Drift Nutz Area-D Competition

Hello All,

It's been a busy month for the SoCal RC Drift scene. Just last week was the Drift Nutz Area D competition held at Speedtech RC in San Gabriel, CA and this past weekend was the Groovy Drift Nationals Competition. The Area D event was really fun, just because it was so lax. Some say that drivers tend to do better when they're relaxed and don't put so much pressure on themselves. I guess they're right because the result couldn't have been better. I ended up taking home 1st place in the Area D competition, so it was pretty cool! After coming off of last month's victory at Red Line Time Attack, it felt pretty good keeping the momentum going for this one. The car felt pretty stable at first, but I ran into some problems with the steering while accelerating. Sort of a chunky grinding sound. Came to find out from Jeff, the owner of Speedtech RC, that I installed my "c hubs" on my front end on the wrong sides. So left was supposed to be right, and vise versa. Oh well, that late night build prior to Red Line was pretty late, go figure. So, I ended up switching them and managed to finish off pretty strong.

Another funny thing about the event was having to battle Veje, the "National Champ". Our tandems were pretty damn fun, not to mention pretty damn close! I also ended up being crowned the new Drift Nutz National Champion. Twas an exciting and memorable run.

Group Photo!


The BRS Widebody Supra in competition for the second competition win in a row!


The Drift Nutz!


This guy is seriously that famous: James Revilla of RC Driftclub/Xtreme RC Magazine signing an autograph for HPI's Andrew Hilman. James had a whole Drift King spread on Drift RC Magazine, nice!


The expression on my face sums up the whole day in general. Coming soon: Designer TougeKnights star boardshorts... just kidding =P


Thanks to Drift Nutz for throwing their first of many official competitions, Jeff of Speedtech for the tech help and donating the Team Orion Li-Po for the 1st place prize, Andy and HPI Racing for supporting the event, Falken Tire and Spektrum for donating prizes, TK for representing (congrats on 3rd Place Mac!), and last but not least Genki for all his support!

Here's the official coverage from HPI Racing's site: www.hpiracing.com/news/2008081102/

Till Next Time!

California Speedway, Fontana, California, 95ºF: The setting of the the 2008 Redline Time Attack. This event was just awesome. Being around the atmosphere of loud cars, hot girls, and RC Drift AND Time Attack. What more could you ask for!!! Well, maybe an air conditioner, but that's beside the point.



The season finale of RC Driftclub in conjunction with HPI Racing was a great event. The event was split up into two days. The first day consisted of qualifying for both time attack and drift. The second day had one more additional qualifying rounds for both classes and the final brackets for each as well.




Pre Race Day:
Preparation for this day was pretty much no different from any other event for me. It usually consists of (this time being no exception) staying up all night, working on a body to use for the event. I sort of have an inner rule to myself. I always like to compete or run with a body that I'm proud to use. I very rarely compete with a basher or something I don't care about. For me it's just one of the quirks about me. Not to say that I won't re-use a body, it just has to be something that I'd want to run at the time, or enjoy looking at while driving. After all, that's what makes drifting (along with many other motor-sports) so great. It's not only is it about the action, it's about looking good at the same time! I dunno, call me weird, but that's what I do. Thus, I was prepping my custom wide-body BRS Supra for the competition ahead of me the night before, working on only 3 hours of sleep. Like I said, that's usually what happens the day before, no sleep b/c of working on a body. And to be honest, I was actually working on this project for 2 weeks on and off a little here and there, but the grunt of it was done at the last moment! I knew we'd have some time at the event before it started, so I just finished the body there and sticke'rd up the body the morning of the event.



