Wow… there is so much going on. There are a lot of things I can’t tell all of you yet, but it will all come out in a couple weeks. But pretty much, my world is being turned upside down. It’s not personal problems… it’s about drifting. Things are changing so quickly… we are all taking a huge step… and there’s no going back. For me, I’m overwhelmed by the opportunity, the lack of opportunity, politics, competition, the question of cost/dedication/purpose. I was asked this morning if I think I’m confident in my skills as a driver in comparison to others… this, to me, covers a broad range of “others” from beginners to D1 drivers. How do I answer that? Is there some sort of meter that defines your drifting skill from 0-100? I wish I could disclose the craziness that I’m going through right now, but if I did, it would upset a lot of people. For now, let me just tell you that I’m thinking about things that I never thought I would be (or should be) thinking about right now, and I’m going to be experiencing things that I never thought I would experience. I feel so awkward about things, I think that sometimes I’m jumping in over my head or setting myself up for drowning in unchartered waters. And to think… this is only a small portion of my life! I still have a girlfriend that I love so much, her daughter that teaches me things everyday, and a future that I’m trying to plan for… and a car that is sitting there broken! Wish me luck with coping with the stress… I’ll write again soon.
Well, it’s been a great 2003! It’s amazing how much change can happen in a single year… and as far as I know, it’s all been for the better. Drifting has gotten huge, I’ve made a ton of new friends, reacquainted myself with old ones… I’ve watched a lot of drivers grow, a lot of businesses grow, I’ve seen the import/drifting/driving scene grow. And although I often hear about bitterness towards corporate involvement in the drifting world, I think we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for them… also, without the support of Speedtrial USA and Drift Association, there would be no legal drifting, and no instructors to teach the next generation of drifters. I am so thankful for my sponsors, my friends, family, and most of all Nadine… for all of the support, honesty, encouragement, and friendship.
I am so excited to see what’s in store for us in 2004! Happy New Year, everybody!
So back to the NOPI event… after drifting the S14, I thought my day couldn’t get any better. Although I had been dying to get in the car with Asamoto all day long, I was still going to return home a very happy camper. So Nadine and I were packing up so that we could go home… and we went to say bye to our friends and went to say bye to Kumakubo, Asamoto, and Tanaka. Instead of just waving bye to us, Kumakubo interrupted his Japanese executive friend who was talking to him, and walked over to us. He asked us if we were leaving already, and he told us that he felt bad that he couldn’t give us a ride yet (he was obligated to give rides to his sponsors and their friends all day long). So he told us to wait a little bit, and he walked off and talked to one of the organizers of the event so that they can interrupt the schedule so that Team Orange could do another demo (so that Nadine and I could ride with Team Orange!). What a nice guy… Not to say that I’m anything like Kumakubo, but when I’m at events, I’m so busy that I constantly forget things and sometimes promise people help and I never get around to it… Kumakubo is tons better at drifting and is tons more popular than me, and he still took the time out for Nadine and I, who pretty much are nobodies to him. There’s no better way to describe the man, than with the example I just gave. He’s super nice, and I really look up to him for that.
Anyway, So I jumped into Asamoto’s car and Nadine jumped into Kumakubo’s K-Style truck. Tanaka was in front, Kumakubo behind him, and Asamoto was picking up the slack in the rear. They took off fast… Asamoto was super aggressive… and I guess he had to be, because he was at the same pace as Tanaka and Kumakubo. And then the drift started – Asamoto was going too fast… and I saw Kumakubo’s car getting a little too close and then BOOM Asamoto slammed on the main brakes and yanked hard on the side brake… his car fell back into place and even a little too far back (which is still about 10 times closer than I’ve ever been to another car while drifting) and he got back onto the accelerator hard. This brought him too close to Kumakubo’s car and the whole process started again. This went on for about 3 minutes and I’ve never been so nervous about crashing… I swear there was a couple of times that we barely missed crashing into the rear end of Kumakubo’s car… but then again, what do I know? I suck! It was amazing to be feel what I dreamed to experience after watching Kumakubo and Asamoto doing twin dori door-to-door in one of the final rounds of D1. It was interesting, because Asamoto was laughing out loud on several occasions, mostly when he almost hit Kumakubo, or when Kumakubo would turn his head to look out the window and Asamoto was coming straight for him. Needless to say, Kumakubo had a huge smile on his face as well. The best way for me to describe what it felt like is… violent, and barely hanging on to control.
