Last Sunday, my daughter was born. Welcome to the world, Elise. I love you with all my heart.
Browsing Posts published in February, 2008
Yeah, these are old. But it’s always fun watching “the greats” and looking at the differences in car and driving style.
Ueo. He is always concentrating on quick and precise direction changes. Watch how fast his hands are!
Kumakubo. Does he really need to kick the clutch so much? No… but this is drifting! Kick away!
Kazama. He looks very smooth and controlled in this video, to me, a sign of a very confident and calculated driver. Listen to his throttle during the direction changes… he lets off the accelerator, but not fully and only for a split second. You know he is coming in fast for the upcoming corner. At this course and these speeds, the longer you stay on the gas and sooner you get on it after lifting, the more likely you will go flying off course, where it is slippery and you will probably die.
Nomuken. Nomuken’s driving style is always scary looking to me. He looks like he’s fumbling around with the steering wheel and making a lot of corrections. I am sure that it’s just his style, but it makes me nervous! Watch his crazy shifting into the first corner… clutch kick in 3rd gear, and a split second later, upshift into 4th!
I’m sure a ton of you read blogs. How many of those blogs ever teach you anything?
Read this blog and school yourself!
Beyond the Dyno
So I was super happy to find out that my buddy Dai Yoshihara has joined teams with Rhys Millen for 2008. He’s going to be the pilot of the Pontiac GTO! This is really big news because Dai has been a part of the Pacific Rim Drift Team since he came to the USA and he’s always driven an S chassis – which in ways has made him the underdog because while other drivers were being factory sponsored with brand new 500+hp cars, Dai always stuck with the old school – the Nissan Silvia. It’s kind of bittersweet, because I loved watching Dai, Pac Rim, and the Silvia make huge successes together… but finding a title sponsor for 2008 was getting pretty tough for Dai and I’m so glad that instead of finding a sponsor while barely getting by, he finds a sponsor that can possibly take him to a #1 overall finish in 2008. Not that he needs a 550hp Pontiac GTO to do it… I think he’s an awesome driver and one of the best. It will just make it easier for him.
Good luck this year Dai. Give ’em hell!
When somebody writes about you on their blog, you are famous. When somebody who doesn’t even give a crap about cars or drifting writes about you on their blog, you are famouser!
Rob found this yahoo auction in Japan for an old Drift Tengoku magazine. I guess unlike here in the USA, these don’t go up for auction much in Japan. I guess because we are all super nerdy drift geeks who collect this stuff.
Anyway it’s the September 1996 issue with 2 EF civics drifting next to each other. I am sure this is what inspired Slide Squad Dave to paint his car in the same fashion and start sliding it around. Knowing that this issue is from 1996, I’m also fairly certain that it’s Hatakeyama who is driving one of them.
Seeing the magazine brings back a lot of great memories… going up to touge that time with Dave as he showed me what it’s like to fly sideways through a corner. Whenever I think back to it, the memory is kind of surreal. I’m not sure if it’s because of how blown away I was or because it’s like the memory of your first love, or if it’s just because it was was at night freezing with fog everywhere. Either way it was totally awesome and one of my favorite memories.
You know what’s cool? The thought that this magazine may have inspired Dave who in turn inspired me.
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