Drift at Spa Francorchamps - KingofEurope final round - 16/

[Mux213]

dragonnoir Wrote:

Quote:dragonnoir, any chance we can get a place to hang up our site banner? Maybe small table we can use as a meeting place for members of the board?

Yes, could be possible in the drift traders area, a table+banner

Coolest, I'll talk to banpei to see what his opinnion on this is, only downside I always find on having a table is that you need to keep it attended.. But it would be a nice way to have a meeting point for all aeu86.org members

[banpei]

Mux213 Wrote:Coolest, I'll talk to banpei to see what his opinnion on this is, only downside I always find on having a table is that you need to keep it attended.. But it would be a nice way to have a meeting point for all aeu86.org members

Sounds good, but why do we need to keep it attended the whole time?

[Mux213]

Banpei,

It doesn't make much sence to have a club meeting point if there isn't anyone to meet there

[banpei]

Mux213 Wrote:Banpei,

It doesn't make much sence to have a club meeting point if there isn't anyone to meet there

I know, but it hardly makes sense to keep it occupied during events.

[Mux213]

That is true, and nobody will steal the banner anyways

[dragonnoir]

Update..


Drift entry fee for 2 days (saturday free practice and sunday competition) : 150€, you can register online now by downloading this file :

http://www.streetracingmania.com/SpaDrift2006.xls

See you in Spa!

Contact me at [email protected] for more informations.

[Mux213]

Hey Mike,

Rats I missed the oppertunity of shaking your hand. Did see that awsome S15 you had, man what a beauty!!! But we were there way on the late side I never got a chance to figure out which of the people there was you. Hopefully next time...

Anyways, pictures will follow later on, I hardly took any noteworthy ones with my camera, Paulje took a few, so did Djex, but during the competition Djex got his hands on Zax's awsome 10 megapixel camera and we snapped away so we'll have to wait until Zax gets home before those pictures get posted.

For now I'll just do a little trip report for those who are interested for an aeu86 point of view

Okay, we went off to a very rocky start weeks before this event as you can read from this thread. Zax planned to go to this event early on, some of us were going aswell to spectate but we were getting into planning problems because this weekend was the only weekend in which we could held our 2 year anniversary BBQ party. Eventually we desided to held the party on Saterday since it would only be practice day and on Sunday the drift event wouldn't be until the afternoon so we would be able to make it.

A nice group of people were going to come and a few people might even go to drift. Through personal and other reasons the list of people joining us got smaller and smaller, thats the way these things always go. The last people fell off even on the morning when we left. I really can't blame them, the BBQ party was just way to much fun and went on until the wee hours of the night, getting only a few hours of sleep just aint good when you got a 3+ hour trip ahead of you to go to Spa Belgium.. Such is life right

So in the end it was me, Djexor and Paultje. I went home after the barbeque, Djex and Paul slept at the camping site. I almost didn't wake up in the morning myself. Thanks to my wife who's always very supportive of my car hobby even though she hates it I was kicked out of bed, got a refreshing shower and headed back to the camping site, only 15 mins from my home. Djex and Paul had just finished their breakfast and were busy packing their car so timing was perfect.

Now the problem was, which car to take, we didn't wanne take both cars. Problem though, my car looks better but my diff whines like crazy at 120kph and that what we would be driving most of the way. Since I wasn't expecting to get any track time and was feeling tired as hell anyways I gave in and we took Djexs hachi. I don't really regret that decision because his car definately still has very comfy suspention and is loads quieter then mine

It took us alot longer to get to spa then we expected though, We wanted to be there just before 12, it took us until just over 1 to get there. Zax kept calling me where we were because he was about to qualify and we were missing out on all the fun. Damn damn

When we finally got there Zax had told us to get the tickets and drive through with the car but the officials told us to park and walk to the drift track that turned out to be at the other f-ing end of the circuit. It took us another half our to find the damn track.

Needless to say we missed the qualifying rounds but finally met up with Zax who was completely exhausted by now. He told us he had been driving 16 hours in shifts with his dad from friday night to get to Spa, had been practicing on saterday, got little sleep during the night and had been up most of sunday. Poor guy. He did seem to be having alot of fun though.

There were only 12 drifters at the event, I had already briefly seen Paul Vlasblom who is one of the top drifters in Holland and was later told he was there with his brother. I must admit I do not know much about the other drifters that where there. Zax mentioned there were some other skilled guys out there and a few guys that couldn't really drift at all..

