Lifevest Required

CFRC SummerSlide 2012 - Drifting Tropical Storm Isaac from Last Stance on Vimeo.

The local track, CFRC, held its annual Summer Slide event August 26^th. Last year, I won this event and was looking to repeat. Unfortunately, hurricane Isaac was looming in the Gulf. To add to this event the track has recently expanded AGAIN (4^th expansion!) to incorporate the drag staging lanes into the drift layout. The county had recently ruled to shut down the drag strip portion of the facility so it opens up more territory for drifting. The track also brought in 2 big waterslides, and a dunk tank to make sure the summer bash was complete.

I was asked by one of the competition judges to run the new course forward and reverse, so they could decide which way to run it. Never having seen the new layout really, I raced into the first turn, linking the technical track with wet and dry conditions spotted around. Turning around I laced it again in reverse. We decided, due to safety, to run it forward and practice got underway.

I was more focused on having fun than the competition, but I was really killing it and feeling super confident going into qualifying. I took my first pass and add a little too much angle, sucking my line off the outer wall, but still a great run. On my second pass I missed a shift trying to go super fast so we had to rely on our first score.  We ended up in 3^rd behind a local missle car, and the top spot by Zoltan Hadju (a current FD competitor).  I knew that even though I wasn’t sitting number 1, my consistency would win out.

 

Pulling to the starting grid, Isaac showed up. Dumping inches of rain in mere minutes, the track was flooded. Normally unnoticed bumped turned to rivers and lakes. I lead in and pull gently on the ebrake and its just pure ICE. I almost save it, but it just keeps looping around. I gave a huge advantage to my competitor, but we finish the lap and get reset.

I am following him through the course and get a bit of understeer on the new section (different pavement), and thought he has about 3 straight sections, the judges gave him the win.  The feeling of this track with those puddles was so insane, I was actually thankful I was not having to drive on it again.

 

Later, we got to have some fun runs with 4+ cars on track and with no additional rain and the competition runs, the track was still wet, but without major puddles. Now there was little issue on the course, though it was still slippery.

At the end of the day we walked away with a intact car and lots of fun with friends. I also got to give quite a few people some rides, which is sometimes even better than winning.