And the end of that story leads into Drift Showoff 3 at Irwindale. At the beginning of the day, I was determined to have fun, which meant that I wanted to try using my sidebrake more, and hit the line that I thought was right. We got a couple of practice runs, and the competition was going to start. I thought about it for a while… and I didn’t do so well on my practice runs. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong, but I knew that my approach wasn’t quite there, and my line was off. I was going way too wide… and I thought I was entering the drift too fast. So I thought about it a while, trying to figure out what I was going to try and pull out of my butt, since I only had 2 laps to impress the judges enough to move onto the second round. I knew where I wanted my line to be, and I just needed to trace it. So I went out, and did OK on the first lap, and did a really quick assessment as to what just happened, so that I could adjust for the 2nd lap. And the 2nd lap wasn’t bad either. Both times I was close to tracing the line that I wanted, and far from going wide. So I was happy. And I moved onto the second round! Koguchi was judging that first round, and he said that although I wasn’t going as fast as I could have, I traced a perfect line. He scored me the highest score of that round, which also included 2 other drivers. I didn’t find this out until afterwards, but it made me really happy to find that out! The second round I continued to do that same, tweaking my line a little bit, but bogging after the apex. I should have got onto the accelerator sooner that I was, and that was causing the problem. Nadine yelled at me about that, so I told myself that if I moved on, that would be my focus. And I did move on to round 3… the top 8 drivers of the day. And I got on the accelerator sooner, however, never realized that I was entering too slow or too late. So I didn’t make it to the final 4. But I’ve got a great video taken from Marc of my final run of the day, where I get on the accelerator sooner. In this video, I initiated with the clutch, gave it some gas to approach the corner, and then was mostly off throttle, I was pulling the e-brake to change my angle, and as I approached the apex, I rev-matched and downshifted back into 2nd gear, and I got back on the throttle and continued to the next corner. For some strange reason, I felt a little unconfident about my tires, so if you listen, you can hear me let off the gas when i transfer to the drift to the right corner. Maybe it was me being overly cautious since I was in the latter rounds of the competition.
Here’s the video: My final run in the Top 8 round of Drift Showoff 3
I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. SEMA kept me busy and then when it was over, I got SICK and haven’t been able to do much but sleep. I promise to continue my story about NOPI and Drift Day 8 and now I have a story about Drift Day 9! But for now, before I go to sleep, here’s a quick announcement:
There are still open spaces for the Nissan Owners Festival on November 29, 2003!
We are donating proceeds to the Red Cross for our recent fire victims here in Southern California. So come have a good time while doing a good deed for those less fortunate than ourselves!
We will have games and contests, catered food, and prizes! And since we are sharing the event with Drift Association, there will be drifting there as well! I will be on hand all day to answer any drifting questions and maybe give a few rides.
For more information, go to www.socal240sx.org. Or to go straight to the registration page, go here: https://www.overboost.com/tickets_show.asp?id=1672&eid=209
Please come join us… it will be a fun day, and you will be doing a good thing, too! Please do me a huge favor and tell your friends about it… this is for a good cause!
I hope to see you all there! This is a big event for us (me and the people from socal240sx.org).
Well, I had a BUSY weekend! I was lucky enough to be invited by Mike Deford of Hyperfest to do demo driving at the NOPI drag championships on Saturday. It was my second event on the Yokohama ES100 and I was starting to get a really good feel for them. They last quite a bit longer than the performance tires that I’ve used in the past. They are a good compromise between grip and longevity and even price. I started to run a lower tire pressure that day, and it helped make up for the grip that I’m used to. The day was going by really well, and I had the chance to talk to Kumakubo and Asamoto with the help of Ken’s translations! Kumakubo told me something that I’ll never forget. He was giving me advice on what Americans need to learn next, when suddenly he told me to “Always drift with your smile. Some people here are too serious when they’re drifting. When you are drifting, you are supposed to be happy. Because when you are out there having fun, the spectators will see it and then they can have fun too.” Wow! That was the best thing I’ve heard ever. It’s such a simple concept, and I’ve agreed with him for the longest time. But to hear something like that come from one of the best D1 drivers I’ve ever seen… that’s great. And I’m Xtremely glad to know that at that level, it’s still about fun and loving the sport. On top of that, he was the nicest guy, and didn’t care that Nadine and I were nobodies. He was very nice to us and didn’t brush us off even though he was super busy all day at that event. I look up to Kumakubo more than ever. His attitude and skill level as a D1 driver are equally amazing.
