Or Bringing it BACK as it were. This is going to be nuts and I can’t wait to get back into a car so we here at Night Majik, Lethal Injection and, of course, you the fans of DadamsDrift.com can get some crazy action posted up! Now, you’re probably saying “Get BACK into a car? What U Talkin Bout Willis?!” Yep, the S14 threw a con-rod through the block, after much turmoil and some other issues that will make a good story 10 years from now, but not right now . . .I am back on the scene looking for an automobile. I have a few lined up but not going to make and calls or say anything is finalized until after the purchase and first event are out of the way.
At any rate, back to this AWESOME news! SED never ceases to amaze us with the plethora of amazing goodness it dishes out. This is par-for-the-course SED, keep us in waiting while they do something in the background, then wow and impress us with their results. Marcos never fails and I can’t wait to see how awesome this all turns out to be.
I’m going to try to remain as patient as possible, waiting for the schedule to come out before pulling the trigger and saying I’ll be at all 5 Pro-Am events, but so far I can see all of these being a part of my daily agenda. Make life happen and life will happen . . . let’s just hope that this means 2010 will be better than 2009 was, LOL!
Here’s the press release from the man himself, Marcos Ruiz of SouthEastDrift.com:
Well, for all who know me, you know that I’m a whore for stickers. If you don’t know me, then allow me to tell you . . .stickers are like my freakin CATNIP. I love ‘em. My Bullitt was decked out, and I can’t wait to get some cool ones going on the S14 as well.
The latest addition to the collection comes from Video Option and Dave Yeoh with the Sexy Pants stickers…. Yeah, you heard me . . . give em a Google search, you’ll learn all about it. I love stickers, especially ones that are fun to have on your car! As always, I’ll try to keep this short and sweet, here are the pics
Thanks Dave, can’t wait to get some more surrounding the SEXY PANTS!!! LOL!!!!
I have to say, big thanks to my pal Eddie Untachantr of Garage Zero and Puregroove.org for hooking me up with some AWESOME Garage Zero stickers. I would go on about how Garage Zero has the hottest Toyotas in GA and how their population is growing by the nanosecond . . .I could also mention how these stickers absolutely ROCK and look sooo NICE on this car . . . .but I figured 2 things:
Damn, I’m looking at the last date of entry on this thing, and it’s been a WHILE! Perhaps I should do like other blogs and just post random goodness . . . I used to do that, but it’s difficult to keep up with, especially between work, motorsports, trying to vie for sponsorship and building my car, LOL! Not to mention the other things in life, HAHAHA! At any rate, here’s another attempt. I won’t give it a specific interval, but I will say that, every once in a while, what I’ll attempt to do is compile a list of cars that would make good MISSILE drifters.
A MISSILE drift car (according to Nori Yaro) is described as follows:
A “missile” car has a couple of definitions in Japan, depending in which context you’re talking. Usually it refers to a drift car that has been left close to standard externally, while still being heavily modified under the skin. Imagine the sort of thing a D1 driver would take up to the mountains for a bit of practice on weekends.
In the case of these cars however, it means that cost of tyres petrol, and entry fee for a track day combined should cost about as much as the car itself.
To get an idea of what I’m talking about, I’ve included these two nifty vids
Okay, so now that the whole class is caught up, let’s move on with the list. This list isn’t going trying to be a be-all-end-all of cheap or missile drifters, it’s not supposed to be anything official, it’s just my opinion on what would make a good candidate for this particular facet of sliding cars. If you have any comments, questions or want to suggest a car for the list, let me know in the COMMENTS section below and I’ll get your suggestion put up on the next list. Oh! And on a side note, if you see YOUR car on this list (not literally but a similar make/model, body style, etc) it doesn’t mean that ALL cars like that are MISSILES just means that someone, who may be interested in building one, would be able to do so using that particular vehicle. Please don’t leave comments complaining or send me hate mail because you feel that X-Car shouldn’t be counted as a candidate for MISSILE. For the sake of comparison, I think what I’ll do is set a price-cap of $1500 with a $200 price fluctuation. That should keep it pretty fair and help broaden the search some
Also keep in mind that these are in NO PARTICULAR ORDER! It’s just how I think of em, LOL!
On With The List.