The twin drifting finals wouldn't start until 3 so we had some time to kill. We walked around a bit around the area. Alot of tuning going on. Near the drift stand there was an import company that had some really cool import cars, a couple of really nice Skylines, 200sx's, a Diablo, etc. really nice to see. Loads of american mussle cars aswell, not really my thing.. No hachi's though, I wouldn't be susprised if Djex's hachi parked far far far away was the only one there...

3'oclock was there.. One of the nice things about knowing one of the drivers is that it does give you some more access (allthough I dont think it really was that special this time round), Zax's dad was filming stuff with a video camera but he had loads of stuff to haul around so offcourse we offered to help and Djexor ended up carrying all the stuff around. Result, front row seats on the exit corner of the S where the drift compo was being held

The first few guys drifting where a laugh, they really couldn't hold their drift (defo did it better then I would have though). But the cars after them became better and better. Eventually a Sierra cosworth turbo I think it was (I'm not to good with these cars) came screaming around the corner and looked pretty good. I think this car would eventually come in 3rd.

Another car that really looked good out there was a BMW M5 that I believe was driven by a polish driver and became 4th, nice consistant drifts as far as I could judge.

Anyways, the first really spectacular match came when the first match against Paul Vlasblom came. The crowd was getting a bit boored and all of a sudden this BMW touring comes screaming around the corner at amazing speed. That thing is LOUD. I hadn't seen Paul drift in a long while but it really looked amazing the way he came down that track. He really knows how to controll that car and really cames out way ahead of the guy he's going against.

Not long after that, the first match with Zax came. What amazed me most here was the drift Zax put in. His entry was soon, fast and at much greater angle then we had seen up till that point. It was one of the better looking drifts shown that day and it was awarded as such by applause from the stands
The return run with Zax following his opponent showed Zax's weakness though, he followed his opponent in and failed to follow his own line and messed up the initial corners drift. So did the other guy so it didn't matter, but it was not so good. Still no problem as in overall it went ok.

The match went on and on like that. Paul running very consistently allthough I believe against the M5 he had to go a 4th time before the run was desided.
Zax putting down great leading runs, and a ok trailing runs. The last run before the finals though he had to do 5 runs against the M5 before finally it was desided, the suspense was killing us, it really was a great match to watch!

In the final it was first the Cossy against the M5 to deside 3rd and 4th place. I must admit that in all the excitement, I don't clearly remember this match. But it was the Cossy that finally won and took 3rd place.

We offcourse were waiting for the battle between Paul and Zax that we'd be hoping for since the qualifying rounds had placed these two guys as the two favorites with Paul with the most points and Zax as runner up.

The first run was with Paul in front, putting Zax in the back. With Paul in front he entered a great run giving Zax enough room to do a good run himself, it really looked great seeing these two guys do some of their best drifting in end like this. Zax could not catch up with Paul though.

On the second run Zax was in front, Paul behind. Zax went wide into the first corner, and Paul did what he's very well known for, he takes a fast short drift and passed Zax on the inside corner and takes the win.

They do a 3rd run with Zax following and Paul leading again looking very good but Zax not able to overtake Paul.

Paul takes the win, Zax gets second place. What happens next was probably more fun then the whole compo. Zax pulls next to Paul, the two congratulate eachother, talk for a second (god knows what about), they pull up onto the drift square and together give a nice twindriftshow for the crowd

Considering this is Zax first twin drift event, and Pauls won just about every event twin drifting in Holland he has entered, our very own Zax's done something pretty damn good out there today, well in my eyes atleast.

His drifts today looked as good if not better then anything I've seen out there so far, he simply looks amazing. He's got a few more things to learn about twin drifting (twin drifting and show drifting are two different things) but he's definately gonne be able to do some great things in 2007 season

As for Spa, man I had great fun, seeing Paul out there was great aswell. Had a small talk with him and just hearing him about the UK and how he's in awe of how good you guys are doing over there, damn I just have to go there next year for a watch aswell, I've been postponing it far to long!

[SutteR]

Good writeup, thank you Mux!

I got an SMS from ZaX writing only that he's a very happy guy now but this story explains everything.

[banpei]

Congratulations to ZaX.
I read the report and was sitting nearer and nearer to my monitor due to the suspense.

[DJexor]

It was a very nice weekend! I'm a bit jealous at Zax's skills

I hope the photo's turn out well