G1 GP Summer 2010 In Ebisu West Course Wrap Up

The second round of G1GP for 2010 came and went on August 20 2010 (in typical stinkin' hot Fukushima summer weather!)

Around 30 cars and drivers showed up for the all-gaijin drift competition this time to take part in the Team Orange organized and judged comp on the Ebisu nish (west) short course.

Here we all are before the battles begin! Team Orange's Kumakubo and Suenaga stand at the front waiting to judge who will be the Gaijin champ of this round's G1GP!


Billy in his multi-colored S14 getting some air under his right wheel after cutting a little too close on the corner. Great photo courtesy of Adam from 7tune.com

Emily Loudon and Andy Gray are followed closely by Chris Dejager - what more could you expect from the PowerVehicles crew?

What would a G1GP be without Disco Stu?

I entered in my freshly acquired S13 silvia but unfortunately, did not get the result I was looking for! :(

I could make a list of excuses as long as my arm why I drove so poorly, but let's just say the car needed some fine tuning and I needed more practice!! haha

At least I got a cool keyring!

Dave Lawrie from JPP made a celebrity appearance all the way from the Gold Coast!

His lovely S14 was going well until the power steering hose came off leaving him with no steering at the top of the nishi course hill!

Better luck next time to Dave and all the other key-ants from the GC!



Adam at 7tune.com put together a short video with highlights from G1GP mostly, but also a bit of drift matsuri weekend mixed in toward the end.


The final battle in G1GP saw Andy Gray (Scotland) and Leighton Fine (Australia) go head to head in their big JZX90s!

It was very close but Leighton went home with the win and some nice prizes including new adjustable coil-overs courtesy of Zenky Racing.

Andy Gray came second and Chris "backwards entry" Dejager came in third. They both won some suspension parts from the same Zenky Racing parts company who sponsored the event.

Top 6 winners didn't go home empty handed though. They each got a 12 month Ebisu circuit gold pass which lets them drift at Ebisu as much as they want at no cost (except for a small insurance fee each time). Lucky buggers hey!?

The day ended with a massive BBQ feast and plenty of cold beer and Chu-Hi's!

G1GP is turning out to be a huge success! Can't wait for the next and final one for the year on Minami (south) course on November 12 (the day before Autumn matsuri begins). Sure to even bigger and better than ever!

If you think you've got what it takes to drift with some of the worlds best or just want a drifting experience of a life time (and you're a gaijin), come join us for any of the G1 GP competitions and/or drift matsuris. Contact me or Powervehicles for more info.

Disco Stu
www.DrifinJapan.com

Thanks to Dino at Speedhunters.com and Adam at 7tune.com for the arbitrary use of these photos!

D1 Food Battle

It's a little known feature of D1, but after the D1 drift competition, the battles continue with a high-speed food battle!

The food battle competitors get into teams of 2 or 3 depicted by their sponsors i.e. "Yokohama team" which is the Team Orange guys, "Toyo team" which is Kawabata and Suenaga Masao etc.

The whole aim of the game: to devour a mystery food and then a main dish as fast as possible.

As in the case of yesterday's D1 food battle, the surprise food was egg tofu with pickled ginger on top and the main dish was a whole watermelon!



The winning team yesterday was the Yokohama team (Team Orange's Kuma and Igu) despite the fact that Kumakubo hates egg tofu and Igusa san hates pickled ginger!

Obviously not as heart racing as watching them drift but a good laugh and fun end to an awesome day.

Disco Stu

D1 GP 2010 Ebisu Rd. 5 - Wildest D1 Yet!

After following the Japanese D1GP for the last 5 years, I have to say that the level right now, in the latter part of 2010 is the highest it's ever been.

Wild cars, insane drivers, crazy speeds. That pretty much sums up D1 in a nutshell.

Every season the bar get raised that little extra so drivers build badder cars and push their skills to the limit. It's a fierce sport to be in but one hell of a thrill to watch!

This weekend, Ebisu circuit is hosting the 5th and 6th rounds of D1 for 2010 at the famous south course (where else).

But this year it's different to every other year.

The D1 organizers have made some drastic changes to the course driving line to make D1 more enthralling for the spectators (and I'm sure the drivers get a kick out of it aswell).

The major change they made at Ebisu was to cut out the little kink 's' bend at the top of the hill (final corner) which makes the entry more straight which results in 130km/h PLUS entry speeds as opposed to 110km/h or so as seen in previous rounds.

You really have to see it in person to know just how fast they come over the jump and drift just inches from the concrete wall.

It's almost terrifying, and unfortunately a couple of finalists in the Best 16 bitterly tasted what happens when things go wrong over the jump at that speed.

Utsumi (Red S15) was first to collide with the wall in the very first Best 16 battle as he was trying to follow mad man Daigo Saito.

Matsui Crash!

Matsui wasn't long to follow after he launched his 'ichigo' faced 180SX off the jump way to fast to pull back in line.

It really is a shame to see several million yen cars go to waste like this though. Definitely not fun for the driver and team who make all the effort to prepare the car and come to drift to put on a show for us.

Hibino Jump!

Hibino in his Up Garage AE86 was also one of the crazy aerial acrobats but managed to stay clear of the wall and win the competition against Nomuken.

The D1 boys put on a great show and really showed us why they are the best drifter in the world.

Tomorrow is Round 6 but I won't be able to make it in person but I'm sure I will hear the news and be able to cover it here.

Thanks for reading!
Disco Stu

D1 Practice & Qualifying Day August 6 2010

I went and checked out the qualifying and practice day for D1 GP today for just a few hours.

They have changed the entry line over the bump at the last corner of south course from the tight little "s" bend and made it more or less straight (the "matsuri missile death line" as us locals like to call it) for faster entries and wilder drifting... and the difference is like night and day!