1. The 1979-1991 Mazda RX-7 N/A (FB and FC)
This pair of drifters comes to mind first in the realm of possible missile projects. Rapidly decreasing prices (especially on NA FB’s) and bountiful aftermarket make these two cars ideal for what you would plan on doing! You can find several examples of these cars on Craigslist for not a lot of money (usually between $400 and $1500) and if you can get them running, all you need to do from there is weld up the diff and these body-rolling stocker-rockers would be yours for glory. Don’t forget that these motors, on the NA versions, are also pretty damn solid! So little-to-no work is required, in retrospect to their turbo counterparts, outside of normal maintenance and tune ups. These cars, as a whole, are also tough as nails and will take a pretty solid beating. So if you’re looking to get sideways, for not a lot of money, and don’t mind looking a little ratty (or want to go out of your way to do so), then these are definitely some really good options.
2. 1985-1987 BMW 3-Series and 1989-1995 BMW 525i
This pair of minions is another dynamic duo of low resale value and diminishing worth. These are the cars that epitomize value-loss and often get the misnomer of being extremely difficult to maintain and own. It’s because of this that I added them to this list. These cars are gems, nay, diamonds. They have a pretty huge cult following and are very fun to drive and tune. The E30’s 325 (i and e) prices are kinda high, right now you’d probably spend about $1000-$1700 to get one that can just drive itself home. The E30 318 isn’t far behind, if not a little more expensive. The E34 525i has some pretty low resale and for the prices listed in this post, you’re probably going to be towing home an automatic with a blown transmission. That’s FINE because 5-speed swaps on these are pretty straight forward and simple, granted you have all of the bits and pieces. The aftermarket for the 5-series is growing, while the aftermarket for the 3-series is in full effect! It’s also been proven that there are plenty of parts for the E30’s that are cheaper to buy than for the staple cars of drifting (read AE86 and S13). You can also rest assured that if you ding these cars up, there are plenty of junk yard shells and body panels lying around, LOL!
3. 1980-1988 Toyota Supra N/A*
I was extremely hesitant about adding this to the list, this car is questionable for this list because, while you can find the Supra and it’s variants (The Celica-Supra and RWD Celica) for under 1700, you’d be pretty hard pressed to modify these things for cheap. So I guess we’ll add this with an asterisk for now. At least until the aftermarket increases. HOWEVER! The availability and affordability of these cars should put them at the top of ANYONE’S list who is looking to start a missile project. These cars can be found in hoards and if you smash one up, just go out and get another one and move whatever bits you’ve worked on over. These cars are a bit heavy, but their body panels can take some punishment. You put a roll cage in one of these bad boys, lock the diff up and you will feel just fine getting close to anyone who dares to tandem with you. Craigslist has a good-number of these cars floating around and while you may have to dig a bit (depending on the area) you are sure to find one that will suit your needs.
4. 1984-1988 Nissan 300ZX NA (and maybe turbo)
This is another one that I kinda want to step back on and think about, but I’ll include anyway. While the aftermarket is anything but sufficient for these vehicles, the price of the actual chassis itself is seeing some significant price drops. A quick romp through Craigslist reveals that I can get my hands on a 2+2 N/A from 1988 for $1300. Now, this is actually a pretty decent looking car and it runs and drives. So, yeah, there are going to be some things wrong with it, but that’s not saying too much, because when you’re going for the Missile, a headlight that doesn’t work or the brake lights staying on really isn’t too much of a problem at that point, LOL! I will say again, however, that the aftermarket isn’t going to be as huge on these cars as it is on cars such as the S13 or AE86. Heck, it probably has a smaller aftermarket than a lot of the other cars on this and future lists. But this car does have one thing, it’s tough, will probably out-last you as far as reliability and can be replaced relatively cheaply if you manage to damage it beyond safe-running condition.
5. 1979-1993 Ford Mustang (Fox Body)
Now I know what you’re saying “But Dave . . .Dave . . . . . .Dave! I can’t find these for under $2500 and even then, it’s not going to be in the best condition…” That’s the point of this whole endeavor . . . Check this out http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/cto/1493613346.html. That’s right here in Atlanta. Now, for this particular start-up, you’re going to probably have to dig around a bit to find your runner-driver, but once you get it going, it’s just a matter of hitting up the track with your diff locked up and some balls of steel. The Fox Body is a handful to drift, but once you get it down, it’ll take you pretty far! They’re great cars to work on and to drive. Also, if you choose this as your missile, you can focus pretty much on handling and drive train because your engine (if you can get your hands on a GT) will have more than enough power for a lot of levels of grassroots drifting.
