sideways – Gripshiftslide

VicDrift :: Drift Summer Matsuri

Grant — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 09:35:16 +0000

Its been a long time since i have been to winton raceway. Missing drift is what had inspired me to make the 3 hour journey to Summer Matsuri. With a host of wicked cars due to show up at the event and my gear all charged. It was only the road trip that stood in front of me.

Wanting to get to Winton early i jumped in the van at 4am, if you have ever made the trip before you will know that it is pretty much all straight roads. Boaring and mind numbing but rewarding at the same time.

With the sun quickly rising i ran around trying to capture some of drift cars bathing in the morning sunlight before there epic sideways adventures.

Soon this hybrid ford / r33 skyline would be smoking more than “Cheech and Chong” tires of course! Not only where people up early and working on their cars, they were also getting over the effects of drift party life.

When all the money is spent on the car their is not much left over for the drivers or the crew. That means that breakfast is cornflakes served in a halved 2 liter milk container.

Summer Masuri runs both saturday and sunday, this r32 was showing some battle scars from Saturdays long drift sessions that ran well into the night.

Matt Russells drift machine always looks good! it has recently just come back from ADGP in sydney. Although it has been competing against the best in Australia the car still looks straight and is here ready for a casual drift with Vicdrift friends.

This drift interior shows exactly what is needed for your average drift set up. Not everyone runs a heap of gauges and the main essentials are oil, water and boost.

With only an hour until the first session people were already queuing up for their tyres. Impatiently waiting to hit the track and burn some rubber.

The SmashBox Sliders were out in force and ready for another hot day of sideways action. Ryan and Elliott’s cars were looking strong and after surviving Saturdays carnage they knew the cars could hold out for another full day of drift.

Everybody assembled for the drivers briefing, with over 100+ people in attendance yoshi had his hands full instructing the large crowd. The drivers briefing is a good way of letting all the drivers know whats expected of them on the day and how they should behave.

Looking at this large line of people you wouldn’t think that drift is unpopular,but the sad reality is that it’s a fringe Motorsporat in Australia. Yoshi and the VicDrift team are trying to change the impression of drift in this country, doing this at a grass roots level is a long hard job.

As the sun continued to rise it was time to hit the track. With 4 different classes and variety of driver talent the stage was set for yet another awesome day of drifting.

In the drivers meeting there had been a warning about a rut / drop off near the start of the winding section of the track just before the main straight. Luckly most cars avoided this nasty edge by not running so wide out of the first corner after the back straight.

Trent and cat have been using every chance they can to test and tune cat’s new car. Now that the suspension setup is nearly perfect it was time for Cat to get some serious track time. While watching the Chequered Tuning VK shred tyres i noticed a few strange track exits on to the dirt. It turns out the car was suffering from an electrical gremlin which caused the car to cut in and out while in 4th gear,Scary stuff! Luckily trent found the problem and fixed it quickly.

Drift matsuri is a good chance for drivers to push themselves and their own boundary’s. Taking the chance to do extreme entry’s when there in not many cars on track is one one to develop your skills.

Some of the drivers would choose to power up the straight or slightly drift. Only the skilled ones would continuously drift from the bottom corner up the straight into end corner.

I didn’t matter what class the car was part of the simple fact was that everyone on track could really drift. When i think back to the early days of drift at winton there were plenty of drivers that just couldn’t drift.

This is one car that was definitely in the wrong class and should of been part of class A. Why? because Aaron was linking drifts like a pro at high speed while entertaining the crowd.

Sumner Matsuri is one of the best times to practice tandem drift and working on proximity in a competition free environment helps the drivers develop their proximity skills.

Given the weather all of the cars were coping with the thirty degree day. Although it was only twenty in Melbourne Winton often gets alot hotter than Melbourne.

Although some of the drivers may not agree with the organizers of vicdrift decisions they appreciate the facility of vicdrift. Respect is hard to earn but one person who completely surprised me with there hidden talent was Choonga.

Throwing hard and holding nearly every drift choonga would cut pro lines with speed and grace. Good high angle entry’s with plenty of power! The boy can drift. If he did more drifting and had some serious sponsorship he could easily be within the top 10 drifters in Australia.

I have never seen a Corona drift before but I like it. Although it may be slightly heavier than the KE70 it is a smart choice for a good, low cost drift build that will turn heads.

What’s a Drift Matsuri without the traditional Drift Matsuri Burnout competition! This year there was a special guest from Summernats; yet the car that stole the show was this Starion with an incredible rollback burnout that had the crowd screaming like school girls.