Day 1:
Getting there around 7:00 am wasn't easy. Well, at least with the amount of sleep I had. California Speedway isn't too far from my house so it took me around 35 min. to get there. Many of the teams and drivers sprung for a hotel, which wasn't too bad of an idea, considering gas prices nowadays. Annnnyywayyy.... I started off the day with helping with track set up. Then after a small break, open practice and qualifying for time attack was up. I initially thought that drift was on Saturday and time attack was on Sunday. But I was wrong, thus some quick wrenching and swapping of setup had to be made. Thanks to Mac of TK and Val, I was able to get my car ready in time. The setup I use for drift consists of a ball diff in the front and a spool in the rear. But apparently, for "grip" it's a spool in the front and a ball diff in the rear! I came to find out that if you use the drift setup for grip, you tend to over steer and it's a lot easier to spin out. So good thing the Cyclone is a pretty easy and convenient car to wrench on. Also, I came to find out that the two classes were going to be alternating throughout the weekend so if you had one car for the weekend, you were doing ALOT of swapping and wrenching. Kinda wish that was different, but I made due. Anyway, on my first qualifier for time attack, I posted a 19.90 sec. run. Not too bad considering it was my first time running a car competitively like this. And to be honest, I like it! It's a good change of pace and was really fun! During the second qualifier, I ended up breaking a front left "C-Hub", so I received a DNF.



After qualifying, a repair and setup swap, drift qualifying was up. The format was the same as RC DriftClub's Round 4 qualifying format. 5 cars at a time on the track, 1 practice, 2 scored (3 continuous laps in total). This track had 2 scored zones. 1 hairpin and 1 "Max Out" zone. To be honest, this was actually not as exciting as time attack qualifying. I think I was looking forward too much to time attack and it took the concentration out of drift. But, I didn't do too bad as I qualified 3rd for that Day.



After hanging out, checking out the pits and snapping some photos of the event, I decided to re-swap my setup and practice grip some more (after most of the competitors were gone) I even did a little bit of RC drag racing! Practicing was probably both good and bad. Good because I got some good practice in, but bad because my chassis might have took too much of a beating. I ended up rolling the car and slamming into the wall. So, after looking over my chassis that night, I found some things that needed to be replaced from being broken or just not working. Instead of rebuilding, I took the Cyclone S that I won at RCX and built up a whole new car that night (using hop ups from the previous car and new hop ups that I held onto). I also converted the setup I had and made it into a Cyclone TC/S hybrid. New shock towers, new spool and ball diff, etc. This was actually a really cool experience. I felt like I was rebuilding a motor that blew at a 1:1 comp and had to pull an all niter trying to rebuild in time for competition. So it was really fun actually! After another sleepless night, I was working on building right up until I absolutely had to leave or else I'd miss the comp. So off to the comp!



Day 2:
As soon as I got to the speedway, the concours competition and group photo was on. The BRS Supra ended up being in the top 3 along with fellow TK member Mike Surinsuk and also Mac Cruz of Touge Knights taking 1st with his RX-7! After all this, I really needed to set up my car and make sure everything worked. After-all, this car never even touched the ground! So after some time on the setup board, testing on some controlled practice laps (only the drivers that were in that group are allowed to practice) went well. I ran some really really good laps! I was pretty happy with the way it felt. I was up for my time attack 3rd qualifier and ended up with a 19.00 sec. lap. It was decent, and definitely an improvement over the previous day.



After another setup swap, the top 5 drift qualifiers were up for the last qualifying round (is this enough qualifying or what?!?!). The new car proved to be a really really big improvement because I came out qualifying 1st! Since my break between time attack and drift was so short, I decided to stick with the drift setup for time attack, and take my chances at putting my emphasis at drift. After time attack controlled practice, I was up. Wow, when I said the car over steers with a drift setup on grip, I wasn't kidding! I was all over the place. On top of that, I ended up hopping a dot on the sweeper, flipping my car forward, breaking off my wing, slamming into a wall and still managed to finish my lap with no damage. I ended up with a 23.22 sec. lap. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Mac Cruz ended up taking 1st with a 16.94 lap! Wow, that was super fast!




