RC Drift Club Round 1

The RC Driftclub Round 1, Season 2 one was upon us. After a long off season, things were about to kick off for another season. This event would be a little different with many new sponsors and new drivers, as well as the subtraction of qualifying gates, which were replaced with 'Drift Zones'. That was a vast improvement on last season, as it didn't disrupt the flow of driving, like when the gate was not cleared last season. Not only that, there were now 4 classes: Class-B, Class-A, and the new Class-I. Class-I is an invite only class and the only way to compete in this class is to 1. Podium at any of the past RC Driftclub events, or 2. Get invited by RC Driftclub themselves. Of course they also still had their Class-S category, consisting of fastest lap times while drifting.

I was invited to join Class-I and it was the only class I signed up for. This class was filled with top drivers from the So-Cal area and was sure to be challenging. Among them were some well known Team Arai members including Mike Chung, Gill Espinosa, Ulysses Pascual, Sang Nam, and Jon Lawrence. As well as drivers from other teams such as Returning RC Driftclub Class-A champion Jhon Mundo and Mike Surinsuk from Team D-Style, Ryan Delmendo and John Ramos from Drift Nutz, and many other very talented drivers. Touge Knights drivers also made an appearance with Lloyd Javier, Alain Chau, and the young phenom, Mac Cruz.

The weather was nice, with a bight sun shining and a little bit of a breeze, so it looked to be a great event. I however, was very weary on how I would do in this competition, not because of nervousness or anything like that, but because I was using a brand new chassis, literally. 2 nights before the competition, I was able to get a Hot Bodies Cyclone S Hybrid chassis. This chassis is very similar to the Cyclone S 'Limited Drift Edition' from Japan. It's basically a Cyclone S chassis with an array of hop ups that come with the kit from the regular Cyclone as well as the World Edition. My Touge Knights Teammate Eric Tubig helped me out with the build, as he knows his way around the Cyclone chassis well, and that I needed some time to adjust and tune. To be honest, i'm not much of a tuner. I just love to drive and adjust my driving style to the car that i'm driving. I know that might not always be the best option, but it does make for a well rounded driver, lol. Anyway, the day before the event, Driftspeed, Zero1 Motors, and Team Arai had a drift session at Zero1 motors in Los Alimitos, CA. That session would be a test day, as the morning of, I barely finished the ret of the chassis build. Things were very out of tune for the most part, and after going back and forth from the track with literally 20 second runs, I was almost going to go back to my Sprint 2 workhorse. But luckily Mike S. from team D-Style was able to help me out with the tuning of the chassis and wow! It made a world of difference. After a couple of test and tune laps, I felt ready for tomorrow. So, all that was left was to compete. I geared up with my Novak 7.5 GTB, Spektrum radio, and {TK/GDD} D-Max AE-86 Hibino replica body, provided by Genki Dori Dori.


The day of the comp, I set up shop and ran a couple of practice laps. Although we had tuned the night before, I had ball differential issues, after those few laps and had to completely change out the diff as it kept coming loose. By the time it was ready to go, practice was over. For the most part of the day, it was waiting your turn to run in your class, which was sort of lengthy. Not to mention that morning practice was your only time to run before your qualifying run. That was a pretty scary thought, considering no testing could be done (aside from 1 practice lap from a one 3 lap qualifying round). Something that I wish was different, but, what can you do with so many classes. I was up to qualify and driving felt kind of foreign with this chassis. The first counted lap was a little shaky (as I bobbled on one of the last turns of the course by correcting my line), but the second lap was better and I ended up qualifying 6th over all.

After a looooonnnng wait, Class-I, the last class, was up to drive. After feeling the drainage from the sun and heat, we were up for competing. My first competitor was Ryan Delmendo. We took our practice lap and it looked to be an exiting match. I have to be honest, I was nervous as hell and thought my hand was going to fall off from all the shaking. Ryan is a very talented and consistant driver and I was not taking him lightly at all! We were on the first lap and I was to lead first. I got a pretty good gap on Ryan and stayed consistent through the first lap. Now I was to chase. I was able to close in at a very close proximity and applied a lot of pressure. Because of this, I was able to move on to the next round.

The top 8 round was up next and my next opponent would be TK teammate, Alain Chau. This time, there would be no more practice laps and we would just go straight into tandems. At this point, I was used to driving with Alain, not only because he's my teammate, but also we've battled several times in the past. So, I was to lead again and we both led a clean lap. The next lap, I was able to apply some pressure, but this time Alain went a little wide with his drift line causing him to bobble a little bit, resulting in me being able to move on.

For the top 4 round, my next opponent was none other than the returning Series 1 champion, Jhon 'Mundo Time' Mundo. Jhon is well know for being a very fast and agressive driver that can chase at a very close distance. Needless to say, I was again getting pretty nervous. Since Jhon qualified 2nd overall, he was to lead the first lap. This lap was pretty even throughout the entire lap, and I was able to keep a good amount of space between us. Not too far, and not too close. Just enough to pull off a 5-5 score. Now, I was to lead. This is where it Jhon would be in a very good spot to move on, as he is very good at following. We took off and on the first sweeper, Jhon slightly tapped my back bumper from following too close, but I was able to correct, not altering my drift line. He kept it close the whole way through, but at the second to last turn, he again tapped the back of my bumper, this time a little harder, resulting in spinning me out. The lap was scored 10-0 in my favor and I was able to move on!

Just when I thought things couldn't get more difficult, they did. The final round I was to face one of the best drivers in rc drifting, none other than Team Arai's Jon Lawrence. Jon and I have been practicing a lot together as of late with all the Arai and Drift Speed sessions, so we were well aware what each other was capable of. We have much respect for each other, so going into battle was a little more at ease. It felt more like 2 friends just practicing. Which was more fun to me, b/c I didn't care who won or lost. So, we headed into tandems. The first lap was lead by Jon, as he was the higher qualifier. I wasn't able to stay as close to his car as I wanted to, but that lap was still scored 5-5. It was Jon's turn to chase was up and he was following at a close distance, so with that, he was deemed the RC Driftclub Rnd 1 winner. We shook hands and congratulated each other on a job well done. So, in the end, it was Jon taking first, myself taking second, and Gil taking third. Good job guys!

Over all, this event was very fun. It gave me a chance to try out a whole new platform and the chassis felt solid after only about an 50 min. total driving time, thanks to Eric and Mike. Needless to say, i'm very happy with my new Cyclone S Hybrid set up and will try to stay consistent with this platform this upcoming season! I'd like to thank my sponsor Genki of Genki Dori Dori and hope to represent him well in upcoming events. Also a big thanks goes out to Andy Hilman and Rodney Wills for all their support! Thanks all for reading, till next time!


-Marc

**Tandem picture courtesy of RC Driftclub**