Big weekend for drifting at Evergreen Speedway
Published 1:15 am Thursday, August 6, 2009
MONROE — There is a simple solution for anyone having trouble understanding the world-wide popularity of drifting, the sport where drivers put cars into deliberate sideways slides at high speed while negotiating a marked course.
Watch Victor Moore, the 2008 Evergreen Drift champion and current points leader, make a practice run with tires screeching and smoking as he twists his car through the drifting course at Evergreen Speedway.
“It’s really an expression of the driver, how you drive,” said Moore, who’s been drifting since 2005. “It’s not really a timed event — it’s more a skill.”
Moore, who is originally from Port Orchard but now lives in Tukwila, will be taking part in the inaugural ProAm Championship Series drifting event at Evergreen Speedway on Friday and Saturday.
The ProAm event, which Evergreen Drift coordinator Kelly Hale called a “coming-out party” for local drifters, will be held in conjunction with the visit of the professional Formula Drift series to Evergreen Speedway.
Now in its sixth year after starting as the first professional drifting series in North America, Formula Drift drivers will be competing in Round 5 of their seven-event season championship this weekend.
The top four finishers in Saturday’s ProAm event at Evergreen Speedway will be invited to the ProAm national finals in December at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Ariz. Drifters who make it to nationals will compete to earn a professional license to race on the Formula Drift circuit.
Two Evergreen Drift competitors, Andrew Coomes of Portland and Roland Gallagher of Bothell, have already earned invites to nationals by taking part in a ProAm event in Las Vegas.
“That’s what I want to do,” Moore said. “When I started, my whole motivation with drifting was to go pro.”
Taking off from a standing start on the backstretch of the five-eighths mile track at Evergreen Speedway — drifters go in the opposite direction of the speedway’s oval racers — Moore entered turn 2 at around 80 mph and pitched the car into a tire-smoking slide with the rear bumper nearly touching the outer wall.
After sliding through turns 2 and 1, Moore entered a section of inner and outer clipping points, marked by cones, and transition zones in front of the grandstands.
While staying on a predetermined line and maintaining his slide or “drift,” Moore tried to get his front bumper as close as possible to the inner clipping points, and after changing direction in the transition zones, he maneuvered to get his rear bumper as near as possible to the outer clipping points.
Drivers are judged on speed — both on entry at the first corner and throughout the course — their line and the angle of the car through the pass. A final category, overall impression, gives the judging panel the chance to reward drivers for their flair and execution.
“It’s an uncoached sport; you have a set guideline, but how you do it is a way to show who you are,” said Chris Jeanneret, a Monroe High School graduate who is also hopeful of earning a pro license. “How we drift, how we come close to other cars, is all about our personality.”
The freestyle nature of drifting has helped it to grow in popularity with the type of fans — think skateboarders and anyone who watches the X-Games — that traditional motorsports like NASCAR are struggling to attract.
During Friday’s qualifying for both the Formula D and the ProAm events, drivers will make two non-consecutive scored single passes to determine seeding for Saturday’s elimination rounds.
The Formula D pros will attempt to qualify for the 32 starting positions available on Saturday, and the 13 drivers preregistered for the ProAm — hailing from all over the Pacific Northwest, Canada and California — will be vying for eight available spots.
As exciting as the qualifying sessions can be, the real draw for drifting fans are the elimination rounds, which are made up of two passes done in tandem, with one car leading and the other following.
The following driver must mimic the moves of the leader while staying as close as possible to pressure the other driver into making a mistake. Positions are swapped for each pass, so both drivers will be the leader once and the follower once.
At the end of both passes, each judge will individually declare which driver won or if the round was a tie. If there is no clear majority the drivers will go as many rounds as necessary to determine the winner.
Drifting originated in Japan more than 15 years ago and is now one of that country’s most-attended motorsports. Since then, drifting has spread across the world with professional and amateur series appearing in Europe, North America, Australia and other parts of Asia.
Non-competitive drifting events had been held at Evergreen Speedway for several years before Hale helped launch the competitive series last year.
With a solid core group of racers and volunteers to help organize and run the events, and strong local sponsorship from Longacre Racing and Canyons Restaurant in Monroe, Northwest Nissan in Lynnwood and Campbell-Nelson Nissan in North Seattle, Evergreen Drift was able to secure a coveted ProAm series date in just its second season.
Both Jeanneret and Moore work for KP Race Engineering, a year-old Tukwila race shop which specializes in drifting. Both drive KPR shop cars, and have a strong motivation to earn their pro license: a new KPR-built car for the Formula D circuit.
Although the cars of many amateur drifters are street legal, there are required safety features including roll cages, six-point harnesses for the driver and fire extinguishers — “Everything you would expect to find in a (late-model) race car,” said Hale, who is in his second year as Evergreen Drift coordinator.
Five or six years ago most drifting cars were Japanese imports, but today there are many different makes and models on both the pro and amateur circuits, including cars from U.S. automakers like Mustangs, Vipers and Corvettes.
Jeanneret estimated a competitive car for use in the Evergreen Drift series could be built for around $15,000, a fairly reasonable cost for a racecar that could also double as daily transportation.
That is, until one considers the cost of tires and rims.
“Three runs for a set (of tires) at $280 apiece,” said Jeanerette with a laugh. “That’s my personal expense — shop provides the car, I pay for the tires (and mounting).”
All that tire smoking and sliding may not come cheaply, but it is a big part of what makes drifting so exciting.
Formula Drift Round 5 “Breaking Point” and ProAm Championship Series events Friday and Saturday at Evergreen Speedway.
Schedule
Gates open at 10 a.m., both days.
Formula Drift qualifying begins at 3 p.m. Friday followed by ProAm qualifying at 6 p.m.
On Saturday, the ProAm championship competition begin at 1 p.m., followed by the Formula Drift Round of 32 at 2 p.m., opening ceremonies at 5:30 p.m. and the final rounds of pro competition at 6 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets start at $23 for a single day or $28 for both days, and can be purchased at the Formula Drift Web site, www.formuladrift.com.
On the Web
www.formuladrift.com
www.evergreendrift.com
www.evergreenspeedway.com
Both NASCAR and IndyCar will be on road courses this weekend, with the Cup and Nationwide Series at Watkins Glen in New York and the open-wheelers at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Locally, it’s Ladies Nite at Skagit Speedway, with the first 5,000 women getting free admission to see the 410 and Sportsman Sprints, Outlaw Hornets, midgets and mini-sprints race starting at 7 p.m.
For my picks, I like Kyle Busch to repeat by winning Sunday’s Cup race (11 a.m., ESPN) and Ryan Newman to take Saturday’s Nationwide race (noon, ESPN2) at The Glen. For the Honda Indy 200 on Sunday (10:45 a.m., Versus), I’ll go with Dan Wheldon.
