Irwindale Adventures

AfroMatt from Seattle took this video of Ian's first run against Takatori, which gave him a One More Time.

Ians One More Time at Irwindale from AfroDrift on Vimeo.

Today is the big event day. This is the day where we see if the engine can survive, and how far into the competition we can go. We are up against Sam Hübinette for the Top 32 round. We slept in today to ensure we were ready. As we were leaving the hotel, we saw a few wild animals. The first was this lizard at the side of the pool,

the second was a rooster named Pat. The hotel was full of crazy things, so we left as fast as possible.

When we arrived at the track, the first thing we wanted to do, is find out how Nikolay was on the repairs of his car. As we got there, he was just putting the final touches on the car, and getting ready to try it. Nikolay did a few practice runs, and was happy that it worked, sort of.

Meanwhile, Zack was chatting with the MotorMavens model, Tailyr Brianne Monette, who is a totally cool girl. Glad to see she is not all snobby.

During practice, Sam's engine caught fire, which was bad enough that Sam's crew had not enough time to repair it. Basically all fuel lines, wiring, and more needed to be replaced.

Sam was a champ and told us that we had the win. Here is Sam and Ian, after their run. :) 

As the night fell, the competition began. Ian did a single run, just to advance to the top 16. After that, we watched as the crowd introduction of the Top 16 took place. The place was sold out, and all eyes were on us, well, so it felt.

Here Ian and Matt Fields, the Fatlace drivers, are rolling out to the intro line, following the DA guys.

Ian kept his cool, now that he is in the Top 16, he is going to push the car, even if it breaks. Media was excited to see Ian there as well. Here Antonio from MotorMavens.com is taking shots as Ian is lined up with James Deane for the first round.

During the first run with James leading, Ian put the pressure on James on the big bank, which caused James Deane to push a bit too hard, and hit the wall. We were shocked, as we had been told that James is a machine, and does not make mistakes.

Matt from Evergreen Drift was there to take video of the Northwest drivers, and to share his reactions to the camera. We were then told after James Deane took his 5 minutes, that they could not repair the car, and we advanced to the Top 8. In this round we were pit against Michihiro Takatori.

During the first run, Ian drove as hard as he could, and the judges gave them a One More Time! As we were about to run the second run, the start guy noticed an oil leak. We took our 5 mins and emptied the overfull oil catch tank. Doing this in 5 minutes is harder than it seams. Trent even took the hot tank in bare hands to empty it, and the oil was engine hot. We got it back to the line with 30 secs to spare, and ran the second round. During this round, Takatori chased better than us, so he advanced. 

We were still very happy with the results. Top 8, with a One More Time. Now time to watch. Ian and Trent are here relaxing against the car after 3 days hard work.

After the event was over, we started to load up the truck and trailer, when Teddy, a passionate V8 hater came over and talked to us about his car, our car, and the movement he is passionate about. No V8's in cars that did not come with them in FD. He even had this big sign that was being held up during the event in the stands. Cool kid.

After leaving the venue we met up with the MotorMavens.com crew for some Thai food. Antonio is a food lover, and knows a lot of great places to eat that you would normally just drive by. 

As we all talked about the good times, Justin told us about JR sticking his rubber in his eye...

JR did what???

That caused the table to get hysterical with laughter. Antonio then suggested we stop by his storage unit / shop to unload his gear and chill there. We hung out enjoying the good times of good friends, and cool cars, like his all original 1973 "Mango" Corolla SR5, until around 3:30am. It was the perfect way to end that day. 

We slept in until 11am, and checked out. Zack was wearing a sweater, even without wearing anything. Man that boy is harry.

The car is looking a little worse for wear, and the exhaust has been flow adjusted, fun and games as we say, and that is drifting.

We headed for Hollywood to grab some lunch and see a few sights. While in traffic, a crazy lady pulled beside us, and eventually into us as we were in traffic. The lady who spoke NO ENGLISH, busted Trent's mirror. Damn. 

After some Fat Burger, we headed to Hollywood Blvd, and saw a sun bather at a resort...

WTF????

Now for tourist action.

Ian with Kermit The Frog...

and Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen. Zack decided to show Britney Spears his crotch...

We hit up the famous Chinese Theater,

which is where all the hand prints are located.

Then Trent found his unit had a star named just for it.

People were taking pictures of the car on the trailer, as if it was a famous Hollywood attraction. :)

After seeing the Hollywood sign, we headed home. During our first gas stop, we discovered that there are more drifting related food products available here, not just Beer. 

Tandem Ice Cream. Here is a triple tandem. Team Orange has nothing on this...