Not only was it good at burnouts this old Mitsubishi could skid. With plenty of flair and deep drift lines the Starion really was entertaining to watch.

Track time is the name of the game. If you want to be better at drift then Vic Drift Matsuri is the best way to get some serious seat time. This event is one of the best places to see new emerging talent. Fresh cars, new drivers and a friendly atmosphere! Vic Drift really does know how to put on a show so if you have a taste for drift make sure you attend a Vic Drift event this year.

Sprintcar :: 360 Victorian Title Avalon Raceway

Grant — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 06:38:53 +0000

This is one of those fringe motorsports that I have always wanted to visit and for the longest time it had been on my list of motorsports to cover. I was inspired to cover Sprintcar because of a rally photographers friend, so I jumped in the GSS van and headed to Avalon Raceway Geelong.

I have never been to any motorsport where all the fans bring their own seating. So while everybody was busy finding a good spot to sit down, the water trucks continuously did laps to prepare the track for the racing ahead.

Soon after the trucks had finished watering down the track, the racing teams started to enter. One by one, the cars were pushed in by their support team buggy. I must say that I found it strange they didn’t enter under their own power.

The pushing theme continued throughout the day, with push starts given by various utes and 4wd’s. Once these beasts were given their starting push, every car put down a few low speed laps to warm up their engines.

Each class of sprint car had a decent number of competitors and group by group, they all put down warm up laps.

Having a dummy starting grid / second pits in the middle of the track felt unorthodox compared to other motorsports i have attended and yet I understand why they have to set it up this way.
This is the spectators point of view and I had to share this view as I didn’t have a media pass unfortunately on the day.

Siting at different points around this oval style track gave a different perspective of the corners and the cars that were approaching.

The amount of speed these cars generated in a small straight was incredible, especially while on the dirt. Not only do the cars have a crazy amount of torque, but the real secret to getting all this power around the track seems to be the super wide tyres that keep these beasts on the ground.

With three hundred and sixty cubic inch engines, these sprint cars put down between 600-700 horse power. With a power-to-weight ratio comparable to a Formula 1 car, these sprint cars are no joke!

The Front of a sprint car does not look like your average high powered race car, with its strange front spoiler and big fat tyres. The unorthodox body covers its’ super light tube race fame. Under this frame is an untamed v8 power plant that makes more noise than an angry dragon that is hooked on crack.

The urban name for sprint car racing is Caveman Drifting. It’s a dirty sport and certainly not for the faint hearted. It is really a mix of rally and drift with a bit of Nascar, all rolled into one sport.

Although this car had a substantial smoke trail following it, the car actually was not on fire. Often these cars run so hot and they have to cope with a lot of vibration, this can cause oil hoses to become slightly loose and spray oil on the headers. This is one of the main causes of smoke trails from sprint cars.

The spray of mud from the cars was incredible and not long after the first few laps it literally started raining mud when all the cars got on track. With the velocity of a paintball these clumps of mud would fire out and stick to you and everything around you.

The crowd was one of the largest that I had seen at any local motorsport event I’ve attended. With an audience this big, I am surprised you do not see sprint cars on tv more often.

Not only does the track get cut up as the event goes on, but the drivers have to cope with the changing light conditions. As the sun gets lower the track develops patches of light and shade and this definitely adds to the difficult task of driving at high speeds on a dirt track.

This car lost grip and found itself in a wall. We all know motorsport is dangerous and so it was really good to see the driver walk away from this crash.

The racing is close and furious, whether it be in dash format or main A / B racing format. The competition is always very fierce.

After each session the cars would return to the pits though a small gate in the wall. One of the best things about sprint cars is the lack of downtime on track action, it seems there is always something happening.

The time trials are one part of the sprint car format that I really enjoyed. It was great to see how each driver approached the track. The lap times the cars set, position the cars into the correct race heats based on their recorded time. Sorting the drivers by times set, made for much better competition and excitement in the final heats.

One of the biggest crashes of the night was this near flip into the wall. Lucky these sprint cars have great cages and big wings to save the driver from harm.

When there are twenty plus cars on the track, there is not much room for error and especially when these bad boys get up to speed. Being only centimeters from a concrete wall while power sliding on dirt, really takes some crazy confidence.

As the light faded and the sun went down, things started to get cold. This was my first experience with sprint cars and it is fair to say I’m now officially addicted! The sound, the speed, and the atmosphere all combine to create one serious spectacle.
Thanks for reading,
Grant

Video :: Round 2 VicDrift Championship and Practice session

Grant — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:24:35 +0000

Roadking Chassis Round 2 VicDrift Championship and Practice session from grip shift slide on Vimeo.