After all that working preparing my car for the drift event, my sileighty feels GREAT! My new exhaust manifold gave me such a horsepower and torque improvement throughout all the rpms… The turbo spools up earlier, quicker, and harder (and my blowoff valve sounds good!) Anyway, the day started out kinda weird… me and Nadine woke up late, and on the way to the event, one of my radiator hoses decided to bust and let out ALL of my coolant all over the freeway. Luckily Nads notified me of this right in front of a Nissan dealer… so we pulled in and got charged too much money (Nadine says, “make sure you say we got raped”) for a new hose, coolant, and some other junk. We changed my hoses right there in the parking lot and the poor janitor had to clean up all the coolant when I was done. So we finally arrived at the track a little over an hour late and as we were setting up, some guy decided to smash his new s2000 into the pit lane wall. There was a driver’s meeting shortly after reminding everybody of the rules and telling people to use their heads… and the track was shut down for over an hour. Then I finally got onto the track with my baby in the passenger seat… I was a little rusty on my first few laps, but I was determined to get that right hander in front of all the spectators before I went home that day. So on my third lap, I got it… I pushed the weight of the car to the left and I tapped the brakes and the handbrake. Immediately the car slid out to the far left and with some throttle, I was able to get it near full countersteer. The screetching of the tires sounded so good to me… I heard Nadine yay’ing me in the car and the crowd let out a big “woah” sound. I saw a bunch of camera flashes as I made it all the way around the turn… then I went in the dirt. Haha. But it’s okay! Because I knew exactly where my drift was going to stop so I kind of meant it to go there. Anyway, I was very happy. Then Nadine’s run group was out on the track… and it started to rain. I was a little scared at first, because this was her first time driving on a road race course… but then I remembered after a few laps that Nadine is a good driver… So as we were out there, she started to experience power sliding like she never has before… and it was pretty fun. She learned to feel for when the car was about to break loose and how to control it when it did. She did REALLY well, and I’m so happy that she’s been learning so much. Maybe she’ll want an LSD one day so we can go drifting together. That was Nadine’s first and last run of the day… she was pretty nervous while she was on the track. If I were her, I’d have been too. So then I went out a couple more times on the wet track… I was nervous, but everything was great. Drifting in the rain is like drifting in slow motion… I can enter turns at slower speeds but drifting at the same angles as when it’s dry… inputs of the car are more sensitive – braking drift, side brake, and weight transfer. The bad thing about the rain is that you don’t get to hear that satisfying tire squealing that you would hear in the dry. Anyway, I had a good day… I got a few thumbs ups, I got to see my friends, I got to spend a crazy abnormal day with my love, and I learned a lot… AND I got that stupid right hander, and I got it good. And in the end… my car still runs really good, and I’m happy that I was forced to get my car in good running condition. See you guys at the next event!