Autopolis international raceway D1 round 2.
After two flights a long layover in Tokyo we finnaly arrived on Thursday to Fukuoka.
First day we went over to Ken Nomuras shop and met up with him. He got a RC track in his shop so we had some fun doing some drifting there to warm up.
After that we got some Japanes history under our belts by visiting one of the oldest Castles in Japan, pretty cool.
On Friday when we finnaly arrived to the track we were all really exited to get in the cars and do some testing.
This time Mike Pollard got to drive the car I competed in Odaiba with and I now got in to Oenos old competition car. Patt also got a JZZ30 so we were all in same typ of cars.
It started with a gearbox brakedown on my first test session. Then in my second session the gearbox they put in was leaking oil.
The good thing was that I was in top 10 and seeded since last event. Offcourse I wanted to get as much seat time as possible due to the high speed initiation.
So on Friday night I was not to pleased with my day but what can you do, this is the reallity with competition cars.
The awesome thing was that Team Vertex ordered a gearbox that they shipped overnight so when I arrived on Saturday morning the car was ready to rock.
Saturday I kept trying to get used to the car and the high speed entry, 190mph plus. We saw many guys crash in the first corner in to the cement wall. Orido hit it bad on Sunday morning and I do not know up till now how he is doing. During practice today I was following Ueno and he miss judged the first corner and smashed in to it bad too. Lucky he walked away and the team managed to get his car driveble for top 32.
So then on my first round in top 32 I got a 99.1 score. That put me on 10th place. But the other top seeded drivers did awesome and knoked me down to 18th place. When I got out on my second qualifying round I ended up miss shift from 4th to 5th when trying to get in to 3rd. So just short 0.1 points from making it in to top 16 I definitely feel dissepointed of not finding the right gear. You always learn something new here in life and sometimes the hard way.
Right now I’m sitting in the grandstand with probably over 20000 people.
I have never seen so many people at a drift event. The tandem rounds are spectacular to watch so I’m not suffering.
One thing I notice is that the fans are so different here. They are so quiet. Nothing bad with it it’s just different.