To describe it in 2 words - mental fast!

For instance, Daigo Saito had both front wheels off the ground going straight over the jump down into the first corner. One time ending up crashing into the tires at the bottom.

Daigo wasn't the only one loving the jump. Hibino was also going crazy fast over the jump in his AE86. A few other guys were getting a little excited too but their names escape me at the moment .. :(

This D1 round at Ebisu will definitely be very different to what we're used to seeing.


Drift samurai here was doing some big launches from cutting the chicane short.


This 20B RX7 was super loud! We were all covering our ears when it went past.


The coolest guy in D1 Naoto Suenaga here in his Evo 9 Team Orange car. Good solid runs all day from Suenaga.

Sorry about the crap quality of the pics. They were taken with my cell phone. I'll make sure to take a proper camera tomorrow for the real competition!

It's shaping up to be a very on-the-egde-of-your-seat weekend!

Disco Stu

Test Mobile Post

Hi drift fans!

this is a test post from my cell phone.

this way I can send updates from anywhere! E.g. when I'm at ebisu, watching D1 etc.
awesome huh?

Disco

p.s. the pic is from D1SL a few weeks ago. Sumika in yellow 180 came second.

New Blog Theme & Recent Drift News From Ebisu

Hi drift fans!

New Blog Theme!

I've been meaning to do something about the old ugly blog design that was on here for ages.

Since the switch to the new blogger system, creating a new theme was a piece of cake. I didn't really even have to crate it, they had a bunch of pre-made templates and background images to choose from.

I plan to be adding more and more content on here more often. Sorry for the lack of posts lately.

What's Been Happening Lately?

Here are some pics from last weekend when me and Chris DeJager went out for some missile twin drift!

After a cool session at north course going in the reverse direction, we went to minami (south) course only to pass it up because our 90% bald tires weren't really up for minami speeds so we finished the tires off at drift school course.


Other News

The second round of G1GP for this year is just around the corner!

It will be held on August 20th at Nishi (west) short course at ebisu just before the summer drift matsuri.

Around 30 entrants from AUS, USA, UK and other countries will be battling the roller coaster course for the top spot. Lots of close battles are sure to be had! Definitely one to watch!

Catch ya!
Disco Stu

G1GP Spring 2010 Ebisu South Course

After the success of the first G1GP round last year at the Fall Drift Matsuri, the Gaijin Only drift series has continued, bigger and badder into 2010!



15 drivers, mostly 'Fair Dinkum Australians' entered the Spring 2010 G1GP which was held on Friday 30th April at Ebisu South course.

We decided to run the G1 competitions on the Friday, the day before the matsuri weekend while the cars are still in working order.

(which was a good idea because some of the cars used will never look the same after what happened to them during the matsuri weekend)

The G1GP kicked off with practice from 8am to 12pm, then the 3 single qualifying runs starting at 1:30pm.

Judging was done by none other than Kumakubo and Suenaga from Team Orange.

Qualifying

Seeing as there were only 15 cars, everyone could get through to the Top 16.. well actually Top 15!

To no-ones surprise, Andy Gray from Powervehicles laid down near-perfect qualifying passes in his red JZX90 and became top qualifier.


Chris DeJager in his black zenki S14 qualified 2nd and Alexi Smith in his white JZX100 qualified 3rd.

Myself, Disco Stu, stuffed the warm up lap, nudging the tire barrier right in front of the two judges and the first qualifying lap by spinning on the last corner and just missing the wall. But managed to qualify 5th place, to my surprise.

The Battles

For some reason, the judges were worried about the tandem drift battles! Maybe they were expecting some carnage. To be honest I think we all were a little.

There were some close calls but nothing too dramatic to report of. Everyone stepped up for the battles and put on a good show.

Final Results

Andy and Chris were blitzing through all their battles and they were matched up head to head in the final tandem run.

Andy came away with 1st after Chris made an unfortunate spin in the first corner a skillfully missing a hit from Andy and the tire barrier.
Placings:

1st Andy Gray (Scotland) JX90
2nd Chris DeJager (Aus) S14
3rd Alexi Smith (Aus) JZX100
4th Nathan Weissel (Aus) R32
5th 'Disco' Stu Stirling (me) (Aus) A31
6th Shane Bingham (Aus) RPS13

All the Aussies still couldn't beat the mad Scot Andy in his red JZX90 smoke machine! Congrats Andy and all the drivers!



Winner's Party

After the award ceremony, we celebrated another successful and super fun G1 and finished off the day with a succulent wa-gyu beef BBQ and some beverages to wash it down with, courtesy of Team Orange and Ebisu circuit.

When Is The Next G1GP?

The next G1GP will be held on the Friday before the Summer drift matsuri - August 20 2010! The course of choice - Ebisu West drift course.

How to Enter?

Any gaijin (foreginer) with a car and helmet can enter. Entry fee is 15,000 yen (approx US$160). Includes insurance, G1GP windscreen banner sticker, prizes if you win) and maybe another BBQ!

For more info, please contact me (leave a comment, connect on Facebook, or email me) or Andy at Powervehicles.com.

We can arrange a car for you to purchase and use in the G1 and drift matsuri.

Many thanks to Kumakubo and Suenaga from Team Orange for making G1GP an event to remember. Thanks to Andy from PowerVehicles.com for helping most of the entrants. Thanks to Daniel Johnson (DJ) for photos and the un-named camera man for taking the videos and uploading to YouTube.



Hope to see you in Summer for the next G1!

Stu - www.DriftInJapan.com








G1GP Spring 2010 Videos

Qualifying Heats



Top 16 Battles



Finals and Award Ceremony



The soundtracks in the videos rock!