Thanks. I can see how that would happen. Hope Alex can keep them honest. Should make everyone drive harder and better.

andysapp wrote:I know the "passing" issue has become a big controversy.

In Japan, the following car running goal (while running tandem) is to mimic the lead cars moves, while staying as close as possible... hopefully closing in to put pressure on the lead car. He is only to pass when the lead car makes a mistake large enough to allow the pass.

Here in the states... passing has sort of become an "instant" win... so the chase cars will hold shallow angle to keep speed up, and increase the opportunity for them to basically "snake" the pass from the lead car. They basically set themselves to steal the win with a pass... despite the fact that it disregards the goal to mimic the lead car.

This is especially hairy with underpowered cars, because they have to come into turns like turn #1 in Houston, Chicago, and Sonoma very wide, to keep their speed up to hit the FOERST clipping point, and continue the rest of the course with sufficient speed (and keep the car in the powerband). SO if the chase car comes in with shallow angle... "setting themselves up" for the pass... they'll take it easily against an underpowered car. Did they make a pass? Yes. Did they win? Not according to the "traditional style" of drifting.

I know this became more and more of an issue as the season went on... so I'm stoked to hear that Alex will be judging - because he was always someone who voiced his concern about the matter.

I think since Americans are so used to traditional motorsports, where if you get passed - you lose... whereas in drifting, it may not be the case.

agreed. passing looks good to the crowd but doesn't necessarily follow the traditional rules of tandem. now if you can pull off a pass while at full lock when someone runs wide then super duper, but if you sacrifice angle just trying to set up a pass then i'd call that an automatic loss of points.

Americans forget to factor in the amount of tuning done to the cars. tandom battles agianst huge hp vs little hp. Things like Rhys steering quickener, hyd. hand brake, and brake bias valve. Its like playing a video game with all the cheats. You don't see that in japan, its not about the car its about the driver. Seems here its more about how you can make the car do all the work, not how you can work the car.

Good point..

I think we need more local drift team events, like what Option was doing in the 90's (probably still are, but just don't get as much coverage). My Japanese in relation to old Option vids is pretty limited but from what I gather it works something like:

Practice session for everyone
Then teams go, with everyone doing solo runs
Then team drifts (hawt)
Then it does a kind of elimination thing and the best teams best drivers do solo runs (or maybe its everyone but they just edited it down for video) and then another round of team drifts
Keeps going until winning team is determined

I think it'll be good for getting people drifting better as well as learning to tandem. What I think is best about this for tandem is that you should know everyone on your team pretty well and if something happens, like sliding into someone etc. its not going to be as big of an issue as going tandem with someone you don't know and then you hit and then its kind of a wtf situation (although in my opinion if you're going to tandem you should know this comes with the territory and just deal with it even though it could suck hard, but I doubt everyone would be with me on that)

Of course I don't really know the insurance issues involved with that kind of thing, but I think it would get US drifters to a higher level and you get to know your drift team a lot better. And then your drift team is actually more like a "team" and brings in some fun variables. Since the whole team is being judged it wouldn't just be about 1 guy who's really good. The top guys (or girls, because apparently they are allowed to drive ) should hopefully raise the level of the rest of the team, and then we become badass and driftMechaniks/downSelect/anarchy99/liftBack will overthrow DA, team orange, driftXtreme, etc. and we can all quit working and build sweet cars and drift all day.

Plus a pic with the bimmer, pink miata, coco's 14, tylor's rwd converted GC, chris' FC, BM's FC, Rhoad's 14, chad's 13, and my as of yet undecided vehicle though i'm leaning towards a hachi at the moment but i'm fickle and it'll be different next week, all sliding side by side full tire smoke would be the hottest shit ever. 9 cars. full lock. white smoke. hawt. If I left someone out, whoops my bad, you too more cars the better. oh yeah, erin's 13. HA 10 cars sweet.

Though for competitions I think 10 cars would be too much for 1 team, I think in Japan it was usually between 4-6 cars, but luckily we have downSelect if we have to split 'em up.



...WTF...I made a serious post........

driftPANDAspl wrote:...WTF...I made a serious post........

I was thinking this the whole time I read your post.

They announced the FOERST qualifier for 2006. But its in Cali. I can't see them not holding one on the east coast. Andy what are you planning around qualifying? I'm sure you don't want a 6th trip to CA.

http://driftday.com/fd_qualifier.htm

FUCK.

No seriously.

FUCK.

I am planning on going out there for D1... so my only option will be to leave the car out there for a month & fly out. AND... it's $180 up from $150.

Talk about throwing a wrench into my shit.
Good Lord.

I think I heard there are suppossed to be 3 qualifiers.

I hope three qualifiers is not going to be the new feeder series. I need to try and give them a call today.

More words form Alex Phieffer (sp?)

Yes, there are at least 3 qualifying events before the FOERST round of FD. We are working on having the same judges at all the qualifying and the FD events.

The rules for the qualifying events wont be the same as the FD pro events so you guys with custom built cars still have events to go to.

I would like to see these qualifying events turn into thier own full comp events which will give many of you a chance to compete in tandom rather then this one car at a time crap. The big issue right now on that is how many of you have the safety equipment IE... roll cage and suit. Its manily because of insurance issues but we do need a feeder series now as there are too many teams claiming to be pro when they have never seen a top 16 finish in FD.

As of right now, there where only 32 competitors last year that made a top 16 finish (two of which are now judges), so those 30 will automaticly recive a licence. Everyone else must go threw one of the qualifying events. And having the qualifying events gives us an opertunity to test different platforms and rule changes since its more a run what you brung type thing. I also want to see if we could start off a FWD class to run at these events. Maybe even a truck class since there has been so much interest in them from people. I dont know, maybe the variety will take away from the core group of drifting but it may also pull in a new fan base. There is no way to tell without giving people a chance to try, and the qualifying events will be the time for them and you to prove you have what it takes to be infront of 10 thousand people.

WTF? A FWD class? Hey that's a great idea. Let's take even more track time away from the people who need it and give it to people who aren't even serious enough to buy a RWD car. Brilliant.

I wonder if they are still going to give the seeded drivers ten times as much practice time as the unseeded drivers like last year. Again, brilliant.

I was really digging everything Alex was saying up until the FWD crap! wtf

uhhhh...california sucks, no way in hell could i make that many trips out there either (hell, i couldn't even make 1 out there with the car).


i did get my flight booked for the D1 trip today though