We continued on our journey North, and stopped for supper in Sacramento with Gabe, Gia, Kenny and Lillie from Techno Toy Tuning and GT Faction.

After enjoying some food, we had fun in Gia's Lotus. Here Ian and Trent are in the tight car. Trent in the passenger seat has to move his leg to allow Ian to shift gears. lol. Awesome.

Here is the gang of trouble makers that we met up with. These guys are great, and the stop made our night.

So did this. Pimp.

After many hours of driving, we were getting close to Portland, wearing shorts in this was not the best plan. We decided to get some drinks and have a Bathroom (Restroom for American's) break. 

When we went to leave, the truck would not start. It acted like a dead battery. We even tried to jump it. No luck. Ian climbed under the truck to hit the started while we tried to turn it over. While under the truck, he discovered the main power to the started had corroded and broken off, some time in the last few hours. Well the corrosion may have taken longer. Napa fortunately delivered a ring terminal and some shrink, so after about 2.5 hours we were back on the road.

We arrived in Canada without any problems, and went home. This trip was amazing and like every drift related trip, an adventure. 

Day Three started with us getting to the track at 7:30am to diagnose the engine, and see if we were confident enough to run it as it sat. After a few adjustments, including replacing the injector for the low cylinder, and adjusting the catch tank to not overflow oil, we did a few pulls down the drag strip. The air fuel ratio's looked good. So we went on to make some checks on the rest of the car before the day begins.

Having the car ready, we got in line to do a few practice runs before qualifying. Ian relaxed and got into the zone before a big day of driving.

Good friend Roland Gallager was behind us ready to rock the track as he normally does. Roland and family have always been a great help to our team at every event. Thanks guys.

After a few practice runs, and a few hours, it was time to qualify. We were the second car in the list to run, and run we did. The first run was solid, with a 60.3 score on the board.

Followed by another exciting run to round out his runs. We were happy with the runs, and felt we did our best considering the engine problems.

Ian took the rest of the qualifying rounds to watch his competition and talk with the media guys that are right at the track for info on his runs.

During the excitement, there was a DOUBLE HELICOPTER. OMG, We all started crying. It was almost a triple copter.

After the sun set, we went to the signing area, where all the fans at the qualifying day can get a signature from the drivers. Nikolay Konstantinov was excited to get Ian's signature for his very own...

and tried to find the best of his cards to give to Ian.

The night get better for us, and sad for others. We attended the drivers meeting, where we were told that Ian qualified 26th place, making him able to compete in the top 32 for the first time this season. Go out with a bang was the plan for this event, and we are trying to make that happen. After the meeting Nikolay went back on track in the extra practice that the top 32 are allowed that night, when he had an unfortunate accident.

We stayed for many hours helping, along with other team mechanics who jumped in to help fix his car. This was amazing, seeing so much help from teams that are competing against each other. 

Trent here is making sad faces with JOE from Motormavens.com, as we really could not help Nikolay as much as some others, but we were ready to step up when needed.

The night was long for us, and even longer for the guys that stayed all night. We left the track at 12:30am to get some supper, and sleep for the big event. 

We will see you later today. Be sure to watch the live stream. 

Day 2 started at 7:45am, blog updates, as well as getting ready for a busy day is the way of the drift. We hit up McDonalds for a breakfast without gravy, and hit the streets for Irwindale.

At the track, Ian did some checks to his car, and prepared for practice. We were eager to hit this track again, as it was last year that Ian won the ProAm Nationals at this same place. Now as a Pro, we wanted to see how well we compare to the competition at this level.

On the track, after a few safe runs, Ian really got a good handling of the track, and it showed run,

after run,

after run, well you get the point. His new alignment actually made his tires wear a lot better. Longer tire life means cheaper drifting, which means more events. Zack was using his iPhone 4 to film some of the runs, to allow Ian to see mistakes and adjust quickly.

Check the footage from the iPhone and his runs below.

 

After practice we met up with Mike and Ruslan from Seattle, showing their support, and we watched Walker and other Northwest guys practice for the ProAm that is taking place here at the same time.

 

Walker was doing well, and that was worthy of a pic. :)

We went back to our pits to discover an oil patch under the front bumper. It turned out to be from the catch can. Concerned by this, we did a compression test, only to discover that cylinder 5 had 95PSI compared to the 140PSI in all other cylinders. This is not good. With the equipment at Gardella Racing, we did a leak down, to see where the compression loss was from. Well the answer was rings. After calling a few places, we could not source a RB25 long block, and decided to see what it is like tomorrow. With that done, it was car wash time. 

We used shop towels, our intercooler sprayer, and some foaming soap from the restroom, and washed the car...

