with a transition to very low speed, then back out to high speed again. This made for some much needed easier to learn tandem practice with tons of epic drivers. There was 4 hours (minus time spent waiting for the carnage to be cleared up) of open practice to get a feel for the course. Quick rundown of the course:
3rd gear entry, outside near the wall, aiming for the tires surrounding one of the light poles, then heading out towards the wall for the first outer clip. If you were wide enough, you would transition right before the next front clip, slowing the car down almost to a stop to complete a full 360 degree donut around another light pole, staying as inside as possible. It was back on the throttle after that to another outside clip on the wall, to another outside clip on the wall, then out to finish.
And a vid for reference:
Sadly the course had its way with more than a few drivers, and sent some cars home (I somehow managed not to hit any walls this time Brian). I think there were 3 bad wrecks and a few more fender benders over the course of practice.
Qualifying time
I laid down a pretty crappy first run, and i'll leave it at that (my camera didn't record anything past practice, so sadly I dont have any vids of the good stuff). 2nd run and I had a decent line, nothing super aggressive, decently close to the walls. I hit the clips and stayed inside on the donut section. A run that would get me qualified 11th out of the 32 registered drivers. Super stoked to make the show!!!!
I lol'd when Nick announced my name. I think a total of 4 people clapped, and Mix yelled hooray!
Top 16
I was pitted up against Alex Villebrille in the top 16. Super rad guy, and awesome driver. (photo by Kyle Pope)
I followed first and have to admit, did a horrible job of doing so. For the first time that I can remember, I yanked my ebrake without pushing the clutch in, stalling the car out, then dumping the clutch to get it started again. Needless to say, it was not my best driving, but it was awesome practice. Alex had a super clean run so I really needed to step things up.
For my lead run I had a decent run (nothing amazing like I was looking for), went wide on the donut, and was off line for the rest of the course. Sadly Alex had spun out entering into the donut section, then upon exiting the course, blew his motor :(
I got the win due to the spin, and moved on to my first ever great 8!!
Great 8
For my great 8 battle, I was paired up with another amazing driver by the name of Mauricio Ornelas. This guy seriously rips hard, and is super consistant, so it was an honor to get to drive with him. Coincidentally, he and I had an amazing run in practice resulting in this epic photo by Kyle Pope:
I was set to follow for my first run, and straightened a few times and got all around beat up lol. My lead run was decent until i decided it would be a good idea to swing wide enough around the donut to get passed on the inside cleanly by Mauricio, sealing my fate and ending my run for the podium. Congrats to him for battling his way to 3rd place!
I took my place back in the pits, stoked to have been able to drive with such rad people and watched the rest of the guys absolutely destroy the course. Congrats again to the top 4!
1st – Mike Burns (Retaks “Insane Entry” Award)
2nd – Brandon Patterson
3rd – Mauricio Ornelas
4th – George Marstanovic (#1 qualifier run)
All in all another epic event, met some great new people and got to drive with some of the best drivers in the southwest.
So, for those that don't know, Larry Chen (driftfotos.com) takes some of the best damn pictures you've ever seen. Plus, he's a rad guy in general. He changes the homepage image up when he features a new event, and I was lucky enough to be that shot :). Super stoked on that.
Check it!
So that was pretty rad.
I also painted my wheels because time attack coloring makes me vomit. 5 easy steps to hot nasty wheel coloring.
1. Scuff.
2. Clean (No picture because thats boring)
3. Primer
4. Apply generous coats of Montana Gold Blaze Yellow spraypaint (flat color). Don't bother masking because tires are garbage.
Step 5. Apply UV clear coat (only legit part of this whole job)
