Drivers were Harri Tervola (BMW), Blake Fuller (White Z), Ernie Fixmer (Red 240sx), Verena Mei (Red Z), Dan Willie (Batlground 240sx) & Doug vanDenbrink (Red Mustang).
Tracy Shayhorn was also scheduled to drive with the other Batlground S14, but after Dans car broke on Friday, she loaned her car to him and on Sat, the organizer decided that since she had not taken part in the Friday practice, she couldn't do the Sat/Sun demos.
We showed up running on 5 cylinders and I would say did a hell of a job regardless.
The track was pretty narrow in some parts and the walls were definitely intimidating to some of the drivers.
Harri was the only driver who was really going balls-to-the-wall errr bumper-to-the-wall, he brushed the wall on entry 3 or 4 times and the corner workers were going wild for it.
Blake did really awesome as well and really just went for it after getting into the tire wall on saturday.
Verena did well but wasn't super aggressive. She managed to catch the tire wall twice on Sunday. Once she slid backwards into it and another time the left rear I think.
Ernie rocked some hardcore manji down the some of the straightaways and tagged both rear corners pretty good on the S13. I think he did decent overall, but had quite a few spins. He also nearly took out a few other cars by doing donuts in some of the corners when other drivers were coming (most of the turns were nearly blind).
I didn't see a lot of Dans runs but what I did see was some smooth clean drifting. Dan got the right front corner on a tire wall I think, but minimal damage, just lost the bumper pretty much, but Blake came into the turn and nailed the bumper and dented the right side on the Z.
I didn't see much of Doug either but he had some nice drifts and the car sounded awesome, rear-mount turbo 4.6. Doug definitely wasn't going all-out and was the only car that got away with zero damage.
The fans really really went crazy for the drifting and it's a shame we were scheduled so early on Sunday, otherwise there would have been an even bigger crowd that got to learn what it was. Saturdays track time was perfect and everyone who came back to the paddock area said they loved it. WDC even set up an autograph session for the drifters on saturday.
Overall this event was a HUGE step in the right direction for drifting, and it looks like the IRL got a lot of positive feedback from the fans and track workers too. Hopefully things will fall into place and there will be more IRL/drifting combo weekends this year.
As for our car, well the dead cylinder problem got worse over the weekend, and Sunday morning the car finally lost all power about 15min into the session and Harri brought it in. Looks like maybe a headgasket. Plans now are to make the car look nice and at the same time build a newer car, probably a '99 or 2000 3series.
To sum it up we all had a great weekend, blown car or not, and I know everyone who took part would like to extend huge thanks to WDC for putting this together and paying for everything throughout the weekend plus being the most professional people that I have had the pleasure of working with in the world of drifting.
-Sean
Tracy Shayhorn was also scheduled to drive with the other Batlground S14, but after Dans car broke on Friday, she loaned her car to him and on Sat, the organizer decided that since she had not taken part in the Friday practice, she couldn't do the Sat/Sun demos.
We showed up running on 5 cylinders and I would say did a hell of a job regardless.
The track was pretty narrow in some parts and the walls were definitely intimidating to some of the drivers.
Harri was the only driver who was really going balls-to-the-wall errr bumper-to-the-wall, he brushed the wall on entry 3 or 4 times and the corner workers were going wild for it.
Blake did really awesome as well and really just went for it after getting into the tire wall on saturday.
Verena did well but wasn't super aggressive. She managed to catch the tire wall twice on Sunday. Once she slid backwards into it and another time the left rear I think.
Ernie rocked some hardcore manji down the some of the straightaways and tagged both rear corners pretty good on the S13. I think he did decent overall, but had quite a few spins. He also nearly took out a few other cars by doing donuts in some of the corners when other drivers were coming (most of the turns were nearly blind).
I didn't see a lot of Dans runs but what I did see was some smooth clean drifting. Dan got the right front corner on a tire wall I think, but minimal damage, just lost the bumper pretty much, but Blake came into the turn and nailed the bumper and dented the right side on the Z.
I didn't see much of Doug either but he had some nice drifts and the car sounded awesome, rear-mount turbo 4.6. Doug definitely wasn't going all-out and was the only car that got away with zero damage.
The fans really really went crazy for the drifting and it's a shame we were scheduled so early on Sunday, otherwise there would have been an even bigger crowd that got to learn what it was. Saturdays track time was perfect and everyone who came back to the paddock area said they loved it. WDC even set up an autograph session for the drifters on saturday.
Overall this event was a HUGE step in the right direction for drifting, and it looks like the IRL got a lot of positive feedback from the fans and track workers too. Hopefully things will fall into place and there will be more IRL/drifting combo weekends this year.
As for our car, well the dead cylinder problem got worse over the weekend, and Sunday morning the car finally lost all power about 15min into the session and Harri brought it in. Looks like maybe a headgasket. Plans now are to make the car look nice and at the same time build a newer car, probably a '99 or 2000 3series.
To sum it up we all had a great weekend, blown car or not, and I know everyone who took part would like to extend huge thanks to WDC for putting this together and paying for everything throughout the weekend plus being the most professional people that I have had the pleasure of working with in the world of drifting.
-Sean