Drift was up and the top 32 grid was up. My first opponent was Rob Rosales. We battled and I kept it clean and controlled and ended up advancing due to some wall contact on Rob's Part. Next I was up to go against HPI employee Aki W. in a rematch from a couple of rounds ago! We both kept it clean, but I was able to edge out the win due to a small mistake by Aki after the switchback. Next I was up to face fellow TK member Mike Surinsuk in the best 8. This was a tough battle as we had to go one more time! The first lap was scored 5-5 as we both kept it clean. The second lap I was chasing so I was able to stay really close to him and his line to pull away with a 6-4 to take the win. On to the best 4. The cool thing about this best 4 in this comp was that the best 4 also happened to be the top 4 qualifiers! My next opponent for the best 4 was none other than Val Hoang... again. Like I said in the previous post, I always seem to go against this guy!!!! This was also a really really close battle, but I was able to get a pretty good gap leading on the first lap and was able to close in on the second lap. Even though we both had a good max out lines, they gave me the advantage and I was able to get into the finals! In the final 2, I was to go against Bryan Agustin. Bryan is a very consistent driver and has some serious skill. After a SUPER close battle, the judges deemed that I was able to have a more stable line throughout the course and was able to barely edge out the win!!!!! This happens to be my very first 1st place win in sponsored event!








Thanks to Genki Dori Dori for all his support!!! HPI Racing and RC DriftClub for putting on such a great event! Also, to TougeKnights for holding it down at the event! Till next time readers! See you at the Groovy Drift Nationals!

D1RC Eurocup 2008

Well where do I start here, well it was saturday morning 6am and of i set with my friend steve for what was about to be the best weekend's drifting ive ever had.

Upon arival we were amazed to find we were almost the kast to arrive and get set up, so of to it tents were up gazebo and all ready to hit the track for some all important practice and to get a good feel feel for the track.

The big line up, from all over europ....... the drivers...

The cars..............

So of to the practice track with an old mini cooper shell (thanx to EL Barto) on my Alex Racing CER chassis which im still trying to find that perfect set up, so after about an hours practice on Yokomo single ring drift tires it was becoming obvious from many other people that the chosen choice was the HPI T drifts, so with that in mind i set to change the tires and give them a try... and wow what a diferance they made, more grip and speed instantly giving so much more control.

So with the tire choice now made it was time for the qualifying, i decided to use my Alex \racing CER over my Alex Racing CE-4 as ive found it to be more posotive in transitions, so of i went to find out which group i was in group 9, so practice was up for my group and with a very windy day the mini was getting blown all over the place, but persistance didnt pay of.... as i qualified 17th over all.

So after finding the weather was against me with the mini it was time to get my CE-4 on some T drifts aswell, on to the track and after a few camber adjustments i found this to be the choice of chassis for the finals the next day.

Yokomo S13 shell with the GDD sponsor decals.................

So my qualifying put me into group C in the finals for the next day, at this point i was very dissapointed with myself for not choosing to use my CE-4 in the first place.

Well as the daylight started to fade the BBQ was on and the fun begain, food and drink a very big must to end a gret start to a 2 day event, so out came the lights on the cars, some fun was had by all on the practice track and the full size track.
So to end a gret day and night it was of to the tents for an early start tomorrow.....

And gees did that come round fast lol, hardly any sleep after a late night.. but on to it it was, practice practice and more practice. So as i was down in group C i thought i had little chance of getting into the A final but after knocking out my oponents in C group through to the B final i started to get a litlle more faith in myself..........

Next up came the B finals and again cutting through the group i amazed myself as to how well i seemed to have my chassis set up, before i knew it i was in the semi finals and then through to the final NERVES haha thats an understatement lol.... well it was to be a very dificult decision by the judges and after about 8 runs it was decided that first place was given to Clifford Romeyn, and well deserved to. I had more fun than ever before at this event and met some really great people from all over europe.

Thanks guy's to all who participated and to those who organised such a great event.

First place, C;ifford Romeyn

Second place myself phil warner..

Third place Ozdemir Ozerem..

Thanks looking.....

DriftClub Round 4

June 14th, 2008

Hello All,

Round for of DriftClub was by far the best event of the season. It was held at HPI headquarters in Foothill Ranch so the venue was just awesome! Although it was piping hot, all of the competitors made due and had fun anyway! Not only was this the last round of the season, but it was a big deciding factor on the whole point series as well! Anything could have happened that day as far as final placement in points.

