USDrift Shootout (Formula Drift PRO/AM event) Dominion Raceway in Spotsylvania Virginia One weekend, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place get a PRO2 license!!!
Chapter 1
The start to our adventure I had to work Thursday evening until about 11:30pm. James, Stevie, my dog Arya and I left our town and started our 2.5 hour venture on the road. We had previously reserved a cheap hotel 1 minute away from the race track, allowing us to ensure an on time arrival Friday morning.
Chapter 2: Practice
ALL day Friday was practice. We were one of the first 5 people there, locking down a great spot for us with a great place to spectate. The event had an exciting road course, and we were eager to get our pit unloaded and set up. Tech was like nothing else I have ever been through! Ben did a great job following the rule book, going through every nook and cranny. It really felt like I was gearing up for a Formula Drift event! Being the 2nd car to be teched, the track was practically ours! I went out on my first run to warm up the tires. No drifting, just trying to understeer and oversteer on purpose to really warm up the tires. On turn 2, after the touch and go, I made the car have too much angle as I was aggressively steering. I made the rear tires go off track into the grass just a small amount. This is typically not a big deal, however the grass turned into a rumble strip and I smacked the left rear wheel into it, causing the rear rim to be damaged and debeaded the tire. Not what I was expecting on my first run (especially not drifting). Mildly embarrassed, I pulled off the track back to my pit to change the wheel and tire. Excited to go back out and not make a fool out of myself, I went out and did two more laps. I found that the steering seemed off. I could definitely tell the alignment was off and decided to come back to my pit. As you all know, Chris is the C in JAC Motorsports. He is also my head mechanic on the team. Unfortunately he was unable to get off work on Friday, so Jimmy and I had to assess the situation. Pitted next to us was Louis, and his mechanic Alan. We were fortunate that Alan offered to take a look at the car. He found out I had also damaged the left rear stock upper control arm, causing my alignment to be really off. We had a spare, and Alan replaced it for me while Louis was going through tech. I went back on track, and managed to progress throughout the rest of the morning. Around noon, the event explained that they would be changing the track layout. There were some potholes in the beginning of the track, that were getting bigger and bigger from us drifting on them. For the safety of the drivers, they decided to move the start line past the potholes. This also meant that the finish line would also be extended, making the new layout more challenging than the original. Practice ended at 6pm, and I felt very confident for the competition to start the following morning. Chris was lucky to get out of work a little early, and make it down to join us Unlike most drifting competitions, there was no qualifying! In order to determine who would battle who, qualifying was chosen at random. There were 40 drivers, and at the completion of practice, we had a drivers meeting. All the drivers circled around a table, which had 40 beer cans on it. On the bottom of every can was a number, ranging from 1-40. When they would call your name, you came up to the table and chose a beer. The number you received at the bottom of your beer was your qualifying number. It sounds like a silly way to do qualifying, but the majority of us drivers loved it! Not only was it completely fair, but it kicked off the festivities for an exciting night ahead.
Chapter 3: Competition
My first battle was against Douglas Santana in his baby blue BMW M3. His driving was on point, and I knew I had to give it all in my first run and lay a solid Lead run. After I Lead, it was no my turn to chase. I kept it tight, following his line perfectly, and at the 2nd to last turn, my throttle cable broke off my engine. I no longer had a gas pedal! Because of this mechanical failure, I was unable to continue drifting and could not complete the course, giving Doug the win. At this point, most drivers would be very mad. But I was actually not upset. I knew I had given Doug a good battle (prior to the cable breaking), and there was nothing anyone on my team could have done to prevent this. With Chris’s ingenuity, he was able to repair the existing cable and get the car ready for the next race.
This Shootout had a double elimination bracket. This meant that if you lost a battle, you would be put in the loser’s bracket and have a fighting chance to get back into the winner’s bracket. We waiting patiently to see who our next race would be against.