Okay back to this weekend’s recap! I’m a lot more comfortable with the ES100 now, and I’ve learned that I can hold the gas a lot longer now before I have to let off, and I can get back onto the gas a lot earlier than I was able to before! It’s a good feeling, because I can go noticably faster and I can make my left to right or right to left transitions look way better and more agressive. I’m thinking that I should probably stay with the ES100, but I’m DYING to try to AVS Sports next! After that, I’ll see which I like better, and which is better for me when I’m drifting.
Towards the end of the day, RS-R let me drift their S14!! I was so excited… the car has a complete TOMEI engine, pushing 350hp to the wheels. But the biggest surprise was when I opened the door only to notice that the door sills were sparkling lime green!! It was like opening a treasure chest… It’s Hayashida’s D1 car disguised in RS-R red and white!!!! At that point, my heart started pounding and I couldn’t hold back my excitement. So with Nadine in the passenger seat, we went out, and I went through first… into 2nd and the torque curve was SO SMOOTH! Just as I realized that, the rear end stepped waaaay out! Haha! At this point, my hands were fumbling around with the 330mm Momo Race steering wheel as the car was flying through the course at double the speeds that my car was doing! It was amazing. The car didn’t require any of my regular “under powered” initiating techniques… just a quick toss of the steering wheel or a little more throttle and I was flying. And the Advan Neovas on all 4 wheels didn’t make it any harder either. A little too much throttle or going sideways a little too wildly was no problem because the tires started gripping a lot sooner than any of the tires that I’ve used before. I would just let off the throttle and let the tires correct, and then get back onto it! It was great. And I had a permanent smile on my face for about 3 hours straight after that. And now it’s time for me to end this journal entry because I’ve got things to do! Keep posted, I’ll finish about the details from this event, and I haven’t even talked about Sunday at Drift Day 8 yet!
Well Drift Showoff was today. It was AWESOME!!! The amount of talent out there today was amazing. People have improved SO much… there’s wasn’t a whole lot of spinning today, which is common of most events. Which surprised me, because it was also a decently high speed course. A lot of great guys advanced from 40 drivers to the top 16 and I’m so glad for them. You guys rocked!! As you might know, at D1 drivers search, I was really trying to get good speed. I feel like I did a pretty good job at that. Since then, I’ve realized that my line was lacking… so I’ve been really working on my line. Today, I think I did a good job and I’m really happy. I had some trouble in the morning figuring out what I was doing wrong, and once I figured out the line I was supposed to take it was so much fun. I started the drift towards the top of 3rd gear, and I would use my sidebrake to bring out the apex of my drift, since the turn had a late apex. It was so fun. I had a blast. I made it to the top 8 and I was so stoked because everybody in the top 8 were BAD ASS drivers! I mean, really. It was such an honor to be in the same ranks as those guys. One of my competition runs, I initiated a little too early for my speed and I ended up holding on for dear life to clear the inner barrier… and I made it, nicking the barrier only slightly. However, I forgot to look ahead because once I passed the barrier, I lost track of where I was and I spun. That pretty much took me out of the competition, because I think they were combining scores. But my 2nd run was dead on, I thought, and I hit the apex right where I wanted to, and I ran the exact line that I wanted to, although my line seemed to be different than almost everybody that day except for Taka. I’m so happy because I took the line and speed that I wanted to, and I figured out the course before I had to go home. Doing that made my day… Anyway, congrats to Daijiro and Hiro and Taka and even Rhys. You guys hauled ass out there, and I’m glad that you finally got your wins. It’s all about fun, people! Win or lose, fun will always make it worth it! Ask the guys from Florida!
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