I had a few minor things to do to my car for it to run properly, but since we were early... it was no sweat. Also, something new i was implimenting in our program today was a check list. everyone who knows me knows i get scatter brained, and end up forgetting alot, and just totally ignoring a few things that i shouldnt when it comes down to competition. so in my more calm thinking times i developed a check list of the important things to focus on tho be consistent thruout the day.
this checklist consisted of task/duties that were important for practice, qualify, then finally battle, if we made it that far.... this had given everyone something to do, and honestly, today my team proved vital to my success... soon as we got the car off the trailer we were at it. changing fuel filters, changing wheels and tires, setting all the air pressures, shit even cleaning the car.
since today was the final round, and i wasnt in any position to go in the points chase, i was just carefree and chillin... after tha last round i felt i got out strategized by another driver, i also felt i have been letting my whole team down and decided to do something about it. typically our drives home consist of alot of wtf's.... simply because my whole crew and family KNOW my performance capabilities, but for what ever reason i never put it together as i do in other venues. i realized the reason why.... everywhere else i am having fun, so why not here? my simple idea was to just not give a shit... not care about what whoever thought about whatever, not to care about the guy i was lining up against, not to give a shit about a image, not to even care to much about filming or taking pictures. today i just didnt care. it was all about wilding out, and having fun... so thats what we did.
joe and I along with my cousin who was my active crew manager today rolled into the drivers meeting. we're in there cracking jokes, playing top gun soundboards, and generally being loney. LifeBlaster photographer, and lab17 owner Andrew Bohan (whose photos i am going to use since i didnt take any from this day) caught a glimpse of us acting stupid... this was in the middle of a Andrew WK impersination.
(reference)
the crew and i have been going at this joke since summer jam... it was pretty funny that bohan cought that.
after we all understood what the judges would be looking for, we took off to go have some fun! we get back to the pit and the car is done coming off the jacks its set and ready to go.
we did quite a bit of prep, so i was just able to focus on driving. joe and i go out and play with tandems all morning as usual. initially where they set the starting cone was PERFECT!!! it was drag launch full throttle up to 3rd where i went for initiation. i literally did no lift shifts to a 3rd gear clutch kick... hella speed, and got very comfortable with how i was initiating. for some reason, the people that mattered decided to move the starting line back about 150 feet. i dont really know the reason, but i immediately knew it was going to be weird now, because i was so used to full throttle entries. ofcourse my first run would warrant an off track experience, lol. i just had FAR too much speed, but understanding why they did this about 3 runs in, it allows you to have more speed to get to that rear clipping zone, but for me the problem was that the rear of my car is slightly heavier than the front of my car, and for soooo long J P. was telling me this was a problem, i never really thought about it till now. the only issue i was having with this course was that i toss the car pretty hard, and that little bit of extra weight in the back would rotate the car too fast and i would either compensate to correct it and come up hella short and go over the inner clip, or i would let it sail out, and back off track, so i had to figure it out.
after i got it, joe and i had some pretty cool runs.
i have this weird problem with wanting to only hear full throttle initiations, i figured out how i could pacify myself on this issue, plus give myself the perfect entry speed.... other wise if i REALLY went full throttle from the new start point, i would just sail off the track like many of the other competitors. my solution was to launch with some wheel spin, then short shift to second prematurely, then shift around 6k to 3rd... this would give the sound that made me comfortable with my approach, later on, it would also give my competitors the idea they were faster than me lol, but i have nothing to prove on acceleration at this point.
i went on a few solo runs so i could dial in a comfortable line and just get solid on what i needed to do for qualify.
i come in to check tire pressures and change to my heavily modified hood so i can let out some of those engine temperatures lol. the engine was staying around 189 degrees, 205 tops... the radiator was 165 degrees, but damn.. the turbo was 670 - 740 degrees. no arguement there, not even from my cousin.. hood went on. engine temps dropped considerably, from 110/120 celcius to 90/100 celcius during hard pulls.
my passenger rear tire was set to 36psi where my driver side was set to 40psi, but after coming in from a few runs air pressure rises 9psi on the passenger side, and 3psi on my side. we stayed diligent on this, because i wanted to have a standard of grip so my body and mind could get solid runs in a controlled environment.
i got some chill time in while they cleared the track of all the run off dirt, and by this time the handy man julio showed up with everything i didnt think of. including this AWESOME contraption.
once qualifying started, i didnt do to well in qualifying simply because i didnt try to do a major fantastic entry and what not. i just wanted some points, and used this as a high stress practice run. but atleast i did exactly the same as i had been doing all day, lol... finally some consistency. my qualifying position will place me in the top 16 battle vs. gabe stone, this person was currently in 2nd place in the championship. this required a little bit of strategy, nothing major, but just some consideration. first run he leads and went off line.. i was trying to follow close, so when he went off line i thought he was going way off track, so i just hugged the inside and aimed passed him... it looked like he was coming back on track and i just figured F'it if he hits me he hits me.. but i floored it, and kinda B'lined thru the clip, and slightly over rotated to a stop. might not have been so close outside the car, but it looked kinda scary in the driver seat. my lead run, my cousin comes over the radio... "if you fuck up, you're just eleminating yourself, because he already fucked up" so i knew to just run my pace and get thru the course. i went a little fast and dipped my rear wheel in a bad spot on the dirt that transitioned to a lip back on pavement... BANG. definitely thought i broke my wheel, the car was jumping and wobbling around like crazy. so i blast to the pits, i hear "OMT" on the radio, but i thought i needed to change the wheel, when i got to the pits i saw it was just an entire sand box in my rim... so i drove back out shaking off the dirt, were back in action. the omt went without a hitch. dude went off the track again, and my lead i just went solid... he tried to pressure me, but i just ran my own line and didnt worry bout it.