Attending this event was Joel "Magic" Johnson, 33-time ROAR National Champion and 2-time IFMAR World Champion, in both off-road and on-road. Oh, and did I mention that he's also head of Kyosho USA? Crazy huh!?! I had the pleasure of giving him some tips on how my car was setup, how I drive my car, what I do differently and even running a few laps next to him and giving suggestions along the way. Other drivers and judges were also there to help give pointers to him as well, so it was just nice to be around that type of friendly atmosphere. He was happening to drive the chassis of HPI USA's president Shawn Ireland too so can't go wrong with that.

This day started off with morning practice and setup. The track was a simple kidney bean shape on paper, but turned out to be one of the best tracks all season. It flowed really well and showed off some really great tandems! Sometimes less is more I guess. Anyway, after that was the drivers meeting, group picture and concourse. I was lucky enough to get top three in concourse! Didn't win, but hey, not too shabby! I was driving the new HPI 200mm S15, which had a pretty cool color. I used Tamiya transparent orange backed with chrome and topped it off with orange chrome and regular chrome vinyl decals. It came out pretty cool in my opinion. Oh, and I also added a 3-d front end with intercooler as well as some new black and chrome Work XSA 02C wheels (that you can get here in the shop =P). I love em, they look really aggressive. The deep dish action is crazy!

Anyway, after that was qualifying. This was run differently this round. Instead of running one competitor at a time, we did groups of 4-5 drivers on the track at one time. Each driver was judged on two clipping points and was given a total score based on a zone type of system. It was really efficient, not to mention fast! It wasn't boring or anything to watch, which made it enjoyable. I happened to qualify 4th that day, so I did pretty decent.

On to the tandems. You'll never guess who I was to go up against in the top 16. Any guesses? Well, it happened to be Joel Johnson. Talk about nerve racking! It was crazy to go against someone of his caliber! To win that many championships and have to go against him?! Hah! I was super nervous! We took our practice lap and man, did he nail it like there was no tomorrow. I mean, we were all shocked at how well his practice lap looked, because he looked like he was drifting for years! Mind you it was his first drift comp and all. So we went on to battle. The first lap was scored with my advantage as Joel went a little wide after the switch back and ended up in the wall. The next lap was sort of similar but it was cool. So with that I moved on to the best 8. It was truly a pleasure to drive alongside someone like him. He's a really cool guy!

In the best 8, I faced Val Hoang. I don't know why, but I always seem to go against him for some strange reason. We both kept it clean, but Val ended up going a little wide on the first initial sweeper and hitting the wall. Not sure if his motor cut out and he couldn't power out of it, but that resulted in me moving on to the next round. Good job Val! =D

The top 4. I was going against Sang Nam of team Arai. This guy was just on this day, well, pretty much like every other day too, and today was no exception. He was top qualifier that day so that proved that as well. The first laps were clean on both ends so it called for a one more time. The second go around we were both running clean laps, but he was a little more aggressive on the ideal drift line, so that gave him the slight advantage resulting in him moving on. Oh well! =)

Battle for 3rd, I had to go against Jon Lawence from team Arai again!!!! I don't know why, but he's another one I always have to drive against. And lets face it, he's not exactly the easiest person to beat (which to this day, I have never beat him still!). Again, today was no exception, as his clean flowing driving style was able to edge me out of 4th. But just barely. Haha. If your reading this Jon, it's on next time!!! LOL. Just kidding, it's all good with me and him like always. We drive like we're just at Arai, it's never really serious competing, which I love.

Anyway, I ended the day finishing 4th, and it was a good day overall. Team Arai ended up sweeping the entire podium for class-I. And from my understanding, it's a first for them. Also, props to Gil of team Arai for holding it down the whole season and getting 1st in this event, as well as overall in points! Congrats guys!

Oh, and as for the point series, I came out 4th overall. My TK teammate Lloyd beat me out of 3rd by 2 points, and Jon beat me out of 2nd by 8 points. Heartbreaker, i know! Oh well, there's always next season! Congrats to all of the winners and thanks to DriftClub for an awesome season! Thanks for reading!

*Photo credits go to Richard Eslava of Drift Nutz and Dave from DriftClub.