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That’s going to be it for now, I have some more in mind, but I don’t want to make this initial post too long. Keep checking back for 6-10 coming up soon! Also, if you have any ideas, as stated before, leave them in the comments section and I’ll be sure to get them added to the list. Let’s get some missile drifters here in the states KILLING it like they do over in Japan!
Well . . .not quite but it is still a very awesome and momentous event! Night Majik, with the help of U-Drift and the City Council of Moody, but on a VERY awesome drift demo out in Moody, AL on Monday (11.9.09). It was a very crazy day with a lot of action and we were each able to get out there and KILL IT! I was driving the orange Mustang (go figure) most of the day and was able to step into one of the Twin-Turbo Z32’s they had there on site. I tell you, after stepping out of that Mustang, that Z32 handled like a dream. Even with all the power it was putting down, I was able to full-throttle it throughout the sweeper! Too crazy!
Without further ado, let’s get on with what you guys came here to see and read! We’ve got the news cast right here:
Moody, AL – The folks at U-Drift put on an exhibition tonight at its location on U.S. 411. Drifting is a style of racing where the driver intentionally oversteers causing the vehicle to seemingly drift. It can get pretty noisy at times depending on the driver’s level of skill, and the noise level has been a main concern in Moody…
…Since then, Nunneley, has spent thousands of dollars trying to make noise coming from the track less offensive.. even adding 487 bales of hay to dampen the sound.
Click the link above for more information including the full story!
On With The Video!!!!
Sorry about posting a link to the video, but you all know how WordPress is about posting links to vids that aren’t Youtube, LOL! I’ll try to see if I can get a direct embed going on but for now just click the picture below and check it out. I am in the Orange Mustang! They caught the spinout from my very first run (a wet and dry track makes for inconsistencies) but I got it together and was able to start linking the course back-to-back-to-back and you can see that in the video as well
At this point I would, once again, like to thank Chris, Gary, Terry, Robert and the entire U-Drift staff for putting this together, inviting Night Majik out there and allowing us to not only have fun, but to also make history! I would like to thank Gary Lang for being an AWESOME and SHINING example of a professional drifter and a good friend and instructor to all of us out there. I’d also like to thank YOU ALL, the spectators and supporters of drifting, for rallying up, keeping it civil and helping us show the City Council of Moody, AL that THIS is what we need going forward. I hope this opens the flood gates for more venues like this and I will definitely chalk this up as a win, not only to the staff of U-Drift but to the residents and drifters of Moody, AL (and drifters across the US) as well.
Just got word yesterday that this U-Drift demo will be televised! That’s right, Night Majik and U-Drift will be throwing it down and ABC will be filming us making sure the word gets out there about drifting. We’re going to represent to the fullest! Atlanta’s drivers and the drift scene, as a whole, will hopefully be proud. We plan on bringing back what drifting is about, getting out there and having fun with your car sideways! It’ll be insane and it’ll be intense!
I can’t wait to get out there and have some fun and I hope to see ALL of you out there spectating.
First off, let me apologize to those who are expecting a fancy flier, LOL! I don’t have the skills necessary to create something as awesome. If Byron Hill were on my side, I’m sure I could get him to make something killer, I mean, heck, check out his flier for SouthEast Drift’s Land of The Great event! That is a WICKED flier, definitely one for the record books. Makes me wish I was going so I could put this flier on my wall, LOL!
At any rate, ladies and gents, myself, along with my teammate and friend, Joe Burgess, have been asked to head out to Moody, AL to put on a drifting demo for the City Council out there. It’s basically just a show to help promote drifting in their town and hopefully get the City Council on the side of U-Drift. You guys remember U-Drift, right? America’s first, and currently only, Drift Park! A lot of fun to be had out here and hopefully we can get some fans out there to watch us slide around!
From what I understand, there will be two shows, one at 4pm and one at 5pm and hopefully it doesn’t get too dark or too cold to fully enjoy! If we got some nice weather and a decent spectator turn out, that’d be great! We’ll get to go out there, drive some cars, get them sliding and hold it out as long as possible! I hope to see you all there!
Sorry about the delay in getting this posted, I’ve been VERY sick lately and was sick during the event but, with some support, managed to go through and walked away with a LOT of new skill and knowledge. I can say that the event was . . .interesting. Going from the Bullitt to an S14, especially on a course that demands power, is humbling. The car, itself, is very controllable and very much a blast when sideways. It demands, however, that you are 100 percent committed to what you’re getting yourself into. You can’t go into the drift, back off slightly, then expect to get back up to par, no sir! This car requires that you go in at a set level, then remain there if you wish to carry through, HAHAHA!
