Sitting at the start line, I'm searching for confidence, trying to avoid the excitement of the moment, struggling to find some Zen calm as I stare across a sea of asphalt littered with immovable objects and ringed by spectators with high expectations. The green flag drops, and I sit, still watching the flat-black 240Z sliding through the course ahead of me
The practice sessions are supposed to teach you the course, let you hone your setup, master your technique. They taught me only one useful thing. If the guy ahead of you spins, your run is toast. So my new strategy is to sit and wait, letting the Z dance and slide and backfire through the course until the flagger gets pissed. Captain green flag isn't a judge. I don't have to make him happy.
At least I don't think he's a judge. In reality, I have no idea who's judging what, what I'm supposed to do, or what's going on.
Halfway down the straight, I decide my first run will be nothing fancy, just the clean, safe powerslide I had managed to pull off in only one of every three warm-up runs. Maybe a little mini-flick just for practice... By the time I generate the idea, I'm already past the flick cone. On the wrong side. I'll later learn that's as close to an automatic DNF as you can get without spinning. Doesn't matter, a few seconds later I spin, too.
Run two of three: I try the flick. Just a small one. It's disastrous. The tail waggles viciously, aiming straight for the wall. I'm flopping around in my seat, helmet dragging on the headliner, disoriented and getting scared. It takes most of the first corner to gather up the mess, and I'm already late for my first slide. I go for a touch of left-foot brakes while I mash the throttle in search of boost. I'm going too slowly for any of it to work. Suddenly I'm in the middle of some bizarre mix of burnout, powerslide, and squalid understeer. I feel like a passenger.
Run three of three: I flick gently, then gather it up, slide around the left turn, then gather it up, pitch it into the right... All this gathering it up between slides is the only way I can manage to keep tank slappers from escalating into spins. It feels clumsy and lame from the inside. I'm hoping it looks better from the outside. Then, halfway through the last slide, POOF! There's the distinctive sound of boost exiting through a large hole, and the soul-swallowing gurgle of a 3-inch exhaust belching raw fuel as the mixture goes full rich.
Mechanical failure is my salvation, saving me from the humiliation of a parade lap after my ignominious drifting debut. I return to the pits, stick my mercifully dislodged intercooler hose back on, check that the car runs OK, and search for shade.
Today's competition is an attempt to find one American driver good enough to compete against the D1 teams coming from Japan on August 31. I am not that driver, and in 100-degree heat, it takes quite a bit of shade and water to make me care who that driver is.
When I finally reemerge, the competition looks completely different. The morning practice had been a circus of spins in a comical rendition of driver's ed hell. Early in the morning, it was so chaotic that even my hackjob performance looked respectable. But now, with the drivers warmed up and the best separated from the rest, it suddenly looks like a real drift event. Every car enters Turn One with a terrifyingly fast pendulum turn. Slide angles are huge, but it's clear that each of the drivers has mastered his car and is actually in control. It's a stunning contrast not only to the morning's melee, but also to every one of the admittedly few U.S. drift events I've seen.
Apparently the judges agree. Their hope was to find one driver who wouldn't embarrass himself in the main event later in the summer. Instead, the driving talent was so good, they were unable to narrow the field beyond the top eight. Eight drivers, Ken Gushi, Ernie Fixmer, Rich Rutherford, Samuel Hubinette, Daijiro Yoshihara, Hubert Young, Calvin Wan, and Bryan Norris, all made the cut.
American drifting is coming of age.