I have developed a love/hate relationship with drifting. The love comes from the feeling it gives me and the addiction I have towards it. But the hate comes from the damage it does. My last drift car ended with me sliding it into a pole.
This one I was going to be more careful since this is a much more expensive car, so I planned on entering "safe" events where there are no poles. Well at least not many of them. Problem was this event happened to fall on the same weekend as TX2K12. I wanted to show my car the way it was that Friday night and then get it ready for drifting saturday morning. This last minute preparation was a bad mistake. Dont get me wrong. The meet at Frankensteins was of epic proportions! So many cars, girls, people getting arrested for burnouts, crowds booing at cops and almost starting a riot, street races and green beer! It just sucked coming home at 12am and starting to swap wheels and remove my Top Secret cf parts. Didnt go to bed until 3am and I had to be there at 8am when it was 30 min away. So here is what when wrong. When I bought my car, I bought it with Advan RS-D's already installed with Project Kics titanium lugs. Little did I know the convertible rims I bought as drift spares required the stock lugs which were mag lugs and putting them on in the middle of the night did not allow me to see the difference. Well the wheels went on and I tightened them with the tuner lugs. Showed up the next morning at 8 on the dot. Few cars were there :/ Got up early for nothing! They were still setting up the course. In the drivers meeting Aaron of Fabricated Motorsports said they had over 50 drivers sign up so they are setting up a smaller course for the noobs on the side. Yay for me, since I want to get a feel for this car first. Hours later at 10:30 the courses are finally ready and we were off.
The small course was setup with an "S" turn near the beginning followed by a long left had sweeper that went around a pole and finished. At first I couldnt get the car to drift very well. Lots of spin outs and I couldnt figure out what method I should use on each turn. Didnt know if I should clutch kick or ebrake the first turn and then then the second? Very confusing. It seemed when I tried to do the beginning I would spin out at the end and when I focused on the long part I would have to ignore the beginning. After the 6th or so run I ignored the beginning and went for the long turn. I clutch kicked once to get the rear out and threw the steering wheel immediately to the right, the car was drifting. Then I just started to feather the throttle, feeling if I needed more speed or to slow down. It was awesome!
I wanted to go back and try it again. It was such a difference from the 240SX I used to have. It seemed to love the high speed drifts better then the small turns.
It was amazing how much control it had, its like this car was built for this. Even getting near the pole at the end didnt scare me. I just had to adjust my position with the throttle!
So then I just kept practicing my new found technique, after a while it just came second nature. No more thinking was involved!
Here is a pic of the "S" turn in the beginning. Tried to work on this one after I got comfortable with the big turn.
Here are a couple of me and my daughter... see how much fun it is!
Video you want? I didnt have a go pro or any video cameras mounted but my brother was able to take a video with his cell phone of a couple of my runs. HTML code is off so here is the
link.
So all this fun, what happened? Well after a couple hours of that, something sounded funny. I was hearing something clicking when I finished one run. I drove it around slowly to try and figure it out. Busted shock? Broken arm? Flat tire? Couldnt figure it out. Then I started thinking maybe I didnt tie my lugs tight enough. Pulled over and sure enough, they were loose to the touch on one of the fronts. Thats when my friend and I noticed that these lugs dont fit on these wheels. I then had to make a run to an auto parts store to find mag lugs and all the stores were spread out since this place was located in a little town outside of Houston. Everyone had packs of mag lugs but in M12 1.5 size for Toyotas. I drove to 6 different places, wasting hours of driving time. I was very frustrated and unsuccessful. I had to buy different lugs for some volks I had as more spares so I at least got those. Back at the event, I didn't want to drive on the convertible wheels anymore, so I was going to throw on the Volks when I noticed the new lugs fit the convertible wheels! YAY! Swapped all the lugs out and got back in line 3.5 hours later after leaving. First run, I initiated the drift and BAM! What the ****!!! Pulled over to see my rim was at a 45 degree angle and my rotor was touching the ground. ARRRGGGGG!!!!!! The lugs were still on the rotor as they broke all the way through the rim. My fender was bent up. I wanted to cry. Just so anxious to get back out there and this crap happens, I guess its all my fault for not being safe and calling it quits when I didnt have the right lugs. Was able to put my RS-D back on the front and limp home. Car drove fine, just making noises from the rotor being scratched. Now I have to buy a new fender and rotor. Makes me want to quit the sport, even though I know I will just come back to it again.