I feel I did fairly well, we were setup in such a way that we would enter into a right turn, then carry it out to a large area of the backstretch. Once there we had three turns, setup in a large triangle, to navigate then back into another turn and back to the staging lane. It was very fun and provided a good mix of high-speed drifting and low speed car control. Of course, the S14 was much better at the low-speed control, but it didn’t do too horribly in the high-speed stuff either.
To conclude, I can safely say that I feel the car’s next move will be getting more power going to the wheels. It’s not so bad as it sits, it’s just not quite where it needs to be in order to confidently say it’ll be ready for any real competition. Parking lot drifting? Yeah, it’ll do that all day long and I think the next local Turner Field or U-drift event will be perfect for the car as it sits. However, once we start stepping up to the bigger game and start working with levels where 3rd gear may be required, that bit of power we’ll be stepping up to will be perfect.
I couldn’t find too much in the way of video for this event, but I found some pictures and a video slideshow . . .so enjoy and hopefully I can find more stuff as time goes on!
Last nights opener sneak-peak was EPIC if not a bit truncated. Myself and my friend Joe had a TON of fun and it was pretty cool to meet some drivers from another state. The event wasn’t too huge, well, not huge at all. In all, there were about 6 drivers total, 10 if you include the people who did 3 runs in the rented cars.
Let’s go over that, the rental cars, while not amazing drift-machines, were pretty cool! I really wanted to drive them all but there was no way I could afford to do so. 50 Bucks got you 3 runs in either one of two Twin-Turbo 300ZX’s . . .yes . . .twin-frackin-turbo . . .or a torquey 3-set stint in an SN-95 Mustang. They also had a Ferrari out there, which looked really cool, but it wasn’t doing anything except looking good, LOL! I meant to ask the guys to start her up, but I was having WAY too much fun sliding my car around their course.
Okay, so let’s talk about this course, shall we? The course was setup with the apparent new comer to drifting in mind. The lot they have, as a whole, is small in and of itself, but it’s still a ton of fun and considering we were paying 5 bucks a run or 50 bucks for the night, I’d have to say that it was AMAZING! I definitely got my money’s worth, LOL! If you’ve ever been to Cordele, GA, that gives you a pretty round about figure of the size of this lot. It’s nothing spectacular, but it does give you some good 2nd gear sliding and if you’ve got more power, you can bring it up into third for the sweeper. Basically, they had us setup to where we went straight out to build some speed, you turned right for the first corner followed by a sweeper to the left, then you broke it down a bit for the switch back to the right, then a quick turn to the left and you were done. I can say, with only 6 people there, hot-lapping is the only way to describe how the event felt. As I mentioned twice, you didn’t get a whole lot of track to run, but you got to get out there so often that eating up a set of tires wasn’t difficult, even for someone like me with a stock KA.
There was a DJ out there blazing some awesome current and throwback tunes! That was fun as hell. The DJ kept announcing when I would be up to run and I was dubbed “The Fog Machine” HAHAHAHAHAHA! I have to say, that was pretty damn cool! I got that title because of the massive burnouts I was doing before my runs. The crowd loved it, the drivers loved it, the owners of the park loved it . . .my clutch hated it, HAHAHAHA! But it was definitely one way to get some fun going and get the crowd amped up for my runs. It was a very basic course (described above) so I was able to go out there and link it pretty consistently. Which was amazing to me because I have NEVER drifted an S14 before, let alone one on such awesome suspension. It really does make a difference, I suppose, because had it been stock suspension, I don’t think I would have fared as well.
The overall experince, fun! VERY fun! I had a blast, Joe had a blast, the other drivers had a blast and, most importantly, the CROWD had a blast. It was awesome hearing them cheer for us in our little stints of vehicular-magic, and it was very cool to be approached after the event was over to talk and ask questions and receive a few kind word from everyone. Very cool indeed.
On that note . . .I do have to say that it DID kinda suck that the marshals (police) showed up and shut up and shut us down. Apparently the Mayor gave a grant of permission for them to run the event, but didn’t know what drifting really entailed so they pulled the plug. Still, it was very much worth the drive and very much worth the price. I spent less than 100 bucks for the entire day! That includes, gas, food, candy (gotta have candy) and entry to the park. I think they’ll get things worked out in plenty of time for their projected opening day of Nov 1st and it’ll be AWESOME to see how that track feels during the day! Night drifting is something new for me . . .I’ve done plenty of it . . .in a non-so-sanctioned manner . . .but I’ve never had an event I attended that either ran that far into the night or was a night-event in and of itself.