RCX, Pomona - Day 1

April 19th, 2008

April 19th, 2008 was the first of two days at RCX for the HPI Drift Challenge. This weekend was sure to be a fun weekend, as well as a busy one. 34 RC Drifters ranging from NorCal, SoCal, and even as far as Hawaii, came to battle it out in Pomona.


Day 1
The day started out early as usual with pit set up and such. There were a number of things that were to be ran differently with this competition. One would be that it was a 2 day cumulative event, and 2, the qualifying would be a bracket style as apposed to the normal single driver style. At first this style would seem as if it would be a bit too sketchy, but it worked out really good. Qualifying was more exciting than just watching a single car run, which was better for the audience that only had a few moments to watch, this in turn had many of them staying to watch a large portion of the event. James of RC Driftclub and HPI did a good job with this, so kudos!

HPI took the liberty of taking individual photos of each driver and their car which I thought was a really cool extra. These would eventually be used on the official HPI website which was even better! After this, we all gathered on the track for a quick drivers meeting running down the list of rules and such, just like any other event. Thereafter, we all took a group picture followed by the concours competition. There were a lot of great looking RC bodies being put out for this event, so there was sure to be some eye candy. The judges had chosen the top 3, consisting of Ryan Degala with his R35 inspired 350 Z, Alfonso Jay Williams with his Subaru Impreza along with a motor, and myself with a replica of Tanner Foust's 2008 AEM/ Rockstar 350Z. In the end, it was Alfonso taking 1st, myself taking 2nd, and Ryan taking 3rd.


Now, it was time for the qualifying Battle Bracket 1. My first battle was against Ian Fadrigon. Since this battle was the first for the day, my head was pretty clear. I got a good amount of practice in the morning so I was pretty warmed up. Also, since this was sort of a qualifying round that counted only towards the next round I was pretty relaxed and concentrated on just having fun, and not putting too much pressure on myself. Anyway, it was pretty cool getting to drive against one of the Team Redline NorCal guys. We both kept it fun and clean during the battles and I ended up advancing because I managed to put a little pressure while following. My next opponent would be Mac Cruz. I love going against my teammates because there's a real good sense of sportsman ship between all of us. Even though only one of us gets to advance at the time, we all wish the best for each other. Mac, what can I say, he's pretty gifted and a very talented driver, so it wasn't going to be anything but tough to advance. Mac and I often practice tandems a whole lot whenever we practice, so we're pretty familiar with each others driving style. We both kept it clean and just tried to give the crowd a show with some close tandems! We got the crowd going for a bit. But someone had to go on, and I ended up advancing to the next round, might have been luck, haha. Next was the best 8 round. I was going against Wes Handy. Wes is one crazy driver because he manages to pull off some sick runs with using an almost stock HPI E10 with a 27 turn brush motor. He trips me out with that and is also really good, hats off to him. But one person could only move on so I was going to get to move on. My next opponent in the best 4 round was Drift Nutz member, Ken Elslava. Ken Ken is a really overall cool guy and is another fun driver to go against. He'll always give you a run for your money and he did this round. We kept it clean and battled tight, but I was going to get to go on the the finals! Not bad for the first part of the day! This time I had to go against Brian Lemi. I never really drove against Brian, but I've watched a couple of his battles in the past, he's pretty good. With that said, it was no surprise that we went one more time, but in the end, I came out with the win. It was a pretty good morning so far.


With pulling off the win for the first bracket, the winner of the first bracket was up to go against HPI employee and driver extraordinaire Thad Garner in a super battle! This was probably the craziest tandeming i've ever done period. The crowds absolutely loved it and we seriously kept it waaaay close. It was so fun! Literally, pretty much everyone was yelling with excitement, including my self, well, inside at least while driving. But it was too crazy!


It was time for lunch along with the Time Attack qualifying round! It was actually really really fun. The track conditions with pretty good for time attack as it started to get warmer from a gloomy cold morning. With the sun finally shining, drivers put on a good show for this portion! It was amazing to see how many spectators we got during this time. To give you an idea, we actually had 2 separate tracks (one competition course and one practice course) right next to each other. The crowd we had throughout the day for the most part was lined up along the competition track. For time attack, people actually filled up along both tracks with multiple rows of people. It was pretty cool! The crowd loved this portion as well as the drivers, because drivers consistently kept getting better and faster times. Out of the whole grid, my teammate Eric Tubig was driving super fast that day and he was the guy to beat. I managed to be a couple of milliseconds faster, and pulled of the top qualifying position! It was pretty on edge and exciting!

