Drift @Bihoku Highlands 11/22 (56k don't bother)

[Ghost Dancer]

I was going to put these in the picture thread but I figured there were too many. Admins, if these need to be moved let me know.

Saturday I headed up to Bihoku Highland Circuit with Kawabata-san (red S14) from Driving Sports and Sato-san (red FC) a buddy who is the shop manager at Mazda here in town for some drifting.

I've been drifting for over a decade (starting to feel old) but this was actually few time on a circuit.:ghey:

It was a pretty crappy day with constant rain and plenty of fog but the drive up was pretty scenic despite the fact that I spent most of it trying to keep up with Kawabata while he hauled ass in the truck.

We got to the circuit at around 7AM and were the first to arrive. After getting the Driving Sports S14 off the truck and getting it ready for action along with some tire swapping on my R32 everyone had pretty much filtered in.
This was a "local" event but there were some guys from Osaka and Kyoto and some of the RYO guys showed up as well.

Anywho after the drivers meeting there was the requisite warm-up round which I was pretty nervous about but I picked up pretty well. I wasn't at all prepared for the speed and I kept losing it on the first turn after the main straight. After a few more laps, a little less speed, and the realization that there is a lot more wiggle room than a puny mountain road I was able to keep from seeing the ass end pass by me. lol.

I entered the Beginners class and Kawabata and Sato being D1SL drivers entered Pro. To make a long story short they both made it into the top 3 but went down to one of the RYO guys. I think Kawabata would have won but he refused to slow down for the turn after the straight and spun twice. His S14 is fast as shit and he was hitting the limiter all the way down the straight.

I "qualified" for the finals in the beginner class but on a practice run during the final break I popped my motor (spun bearing) so I decided to drop out so I could make the 40 minute limp back home.

With all that being said. Here are the pictures. There are about 50 of them and they're big so if you don't want to wait for them to load I will have the story up on my site in the next couple of days with thumbnails.