NOPI DRIFT ERIE

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Friday, May 30, 2008 I took off about 9.30 in the morning to head to Erie, PA for round 4 of the NOPI Drift series. It took nearly 7 hours to get to the track on Friday. I show up and Matt Petty is there goofing off as usual…that boy be crazy. I just wanna caress his long beautiful locks…..haha. Anyway, he asked if I want to unload the car and do some testing. Hell yea, not gonna pass that up. Here I go to hit the first bank I have ever driven on. The course was a left hander on the bank to a transition on the straight, then left turn hugging the flat infield. IT WAS AWESOME. It was also my first time on the Dunlop Z1 star specs….these tires seemed much grippier than the DZ101s I have been running.

I basically burn up a set of tires and call it a night. My boys, Damien from Drift Brigade and Matt from Import Intelligence, show up about an hour later.

Also, we got to hear the interview between my boy Jason Ellis and JR on Jason’s Sirius radio show, Faction channel 28. It was a good plug for the Drift Alliance DVD that just came out. JR’s a cool dude, and so is Jason. It was a cool interview.

The hotel gave us some coupons for the casino located just down the road. We decided to use our $5 off for the buffet at the local casino and gamble a bit with the $5 they gave us. I ended up hitting a slot machine and won $200, it was great mainly because I didn’t have any cash. So much for needing an ATM, huh.

Saturday, May 31, 2008 was the start of the event and in the early morning it was raining. The course was actually even more fun in the wet than in the dry, but the cars came out really nasty dirty. I noticed half of the field did not drive in the morning session. Not sure why.

We all got in a lot of runs throughout the day, and the weather cleared up by 12 or 1. The boys from Texas (Stewart and Aaron) and Brian from MA Motorsports showed up at 3 or 4 pm, missing the whole day. Apparently, they went out and just got obliterated and couldn’t get up. Sammy also showed up late, he was busy building a new car from scratch.

Sunday, June 1, 2008 was a much nicer day than Saturday, but it was windier and a bit colder. The cold weather really changed the track conditions and made my car want to push on the entry to the bank. Qualifying was a bit scary because the car would push straight at the wall during my clutch-kick entry. I ended up qualifying 9th , this paired me up with Brian from MA Motorsports.

Qualifying Order
1. Kenji Yamanaka
2. Ali Aljibouri
3. Nate Brasz
4. Forest Wang
5. Gary Simmons
6. James Robinson
7. Aaron Losey
8. Brian Wilkerson
9. Dennis Mertzanis
10. Rod Campos
11. Gary Lang
12. Nick Thomas
13. John Wagner
14. Matt Waldin
15. Sammy Tiger
16. Chelsea Denofa

Brian and I lined up for tandem and something happened to Brian’s car. The judges wanted to exercise the 5 minute rule, so if he didn’t have his car up and running 5 min from the time we were supposed to run, Brian would be disqualified and I would move on. I told the starting line guy to tell the judges that Brian and I could move to the end of the tandem line to give Brian some time to get his car straight. After 15 minutes, he got it up and running and we lined up to face off.

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My first run, I was following Brian when the car pushed hard into the first turn AGAIN…..I had a great run after that, but it gave Brian a 9 to 1 advantage. I was furious at my driving, so I sat in the car and said, “I’m going big, or I’m going home”. I went out and killed the best run I have ever done. I stepped the car out a little more than I ever have and just laid on the smoke-a-tron. Smoking him out was my only chance along with a flawless run.

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IT WORKED. He made a few mistakes so the judges wanted to see us run again….ONE-MORE-TIME. Again, I followed for the first run. It was a good run and I was not too close, but I was there. As we blazed into the tight lefthander into the infield, Brian started to spin….I saw it and grabbed the e-brake and we performed the always cool synchronized spinning routine. I was up 10 to 0. My next run was clean and I smoked him out again. I didn’t make any major mistakes, so I moved on.

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So, on to my next opponent, Top qualifier Kenji Yamanaka in his freshly painted S15, that he says he painted himself. I lined up next to Kenji’s beautiful S15. It was my turn to follow. I made a decent run behind Kenji, not too close or too far away. Kenji ends up with the advantage 7 to 3. It’s my turn to lead and I know I have to lay it down or pack up and go home. We take off; I run a great run, easily one of my best. I look at Bear, our NOPI pit official and he motions me to line up again, a one-more-time against one of the best in my opinion.

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We run again, this time Kenji is up 8 to 2. I sit at the starting line knowing I have to really work to pull this off. We take off, I’m a car length away as we initiate and enter the first turn. I start to creep up on Kenji…Im holding the throttle down to the floor, watching his car get closer and closer to mine…….I let off the gas for a split second to pull back from him………It throws me to the inside line and now I’m heading straight at Kenji’s rear quarter panel and the clipping cone. I e-brake to get around the cone, slipping my car in right behind Kenji’s.

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I finished strong but the throttle lift killed me and Kenji moved on. Overall, I finished 6th.

During the finals, Forest was all over Nate during the tandem runs fighting for first. I think Forest would have pulled out the win had he not hit the clipping point, aka the barrel, during the transition, exploding his bumper. Knowing he was out, Forest gave us all a great smoke show as he took an extra turn around the last sweeper.

Final Results
1. Nate Brasz
2. Forest Wang
3. Aaron Losey
4. Kenji Yamanaka
5. Ali Aljibouri
6. Dennis Mertzanis
7. Gary Lang
8. Nick Thomas
9. Gary Simmons
10. James Robinson
11. Brian Wilkerson
12. Rod Campos
13. John Wagner
14. Matt Waldin
15. Sammy Tiger
16. Chelsea Denofa

I loaded up the truck and headed out for grueling 7 hour drive home. It was a great weekend.

Check out all the pictures on wrecked magazine.

http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=34

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