next run was going to be a interesting one... i never watched this driver, so i dunno what his attributes were, or were not. i just knew he had more power to weight than i had... his lead run i stuck to his bumper up to initiation. i stuck on the transition where i knew i could swing the last clip wide, and boy oh boy am i glad i did that.
look at my positioning, and look at his... he is super deep in the transition zone....
as i am transitioning wide... he starts straight lining.
he soon followed this up with a nice healthy spin out... and since i gave him spacing on the 2nd clip i had enough to modify and sail wide on him and drift around his mistake. we pull to the line for my lead run, my cousin says on the radio... "you have advantage, you know what to do..." i ran a calm lead run, and made a safe pass close to my qualifying line... my car was kindof feeling the stress from all this grip i had and i just took it a bit easy, but his fate was sealed with his own mistake.
next battle was with one of the homies... the tallest dude to do it, julian jacobs. julian and i RARELY go on a few runs together, but when we do it's usually some rad stuff. this one tho', this was the first time i lined up along side julian in a competition sense... kind of intimidating, but exciting at the same time. my car is getting rougher to get into gear, but julian said he was also having some issues with the car, so it was just what ever. were off.
solid run on the first one. i did my best to stick to julians line and keep as close as i was comfortable doing. he said he was down on power, so i didnt want to be too close and foul up my run. somehow, close to the end of the run....
damn! i havent seen ju spin in quite a while.
i just figured julian was gonna be on my fender the whole run for my lead, so i wanted to make a good highlight reel if we were being filmed, so i initiated deep.
after initiation i dropped down to 2nd gear and the tranmission was hopping around the entire run, after the tansition i extended, then dumped a clutchkick... something happened. my shift knob flew to the roof of the car, and i popped outta gear. this aint the dude you want to do that with because he will give you a fresh coat of paint, and a good dent... so i frantically tried to get back to second gear, but it just wassnt happening, so i went to first and peg'd it. i kept drifting, but lost sooo much speed it messed julian up a bit, AND he grazed the back of my car. fuck! i messed up a good run, well not me exactly, but you get it... OMT.
i really focused up for the second set, i dont even totally remember what happened, i just knew i couldnt make a mistake because the car was in such bad shape, AND i couldnt afford to make a mistake, or go another round. nothing spectacular happend, just good clean drifting... and i moved on.
my car had been running or idling the entire time.. and we had a lengtly pause waiting on adam swan to get back to the line and handle his battle. my teammate joe was sitting in the car with me, he ask if everything was cool... i told him, it runs fine, but something was telling me if it stopped it wouldnt start... well that hunch was correct. i was low on gas, and i had no more 2 stroke so i couldnt get fuel even if i wanted to. so i shut the car down to save fuel. adam comes up finally, makes his run, and i think fry's 510 had a hardship, so that left adam and i for the 1/2 battle.... i go to start the car, and uh... no bueno. no time to diagnose what the issue was, so joe hopped out and pushed me down the hill, bump start, and we line up.
car popped out of gear again, so i told the flagger to hold on... but it popped in just as easy as it popped out, so i figured fuck it.. lets go. i launch on the lead run, the car was sputtering and breaking up slightly... but i stay floored.
i ran a shallow line off of the second clip due to my newfound lack of power... but it still worked out, but my dumb ass went to continue dori down the straight, the sputtering kept happening and it made me spin, lol. wtf... i'm a ass for that one, because the judges clearly said, "if you continue to drift past the end, if you spin... you get a 0" guess i should have had some damn discipline.... :( arghh... growing pain.
my follow went fine beside the same ass sputtering...
altho i stayed close, it was over.. my lead run did me in, lol.
adam and i have lot of fun driving together at sonoma drift, so we went back infront of the judges stand to do a few celebratory donuts, lol... my car was HELLLLA sputtering by now, i just couldnt figure it out but that didnt keep me from punishing it for a few more rotations.
we pull up to the podium....
we get our trophy's, but julian not only gets his trophy, he gets his FD credentials!!!
now, this comp took really long, due to all the OMT's, and i had no time left to get to my son's first parent teacher night... now the reason i mention this is because... the ceremony always ends up with a nos shower, lol... how could i live with myself walking into a parent teacher night sopping wet in energy drink, so i playfully asked adam not to dowse me in the crap, but once we got up there.. we were all grinning and knew what was going to happen.
look at adam making sure he got me soaked, lol. hey, we only live once, and i could die tomorrow and would not have lived that experience ever again... might as well revel in it while i can. i never would have realized you could get so soaked with those little ass bottles.
needless to say, i missed my sons parent teacher night, but i did video chat with him on my way home and let him know how proud of him i was for being head of his class, and he also let me know i was the coolest for doing good drifting... so as a reward, he now owns my trophy.
just so you get a idea of the crap my car went thru, in my DgAF day... check it out.
OH... and yea, i figured out what the sputtering was...
this explained the weird power cutting that was happening. this shit was arcing on the bottom of the car, no wonder my tach was jumping around and i kept hearing some dragging when i got on the brakes.
now its the off season. i have a solid plan, subtle, but solid... and this should make the car very good looking, AND user friendly. i'm trying to come back with boost, and more ballz in this car.
thankyou to my sponsors, and supporters.
Thanx to:
Hotline Performance
5Zigen
Fatlace
AIT Racing
Performance Options
all my friends and family that rolled with my in my first year in competition drifting... thru the course of the year i dragged yall to 17+ events all over california. guess what tho'.... it aint over!!! we've got a few months to recoupe relax and get ready to hit em harder next year, god willing.
GET READY FOR NEXT YEAR... cause i will be different, and so will the competition i am bringing.
great read as always!
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