In a bid to become the next Roger Penske, Pacific Rim's Jerry Tsai spent more than six large of his T-shirt money prepping his already stellar S13 240 for this event. His driver, Daijiro Yoshihara, was tearing it up in qualifying on Friday. In the first round Daijiro looked great early on, but he fell victim to the same dreaded wall that claimed Hubert's car, ruining the Pac Rim machine and his chances for a strong showing. (Jonny took down Daijiro's accident report as part of an Interrogation Room story elsewhere in this issue.)
On the domestic front, Rhys Millen partnered with Pontiac to put together a drift GTO only a few weeks before the event. The rather portly Goat is not an ideal drifter, but Rhys gave it a valiant effort. Rhys struggled with the car, and clearly the GTO needs more development-we've seen him drift both an AWD Evo and a not-so-svelte Supra at Irwindale in the past. At first the fans were booing the GTO, but eventually Rhys won over the partisan crowd. Rhys wrestled the GTO into the final 16 tandem round, losing out to Top Secret's Ryuji Miki.
Samuel Hubinette scored near perfect marks in qualifying the Jasper Performance Supra (Rhys Millen's old car). This guy honed his skills as a Volvo test driver in his native Sweden. Samuel made it all the way to the final 16 tandem round where Signal's Atsushi Kuroi defeated him. Samuel had never even tandem drifted before this run, and he pushed Kuroi hard, earning everyone's respect, including Keiichi. These two may not have been the best on this day, but their battle was one of the fiercest and the crowd's chants brought them out for "one more time." This was one of the most exciting pairings of the event.
Speaking of Signal, its twins were hotter than those beer-shilling sex kittens. Kuroi and Kazuya "Chunky" Bai were both tearing it up after some extensive pre-event testing with BFGoodrich and Tanabe (look for the full story elsewhere in this issue).
In the semifinal round, Taniguchi faced off against Ken "Nomuken" Nomura in his Blitz Skyline ER34 sedan. The HKS driver prevailed to advance to the finals. In the other semifinal pairing Kazama met Nobushige Kumakubo in his Team Orange S15. The two Silvia drivers were so evenly matched that the judges heeded the fans' request for "one more time," and they took another lap with Kazama taking the victory.
Taniguchi was all too familiar with this scenario, as he was the favorite in the finals against Katsuhiro Ueo at last year's US D1GP. Unlike us, NOB is not accustomed to losing, but Kazama would not go gently into the night, and neither driver would give up ground to the other. In a repeat of the 2003 final, the crowd demanded another run and the judges complied. The rest, as they say, is history. But who are they really? And why do they always get to decide what makes history? Man, we really hate them.
My Mother Told Me To Pick...You!You may be wondering how a D1GP drift contest is decided. That's funny, because we were wondering the same thing. What are the judging criteria? Is there an evening gown portion?
There are only three judges in the D1GP. Not three different judges at any given time. Three judges...in the entire world. Keiichi Tsuchiya (whom you no doubt know as the Drift King), Manabu Orido, and Manabu Suzuki. As much as we'd like to think so, Keiichi didn't look for two dudes with the same name to help him rate the world's best drifters. Orido drives the Sard GT500 Supra and Suzuki is a former Formula Toyota racer.
By Nads
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