Two weekends of drifting

So it's been a crazy last few months for me especially with recent events in my personal life. I've neglected this blog as well so I'll be making a few more posts and even some DIY's over the next few weeks when I have time.

A recent highlight for me would be the last two weekends of drifting that I did. It's been quite the journey getting my car done last minute with a few hiccups along the way (I'll make separate posts for these later). With the help and support of my friends around me and also my late father, I managed to get the car back together running, tuned and drift ready before deadline.

I managed to get into the Vicdrift April Winton Prac Day alongside with Bry, Jen and Michael. This was going to be my first drift day on a proper track as I had only previously done two Primal skidpan days. As you could imagine, I was quite nervous being my first proper drift day.

Pitstop 1. We had to wait 5 minutes for hungry jacks to start serving breakfast
So I headed up with BryJen in the morning. All of us luckily made it up to Winton mostly trouble free besides the FC weeing some coolant during our stops along the way.

Unloading - Photo credit; Grant Salter @ Gripshiftslide
We just had to sit through the morning drivers briefing, number up our cars then wait till our session was up to go drive! First session out I was nervous as hell haha. No amount of in car videos of Winton or Drift Bible I watched could prepare me for this day, I just took it one corner at a time till I was getting more confident and I was able to get most of the sections by the end of the day thanks to everyone's tips.

Happy I didn't bin it
Weeeeee - Photo credit: Grant Salter @ Gripshiftslide
Danutz and Dr. Alex popped down too as some of their other mates were driving that day. Dr. Alex sat in with me for a few sessions with some funny moments including close calls and getting beached on a ripple strip haha.


Above clip is from my last session. I also somehow managed to buckle my fender too, so I fixed it up track side style!

Who needs a guard roller when you have a ratchet and deep socket
All was well till I pulled into the pits after my 5th and last session, I selected reverse to try get back into my pit spot but the car kept rolling forward ruh-roh. We were pretty sure that I broke my selector fork for 5th/Rev, most likely from me trying to slam 2nd to 3rd but accidentally going for 5th instead and it not going in.

We pushed my car back into the spot then it eventually wasn't even able to drive in any gear at all which left me in quite the predicament for getting home. Luckily Matt Russell the awesome bloke offered to tow the car back for me - I just had to drive back his incredibly fumy AE86.

My bad!
Should probably get my lungs checked after driving this for nearly 3 hours
The car was dropped off then box out and stripped the next day to inspect what I managed to break.

Uhh that's not meant to be in there
And that's meant to be one piece
I managed to get a replacement from Forced and then Bry reassembled it all for me then refit the box.

Clean and correct number of pieces.
The car selected all gears and drove fine if not better than before, major success thanks to Bry! Next up was the usual pre-drift day tyre fitting run.

EF9 fits enough rubber in it's rear cavity that even Sasha Grey would be jealous.
So we were staying in Yarrawonga for Oliver's birthday bash at Wilby. It was a slightly long drive involving crossing the border into NSW.

Wooooo only another 3.5 hours to go lol
We were told we'd be staying in cabins and I was expecting a shipping container with a few mattresses on the ground, but the accommodation was actually really nice. It was refreshing staying near the track the night before for once, rather than driving up in the morning and being a bit drained.

Wake and bake

Nice and refreshed, we trekked up to Wilby ready for another day of drifting. I think it was originally created as a Go-kart track?

The grass is much greener in earth view lol
Primal Garage's S13 debut with some new paint.

Everyone unloading
My only casualty of the day somehow. Luckily someone was kind enough to lend me their spare and with a quick eyelignment, I was good to drive home.

Hmm something's a little bent.
My runs were pretty similar throughout the day so here's just the one clip. My driving improved throughout the day which I was happy about.


After a good night of rest at Yarrawonga, we trekked back to Melbourne having to skip one of our pit stops due to po-po getting some maccas.

Pretty cool scenery at the place we stayed
Safe
All in all, I had a great two weekends which were much needed with recent events. Big thanks to everyone for helping me with my car during its mishaps, Vicdrift for running the practice day at Winton and Primal Garage & Ollie for Oliver's birthday bash at Wilby. I'm quite happy with my progression in driving and am looking forward to doing July matsuri at Winton if I can get in.

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