“Tokyo Drift” Best 16, Saturday
With qualifying over, I had no hope in making the Best 16 with only 95 points. The competition was tough and the performance between the top guys almost identical. Seriously, there’s not much difference between their runs.
Ukita-san & Nishino-san (Quartermile mechs) got down to changing the gearbox in preparation for tomorrow. The gate closes at 8pm sharp and no one was allowed to continue working after. It took them 1hr 30mins to complete the swap. The final drive was changed to a 4.3 as the gear ratios were longer compared to the HKS unit. No opportunity to test though, so we’ll just have to wait till practice tomorrow morning.
We took a stroll down the mall area to check out the merchandise booths. One thing that caught my eye was the “D1Grand Prix” arcade gaming booth. They have just release an arcade version of the D1GP game. I didn’t get a chance to try it, but it looked pretty cool. And it should hit Malaysia soon. Sungai Wang maybe?
By 3pm we made our way down to the spotter area to watch the Best 16 competition. I met Genko-san, Chairman of DG-5 and spotter for Immamura. He was spotter for Ueo-san last year when he was driving for Team MOVE. Genko-san is probably the most respected spotter in the drifting industry and has directed many teams & drivers to winning competitions & championships. Kazama was one of them. Asuka was trained by Genko-san.
They were grouping round a table, busy deliberating among themselves (in Japanese) , moving stones & coins as markers on the Best 16 chart. I didn’t have a clue what they were doing at first, but according to Asuka, they were predicting who will be moving up the ladder and thus strategizing on how their drivers had to perform to stay competitive.
The competition was intense, and battles mind blowing. I’ve got to say that the Japanese drivers still have the edge over the rest of the world. One big lesson learnt is that the spotter is a key element in drifting. To be competitive at this level, the spotter plays a key role in elevating the drivers performance. Apparently for some drivers (no names mentioned), the spotters tell them exactly what to do throughout a run. From point of initiation, method of initiation etc. All they do is wait for instructions!
The winner of the day was Kumakubo, after a hard battle and 2 sudden deaths against Suenaga in the Amemiya RX7. It was so difficult to identify who had the advantage, but for sure, that RX7 had massive angle on entry to the 1st corner. Nothing could beat it.