Ya, awesome. 

A clean car attracted some friends to come over to our tent and hang out. Yoshi from Motormavens.com, Mike, Ruslan, Zack, Ian and Trent joined hands and prayed for the car to make it into qualifying tomorrow. Well maybe not all those things, but we talked. 

These are the moments that will make you smile and cry at the same time. These moments are what makes drifting so worth it, the friends, the hardships, and the good times. Drifting.

Andy Luc, the Formula D operations manager stopped by to give us a hard time. Making Ian beg to have his license for next year... we all watched and laughed, as Ian did exactly the oposite. lol. It is great that we can just talk to managers for Formula D like friends, and be one of the boys in our first season. 

Food and Drink plans lead us to this fine restaurant with Tod and Justin Shreve, who contribute to Motormavens.com, for some fun times. We bumped into Conrad and gang from Hankook enjoying the same fine dining. 

The night ends with Ian attacking a sleeping, in his clothes, Nikolay Konstantinov, who is staying 2 doors down from us. He did not wake up. This is just the practice day. Tomorrow is a new adventure.

We are again on the road for a drift event, this time it is for the Formula Drift Finals in Irwindale, California coming up this weekend. We do our normal thing, and get on the road from Vancouver, BC late as always. We tried to leave on time, but like always there is a oops. This time we noticed last second that we forgot our jack. Mat saved the day and met us with his awesome new floor jack. What a great team mate.

We crossed into the USA around 7pm and started our journey, just to get into Seattle and unload the car. Well we had to get a last second wheel alignment because, at last second Ian discovered a dead inner tie rod. Chris Jeanneret at Car Nutz help us out by providing a late night straighten with the new parts. 

Chris used Car Nutz awesome photo alignment system and aligned Ian's car with his weight and gear to ensure a proper balance.

Oh ya, this place is NUTZ, this is our reaction to the cars in the lot where we were...

From Ferrari and Porsche, to everything in between. All fun sports cars. We did have a trailer, and thought we could exchange Ian's R32 for one, and American's would still think it is a rare sports car, but we were too eager to go, so said, next time. 

On this adventure, Zack Geng volunteered his time to help Trent and Ian on this trip. He was a blast to drive down with, even half asleep driving.

During the drive down we saw various weird things, a small RV had caught fire and burned to the ground on the freeway. We remember seeing the same RV and trailer, hours before, swerving on the road. Carma. Also Road Kill is the norm at night through any trip we take, but this one stood out, we saw a baby bear cub just destroyed on the road. Hmm. Sad but we still thought, that is weird.

We made it through the hills in Oregon and started in California, thought, it is time to rest. We stopped at the greatest rest stop ever. This place was amazingly clean. Zack and Trent used the facility, while Ian took a nap. Good times.

After an our of driving, and the group waking up, we thought, breakfast...

Ian and Zack decided on this delight from the menu at Carl's Jr., and from the picture, it looked alright. Well, here is the description:

Warm sausage gravy, smothered over scrambled eggs, sausage, ham, bacon bits, hash brown nuggets and shredded jack and cheddar cheeses, all wrapped in a warm flour tortilla. 

Not bad, but then Trent noticed the "gravy" part, and said no way. Well Ian AND Zack regretted that choice later. HAHAHA

We passed a few cool sights in the great state of California, one was this guy, who we dubbed, Willie Nelson. He looked like him, and rocked streamers and all.

At lunch just outside Sacramento, we ended up meeting Roland and Walker, at well Carl's Jr. AGAIN. Damn. They left hours before us, how did we catch up. Well Walker began to tell us how he was following this truck, and there was a Semi truck beside him, then all of a sudden, a small bear was hit by the truck in front of him. With no where to go and avoid, he too hit the bear. Blood, Guts and Fur covered the underside of the trailer, and then hit the car that was following them closely. Walker's trailer ended up being damaged, and that is how we were able to meet up. Didn't we see a small bear earlier... lol

America has embraced drifting 100%. Here they even have a beer for the drivers...

We pulled over as a group to make a pee stop, just before the Grape Vine, the crazy mountain we drive OVER to get into LA. This was an iteresting exit. There was garbage all over the place, including a pair of little girl underwear that Zack wanted to keep. lol not really but weird.

From one side of the pass in the sun / cloud mix, to the other in flash flood. It rained so hard, they said 3/4" in a few hours. Damn

We managed to make it to a cheap 50 dollar hotel, but as it is not even 1 star, Ian had to use the luxury linens to dry off. Here is the towel he found.

We hit the shower, ate some pizza, then went to bed. 24 hours of driving, just to get the party started. Worth it? Always.