Our next battle was a fan favorite from Maryland, Douglas Lanciano. He drives a baby blue Nissan 240sx S14.5. He had graciously allowed all drifters at this event to use his tire machine throughout the day. We had drifted together many times prior to this competition, and I was excited to race with a friend! In this battle, I chased him first. As I applied the pressure during my chase, I thought that I might drift into him at the end of the widest turn. To prevent collision, I backed off to allow him to transition into the last turn of the track. Because of this, it made my chase run not look as well as others. I knew that I had to lay down a flawless Lead run to continue on. In my Lead run, at some point on the track Doug had also made a correction in his chase. This made the judges have no other choice but to call it OMT (one more time). That allowed both Doug and I to restart and battle again. However, at the completion of our battle, Doug’s car stalled and would not start back up. He had to be towed off track and asked for him competition 5 min time out. I waited out at the start line, hoping he would get his car fixed and back out on track so we could battle it out for our OMT. Unfortunately, Doug was unable to fix his car, giving me the win. This isn’t how I would have like it, but a win is a win and I was advancing on to the Top 16 of the loser’s bracket.
Thankfully, Stevie was keeping score, by watching every battle and filling out the bracket accordingly. She quickly let us know, it wasn’t even 15 mins before our next battle against Alex Jagger in his glittery purple 240sx s13! I Lead the first run, not running as wide on the long sweeper as I had normally been all day, but still completed the course with a solid lead run. When it was my turn to chase, Alex made a correction during his lead run. And for those of you who understand judging, judges look at Lead vs Lead, then Chase vs Chase. Since I didn’t have any corrections on my lead run, I got the win.
Moving on the Great 8 of the loser’s bracket, I was going up against another friend of mine, Xabier Arrieta in his gray BMW e30. We had pitted next to each other the past 2 days and couldn’t believe that we were about to battle it out for the Top 4! For me, when battling a friend, it doesn’t feel like a competition. Its just 2 buds, going out and having a killer time. I hopped into my car, went to start it to go to grid, and couldn’t believe what I had just felt with my left foot… My clutch pedal went straight to the floor and didn’t return back. I had blown a hydraulic clutch line coming out of the clutch master cylinder. In a panic, we got all hands on deck in attempts to fix this. I was asked to run to other drivers pits, asking if they had spare parts that might fix our issue. I was amazed how many drivers had completely stopped what they were doing in the pits, running over to the car spilling their beers, just to help us. By the time I had turned around, there was easily 20+ people at my car assisting in any way they could. Even though I was sad about this 2nd mechanical problem of the day, I was so happy to see everyone in the drifting community working together just to get me back out track! As the judges were calling my name to grid, we were forced to call our competition time out. The clock started ticking, and we had 5 mins to fix the car. While the judges were looking at the clock, they informed us when we had 30 seconds left, or we would have to forfeit. It was at that moment, we knew we wouldn’t get the car fixed. But we had a back up plan! Our car has a dog box transmission. This transmission does NOT require a clutch in order to shift through the gears. All I would have to do is start the car in gear and the car would run and drive. So I started the car in gear, drove to the start line, and shut off the car. Luckily I was the Lead driver. I informed the official at the line of my cars condition. He spoke with Xabier and he agreed to let me start the car in gear so I could race when the light turned green! When it was time to run, I attempted to start the car in 2nd (as I did in the pit area in order to get out to grid). As the motor was turning over, the car crawled inches forward, but never actually firing up. I had crawled almost an entire car length off the line over a series of 10 seconds. I saw Xabier inch up closer, supporting me as he knew when I would get it to fire up, we were going! But unfortunately, the car never started in gear. I had to forfeit the win to Xabier, and be pushed off the start line. When I pushed to the shoulder, I attempted to start it up one last time and it fired up first try.
Even after all this, I was still not upset. My only loses of the day were completely mechanical and had nothing to do with my driving. Both parts that failed on me had been on the car for years, never showing any wear or signs of failure. It was time to take that hot race suit off and cool off with a cold refreshing beer after a VERY long day of competition :)
We had Sunday as a funday to drift on track with our friends. We were able to fix the car Sunday morning and played till the end of the day. I cannot thank everyone enough for supporting us throughout this competition. It was amazing to see the team work amongst all the different drivers. This truly is an amazing sport and I cannot wait for the next Shootout competition with Midwest Drift Unionâ„¢ @ Kil-Kare Raceway, OH Sept 6-7th. Thank you to USDrift for putting on this PRO/AM competition series.
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