Bracket 2 was a pretty short bracket for me. First I went against Timothy Truong who I've never drove against. Due to some spinouts in his first lap, I managed to keep it clean and move on. Next I was going to go against John Ramos, another member of Drift Nutz. It always fun and relaxing battling against people that are really chill, because I don't really care who wins, as long as we have fun, and John being one of them, it was pretty cool. We both kept in pretty clean again, but with a slight advantage, I was able to pull off an advancement to the best 8.
This round was where my streak ended for the morning. Battling against Nick Viglionzoni was pretty interesting. After a clean lap by both of us, I was to chase next. On the second to last turn when trying to close up on him, I ended up hitting him on the transition. Not really sure what happened, wether he had an motor/ esc cut out issue or something, but (at the time) it might have been seen as a brake check. We both were maintaining the same speed and line, but somewhere he slowed down a pretty good amount, pretty quick. With that hit he was able to move on. I wasn't mad at all and I didn't scream out "Brake Check!". I just took what I was dealt and accepted it. We shook hands and being the good sportsman that he is, Nick came up to me later that day and explained that he didn't intentionally brake check me, and that in order to transition, he had to slow down pretty quickly in order to make the transition. That's pretty understandable as the point of the chase car is to follow the lead car's line along with speed and angle. All was good and we were totally cool (not that we weren't before), but it was nice of him to come up to me and make sure that all was good. He actually went on the win the bracket, so good job Nick!


More to come for Day 2 soon! Stay tuned!

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**

Ride Racing Drift Tyre - Type H

Genki DorDori Driver Marc Marquez has been kind enough to give these new tyres a good test and these were his thoughts...enjoy :D

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My first initial look at the tire, I noticed that it was a solid carcass, so it gave good incentive for long life of the tire (being that it would most likely be run down to the wheel). The compound still felt like rubber (but more so plastic), was still pretty firm, which led me to believe that they would be a faster tire. I liked that the had 2 inner lips for better stability (to stay on) on the wheel after mounting. After putting them on, here's what I found (in order of testing):

Prepared Polished Concrete

-Was very fast compared to Yokomo DR-02, HPI Type-T, or ABS on this type of surface and was very comparable to the handling characteristics of RPD's

-Although a lot of speed was given, controllability was still there, so it made it easy to control drifts

-Ability to hold the drift was surprisingly very good. It wasn't cut short b/c of the grip, but gave a combination of speed and drift distance

-Felt like somewhere between Type-T's and RPD's

-Felt a little 'twitchy' at times, so for a beginner, it would be difficult to master how to use them right away

-Fun none the less

Asphalt

-Had similar Characteristics as when tested on the Polished Concrete

-Drift length was a little longer, compared to Polished Concrete, maybe due to the inconsistency of the surface (i.e. rocks, not that much contact from tire to ground, etc.)

-Pretty much the same for the most part

Unprepared 'Sidewalk' Type of Concrete

-Was very very fast on this type of surface

-Very comparable to HPI Type-A Radials

-Controllable, but you had to be on your toes

-Length of drift was okay, not too short, but could be longer. Although, was lengthier compared to HPI Type-A's

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all the Ride drift tire is a very good balance of speed and
control. It's has a good amount of grip, but not too much grip, as
long as your on the right surface. If you like medium to fast
drifting, you'll love these. However, I think newcomers just getting
into the drift scene would benefit more with a tire such as ABS, HPI
Type-T's, or Yokomo DR-02's because they can get a better feel for how
your car reacts when in different situtations with drifitng. But
that's not to say that they wouldn't have any fun with these tires.
Beginner to advanced, RC drifters will enjoy these no matter what. For
those with novice to advanced experience, these drivers would have a
blast with these, as they would be able to harness the benefits these
tires have to offer. In competitions with open tire choices, the Ride
tire would definitely be one of my top three choices to use in
competition.