The Heat Is On - D1GP 2005

Perhaps the best display of precision placement came from Ken Maeda and his Up Garage AE86. Maeda barely glanced the wall at more than 50 mph without unsettling the car in the least. The only proof that he made contact was the minor scuffs on his still-intact rear bumper. Even '03 Series Champ Imamura clipped the Irwindale wall during a low-speed practice session one week before the event, and Manabu Orido hit hard in his Supra the Friday before. Other major incidents included Kazuhiko Tanaka backing his Team Orange S15 into the judges wall hard on Saturday, and on Sunday Kouichi Yamashita in the JIC S15 scrubbed the high-speed Turn 4 wall. The hit that hurt us the most was watching Yuichirou Takahashi shave the sheetmetal from the right side of the beautiful Weld Mark II we featured in the May '05 issue.

Another noticeable course change was the replacement of the red and white plastic K rails with hay bales to mark the circuit as it weaves through the infield. It turns out the portable barriers were owned by a karting school that had vacated Irwindale since the last D1 event. The hay bales gave the venue a kind of Beverly Hillbilly ghetto look, and Tony Angelo wanted to light them on fire for the finals to give the circuit a sort of "Highway to Hell" feeling.

The drivers search began after a brief exhibition session by the top seeded D1 drivers, but only four drivers-Tony Angelo, Ryan Hampton, Andrew Hately, and Kenji Yamanaka-would received D1 licenses from the judges. Many debuted new cars for the '05 season. We already mentioned Miki in the new RB26-powered Z33 (which sounded so menacing on the track), and Gen Terasaki's Autobacs AP1 S2000 replaced the AE86 used last season, but it saw heavy damage during the course of the day. Yoshinori Koguchi (HPI S15 Silvia) and Calvin Wan (Falken/GReddy V35) also attacked the Irwindale course with their replacement killers, performing exceptionally well early on. Anyone who saw the crazy-looking Drift Samurai walking around probably noticed him in the K-Style 180SX truck when he tapped the wall with the rear end and kept driving, but he did not qualify. Far from the roads of Japan, famous street drifter Yasushi Wakamatsu from Team Marionette took his RPS13 to perfect passes, but he was unable to compete in the top 20 qualifying.

Drift Alliance made a huge showing even though most of its new Falken-sponsored cars weren't ready. Angelo secured his first D1 license, Vaughn Gittin "JR" qualified for the main event, and Chris Forsberg simply could not get the bugs worked out of his new motor, keeping him out of the running for U.S. representation.

Sunday Drivers These Are Not
The crowd trickled in on Sunday for another early start, but by mid-day the stands were packed. The D1 judges changed some rules to encourage the drivers to enter at a much higher speed than previous events and push the cars closer to the wall. Even former D1 judge (and current D1 driver) Manubo Orido in the RS*R Supra underestimated the same turn by going way wide and placing heavy damage on his JZA80, which kept him out of the Top 16. Even after thumping the wall Orido kept his foot in it, taking a few banners and hay bales with him and causing the crowd to go absolutely nutty. Gittin did not move onto the Best 16 after experiencing engine trouble, leaving U.S. representation solely on the proven skills of Millen and his powerful Pontiac GTO.