OH! Another cool trinket of info, Gary Lang was there showing us all how it’s done. I’m not sure if he’s an Alabama native or what but he was out there. It’s really cool to be graced with the presence of a pro-driver and have him lend out advice and just shoot-the-shit with the others. He was really laid back and VERY chill to speak with. I got a bit of a big-head on the night because he walked up to me and mentioned that I was “looking good out there”. All I could say was “thanks” and “well, I am an Atlanta drifter” LOL! In the ATL, it’s go hard or don’t show up! We have FAR too many EPIC drivers (Jonathan Martin, Matt Foerst, David Jones, Andy Sapp, Jodin LeJeune, etc) for us to not have that bar to adhere to. I give a lot of credit of my driving and wanting to push further to those drivers and their place in drifting here in ATL.
But I digress . . .Gary also gave me a bit of a talking to on one of my runs. I’ll admit fault here . . .I was absolutely OBLITERATING the track. I mean, I went into the transition for the sweeper using the e-brake and the car absolutely LOVED all of it. I got thrown in sideways, and just walked it around the entire course. Then the was the rock-solid transition, followed by the last. I then got carried away and slid the car pretty much all the way back to the staging lane. A very Atlanta-esque, move, and one that might be accepted with brighter, wider, more open conditions with better drivers who are more aptly prepared for someone to come in HOT like that. But no-beuno out there. He basically said “Don’t do that, you have a crowd there, stop it.” I apologized and agreed not to do it, and that was the end of it. He even commended me on listening to him after the first notice of it and then gave me credit again for doing a great job.
Joe was also out there DESTROYING that track. Now HIS car . . .is stock! I have a relatively stock car except my suspension is pretty well dialed in. He doesn’t have modification ONE to speak of and he was embarrasing cars with RB20s and SR20s out there. LOL! Gary thought he had power-to-spare, he was shocked to learn that Joe’s car was a bone-stocker-rocker.
I can talk about this all day long, it was a VERY fun day with a LOT of interesting ups and downs. The trip out there was great and we did some VERRRYYY immature things with our cars . . .LOL! But that’s how it all goes I guess. I can’t wait for the next time we get to go back out there, and I can gladly say that I am one of the ONLY drivers in America to attend a drift park here in the states. . .so far . . .LOL! If not that, I’m one of the FIRST!
I’m ULTRA excited to see this one finally come to light. This is a LONG TIME coming and it’s about time that the US step it’s game up. This is going to be so epic, so without further ado allow me to help introduce . . .U-Drift in Moody, AL.
This is gonna be nuts guys, I promise you and YES! I am ultra hyped! It’s a bit of a drive for most of us out here, but who cares. In Japan people will drive 3 and 4 hours to hit a track or drift park once or twice a week. If I can re-budget some of my free money, this will definitely prove to be a way to get some serious practice in between events and things like these will lead to drivers getting TONS of seat time! Imagine that? Imagine drivers in the states being as proficient at this game as drivers in Japan. Not just the occasional driver but I’m talking about everyone out there getting out there and RIPPING IT UP! That’d be too sweet! I can’t wait . . .and you know what . . .I don’t have to and YOU don’t have to either!!!
YES! U-Drift is opening it’s doors THIS WEEKEND to allow us (that’s right you can bring YOUR CAR) the opportunity to experience this awesome park. You know what is also going to be awesome? Once they open their doors on the 1st of November (just a few short weeks away) we’ll be able to slide 7 days a week from NOON until 8PM!
HOW CAN YOU NOT GET HYPED OFF OF THAT?!?!?!!!! This is gonna be so live! So very . . .VERY . . .live!
So, 7 days a week, 8 hours a day, and all for under 100 bucks?! Say WHAT?! This is going to be . . . EPIC!
I can see some very awesome drifting videos coming from the Lethal Injection Motorsports crew now, LOL! Not to mention all of the other drivers in the south east that will DEFINITELY take advantage of all of this available seat time. It’s going to be too cool!
Look, I can ramble on about this FOREVER, but I won’t. They have a website and you can check out all of the information there:
Check out http://www.u-drift.com for more information, directions and how to get your car sliding!
